The South End has become a bastion of creativity and artistic expression. Walking down Washington Street you’ll see where the inspiration comes from in the well-preserved architecture.
Home to an eclectic mix of design boutiques, Natalie van Dijk Carpenter’s Lekker, which opened here five years ago, stands out. Lekker the Dutch word for alluring, enticing, great, attractive and tempting is fitting for Carpenter’s European concept store.
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The South End Open Market
540 Harrison Avenue, 617-481-2257
www.southendopenmarket.com
The South End Open Market takes place every Sunday through October from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (except on holiday weekends, like this one).
This is Boston’s version of London’s Portobello market, with vintage clothes sellers and young fashion and jewelry designers rubbing elbows with artists and cheesemakers and antiques dealers.
What’s exciting about this market is that it changes each week. So, some Sundays you’ll discover a local artist who is there only that day. Everyone sells from tables beneath white tents.
South End Buttery
314 Shawmut Avenue, 617-482-1015
The Buttery is an organic bakery where the cupcakes are named after two local Labrador retrievers. Madison, the yellow Lab, is honored by the vanilla with vanilla frosting, and Simon, the chocolate Lab, by the chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting .
SoWa, a strip of blocks south of Washington Street, is where you’ll find Boston’s emerging artists. Try both the 450 Harrison Building and the artists’ studios at 500 Harrison Avenue, which is open to the public on the first Friday of each month all summer. (Check for times at www.sowaartwalk.com.)
The city’s art scene has shifted to Harrison from Newbury Street, says Bernard Toale, whose Toale Gallery has been at 450 Harrison since 1992 (617-482-2477; www.bernardtoalegallery.com).
“The art and the clientele in the South End is younger and funkier,” he says. “First Fridays are big happening scenes, with a younger, urban, new South End crowd. I’ve been around a long time, but I’d say the South End is made up of a lot of younger galleries showing newer artists, and not just local artists.”
Pet Shop Girls
12 Union Park Street, 617-262-7387
www.thepetshopgirls.com
Passing by Pet Shop Girls, you’re likely to see two neighborhood Great Danes outside the window lunging at Pedro Bandito, the cat who sits inside taunting the dogs of Union Park.
The shop itself is a bakery that makes dog birthday cakes from carob and yogurt. If your four-footed companion is being especially well behaved, you might treat him to a doggie garlic bagel for 99 cents.
Aunt Sadie’s Candlestix
18 Union Park Street, 617-357-7117
www.auntsadiesonline.com
Aunt Sadie’s Candlestix is a home store that has floors painted white, cocktail napkins displayed in a round-topped Philco refrigerator from the 1950’s, a section for urban men that sells Dean Martin CD’s and another room with piles of stuffed frogs for kids.
Sooki
505 Tremont Street, 617-536-080
www.sookiboston.com
Sooki is a women’s clothing shop where Jesse, a border collie who belongs to the shop’s owner, Suzan Griffith, will herd you inside from the sidewalk with lots of friendly licks; it’s also the kind of place that will excite the most jaded cosmopolitan shopper.
Sooki sells many cool things, including one-of-a-kind dresses from boutique designers in France and Japan.
L. A. Burdick @ Harvard Square Cafe
52-D Brattle Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Phone: 617-491-4340
www.burdickchocolate.com
L. A. Burdick, a cafe and chocolate shop on the other side of Harvard Square. Choose from dark, milk or white chocolate, and if you dare risk overdosing, try one of Burdick’s famous chocolate mice on the side.
1256 Massachusetts Avenue | Cambridge, MA 02138
www.harvard.com
In tweedy Cambridge, there is no better place to get lost than the aisles of Harvard Book Store, just off Harvard Square. It’s 75 years old and packed with titles familiar and unknown. There are separate sections for philosophy, cultural and critical theory and politics, as well as a vast fiction collection. Most customers are quietly engrossed, but you may encounter a conversation or two worth eavesdropping on.
Back Bay’s galleries are a mixed bag, but this is prime window-shopping territory.
Matsu (259 Newbury Street, 617-266-9707) specializes in beautiful objects for women, including jewelry, clothing, intricate handbags and home accessories.
The luxury-label emporium Louis Boston (234 Berkeley Street, 617-262-6100) is a one-stop shop for your Brioni, Prada and Balenciaga needs.
Bored companions congregate at the Trident Booksellers and Café (338 Newbury Street, 617-267-8688), stocked with everything from best sellers to literary classics to works on the occult.