Boston’s Top 10 : Faneuil Hall Marketplace

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Bostonians may bemoan its popularity with tourists,
but this market complex deserves all the attention and accolades it has
received since its revitalization in the mid-1970s. Once the pulsing
center of Boston mercantile activity, the area fell into disrepair in
the 1930s. Today, however, millions of visitors are testimony to its
newfound vitality as a shopping and dining destination.

  • “T” station: Government Center (green/blue line)

  • 617 523 1300

Great Hall, Faneuil Hall

  • Open 9am–5pm daily

  • Free

Museum of the Ancient & Honorable Artillery Company: Faneuil Hall

  • 617 227 1638

  • Open 9am–3pm Mon–Fri

  • free

Quincy Market

  • Open 10am– 10 pm Mon–Sat, noon– 6pm Sun


The soup crocks at Boston Chowda Co in Quincy Market are brimming with piping-hot seafood and veggie chowders.


The National Park Service conducts free historical lectures in Faneuil Hall’s Great Hall every half-hour from 9am–4:30pm.


Purchase discounted day-of-performance theater tickets at the BosTix kiosk on Faneuil Hall’s south side. Cash only.

  • Open 10am–6pm Tue–Sat, 11am–4pm Sun.


Top 10 Attractions

  1. Quincy Market

    Quincy
    Market functioned from 1825 to the 1960s as the city’s wholesale food
    distribution center. By the 1980s, the market had been revived, the
    grand atrium restored, and a food court opened.







    Exterior Quincy Market

  2. Faneuil Hall

    Peter
    Faneuil, an influential French Huguenot merchant, donated the hall to
    Boston in 1742. Today, the first floor is devoted to souvenir vendors,
    while the second floor is dominated by the Great Hall, where town
    meetings once took place.




  3. Museum of the Ancient & Honorable Artillery Company

    Assembled
    in 1638 to defend the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the company has held
    court on Faneuil Hall’s fourth floor since 1746. The museum boasts war
    memorabilia dating from the Revolution to the War on Terrorism.

  4. Pushcart Vendors

    A
    “fleet” of more than 40 pushcart vendors are scattered throughout the
    marketplace and tempt visitors with a delightfully eclectic, often
    eccentric, array of merchandise from T-shirts to jewellery made by local
    artisans.

  5. North & South Markets

    Flanking
    each side of Quincy Market, these revitalized brick warehouses are
    filled with name-brand shops and many unique restaurants.




  6. Blackstone Block

    Bounded
    by Congress, Hanover, Blackstone, and North streets, this block is as
    old world as Boston gets. The city’s first commercial district, named
    after Boston’s first settler, William Blaxton, took root here during the
    17th century. Two of the country’s oldest dining and drinking
    establishments – the Union Oyster House and Green Dragon Tavern – call
    the block home.

  7. Haymarket Square

    Friday
    afternoon and all day Saturday, vendors hawk the day’s bounty with
    abandon. Yet for all its boisterous chaos, the Haymarket handsomely
    rewards with cheap, fresh produce.




  8. Samuel Adams Statue

    The
    city’s favorite brewer and patriot is immortalized in front of Faneuil
    Hall, where he delivered some of the Revolutionary era’s most
    impassioned speeches . Local sculptor Anne Whitney was commissioned to design the statue in 1880.

  9. Holocaust Memorial

    This
    1995 memorial comprises six glass columns, symbolizing the Nazis’
    principal death camps. Each column bears the numbers of one million
    victims, evoking the six million lives destroyed under Hitler.




  10. Boston Stone

    Some
    claim this curious landmark was once the measuring point from which all
    distances to and from Boston were calculated. The stone is embedded
    into a brick wall at the corner of Marshall Street and Salt Lane.