Allston, Best Damn Neighborhood Period

I come to overpraise Allston, not to underbury it.

In the globally under-achieving winter '07, my gas-fed money-wasting car has been obsoleted by my bicycle, because I live in Allston, the logical alternative for Boston. Because of some snobbery concerning our home, one of the only areas named for an artist (Washington Allston; okay more art history than art), rents are modest by Boston standards, especially if you view rodents as fellow higher mammalian inheritents of the modern condition, as we do.

Here music makers feel free to play loudly, to the utter delight of their neighbors. Also the birds sing loudly; one night in 2002 on Ridgemont St. I heard a mockingbird gloriously splurt Mozartian bits, learnt up from some odd Allston window no doubt, figuring the musical density of this place.

We have the New Balance outlet, 30% off sneakers.

The new book "The Absolutely Worst Places to Live in America" named Allston, MA 14th worst; the author spent time while in college, so perhaps he saw the puky side of life here, but this is not the whole story. I would like to counter that Allston is in fact the 14th Best Place to Live in America, maybe 13th.

I have the advantage of living in Lower Allston, the most underrated neighborhood in Boston, maybe even more so now that Harvard is going to knock down a huge part of it, But for now, it is as quiet as the forest deep, yet everywhere that matters, from the Waterfront to Cambridge to JP, is but a half-hour's bicycle ride, downtown is a half-hour bike commute along the esplanade bike path, as fast as the green line but relaxing instead of irritating.

I don't mind the preponderance of the young in Allston, they dress funny and say and spraypaint the darndest things. I used to live on Linden St. and got to enjoy their paleolithic merry-making late into the wee hours, but in Lower Allston we sleep like babies in a bubble.

I am proud to be in a neighborhood where the suburban cult of the perfect lawn is truly unwelcome; the lawns of Allston are keeping it real with a rich biodiversity of invasives.

For one's out-of-state visitors, it is a major advantage to live right off a turnpike exit instead of having Aunt Mabie negotiating the swirling oneway deadend fog of Boston's street layout.

Also, we have a Super 88 Market

What's not to like?