There was a moment at last year’s Nantucket Book Festival when it started to rain. The audience was gathered inside an old church, the kind of New England venue that already makes you feel like something important is about to happen, and poet and essayist Ocean Vuong was reading a newer work, “Theology,” before a packed holy house. (“Fitting,” Vuong noted at the start.) Something about the moment indeed felt celestial. Nobody moved. Nobody wanted to. “You could hear a pin drop,” says Tim Ehrenberg, president of the event, recalling the scene. “No one wanted to even move, because they were just so mesmerized by him reading his poetry. And you just can’t get that on your screen, on your phone, when you’re scrolling in bed—you don’t get that same human connection and experience. And that happens 32 times in our festival.”

That’s the case the Nantucket Book Festival has been quietly making for 15 years: that a room full of people listening to a writer they love is not only worth getting on a boat for, but worth making a special trip to savor. Next week, from June 11 through 14, the island event marks its crystal anniversary, and for anyone who’s never made the crossing—or who’s filed Nantucket away under “not for me”—the spectacular lineup of bold names (Norah O’Donnell, Richard Russo, Jenna Bush Hager) and cost (most events are free) makes a reasonable case for reconsideration.

The festival’s founding philosophy was never to go big. “Since we’re an island 30 miles to sea, we really want to host a small collection of authors, all different voices, all different genres, and give them their moment,” Ehrenberg says. “So each one has an event that’s pretty much just focused on their book. And then we host them—we have dinners, we have gatherings.” The result is something that feels more like a restorative retreat than a conference. As Ehrenberg notes, “you’ll see your favorite author, and then you’ll see them at the coffee shop.” That kind of casual proximity—the Pulitzer winner ordering a scone, the television anchor browsing shelves—is not something public events usually can deliver.

This year’s roster reflects what Ehrenberg describes as “the full spectrum of the human experience.” Best-selling author Ann Patchett arrives with her brand-new novel Whistler, and sits down with Patrick Ryan, whose novel Buckeye (a “Read with Jenna” selection) became one of the quieter literary pleasures of 2025. The two are pals, and Ehrenberg is looking forward to that Saturday afternoon conversation. “If anyone ever wondered, ‘Do authors have friends; do they go to coffee and talk about their writing life?’ I think this is going to be an event where you see two writers just talking about the love of books and the love of their craft.” Elsewhere on the schedule: Tayari Jones, recently named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People, discussing her novel Kin; Richard Russo, “a GOAT in the fiction world” as Ehrenberg puts it, in conversation about Empire Falls, which turns 25 this year; Jenna Bush Hager, whose book club has done as much as anyone’s in recent memory to keep literary culture alive on network television; and CBS News senior correspondent Norah O’Donnell, who’ll be in conversation with Linda Henry, co-owner and CEO or Boston Globe Media (which, full disclosure, also owns Boston magazine). And there’s also Belle Burden, whose controversial (and wildly popular) memoir Strangers has lately taken over group chats and will be in conversation with Elin Hilderbrand—a pairing that is, for anyone who knows how deeply Hilderbrand’s novels are woven into the fabric of Nantucket life, an event unto itself.

For the adventurous festivalgoer, Ehrenberg recommends a different strategy altogether: pick a name you don’t recognize and show up anyway. He points to Dr. Joshua Bennett, whose new poetry collection We (The People of the United States) carries particular resonance in 2026, and Massachusetts-raised writer Isaac Fitzgerald, whose American Rambler traces the trail of Johnny Appleseed. “Go to an event where you look at our schedule and you’re like, ‘I’ve never heard of that author,'” Ehrenberg says. “Just try it, and you will leave saying, ‘I just met my new favorite author.'”

One more thing worth knowing, if you assume the festival requires an overnight stay: it doesn’t. Early morning boats from Hyannis arrive in plenty of time for the first sessions, and the last ferry departs after the final event. The logistics are more forgiving than Nantucket’s reputation suggests. And the price of admission, for nearly everything on the schedule, is nothing—a detail that Ehrenberg notes with evident satisfaction. “If you know Nantucket,” he says, “you know ‘free’ is not usually a word you correspond with it.”

By Sunday afternoon, when the weekend winds down at Cisco Brewers, something tends to happen to the people who came. “You leave the weekend going, ‘I learned so much,'” Ehrenberg says. “I just feel a little lighter, and a little bit more that we’re gonna be okay. A little bit more hopeful.” He pauses. “And that is not a political statement: I just think everyone says a little bit right now, ‘Oh, what is the world today?’ And after the weekend, you feel a little bit better about it.”

Yes, please.

Nantucket Book Festival takes place from Thursday, June 11 through Sunday, June, 14. Methodist Church and surrounding venues, downtown Nantucket. Most events free; nantucketbookfestival.org.

The complete author roster:

Walk into Court 16, the new indoor tennis center in Newton, and the first thing you notice is what isn’t there: no dress code, no country club etiquette, and no sense that you’re being quietly judged for your backhand. Tennis here, it turns out, is trying something different.

The New York–born concept is built around a simple idea: You shouldn’t have to be good at tennis to start playing tennis. Instead of one intimidating full-size court, there’s a mix of 44-foot, 60-foot, and full-size courts, so you can build up gradually instead of getting thrown onto a full court on day one. There’s programming for beginners and more advanced players alike, including ball-machine sessions that sharpen technique and precision. Family memberships, camps, and community events make it easy to keep coming back. The point isn’t just to teach you the game. It’s to get you to stick with it.

That same spirit of access has deeper roots in Boston. Founded in 1961 by a group of community members who believed in tennis as a tool for opportunity, the Sportsmen’s Tennis & Enrichment Center in Dorchester was the first indoor nonprofit tennis club built by and for the African-American community. More than 60 years later, a major $20 million campus expansion—backed in part by the New Balance Foundation—is pushing that work forward in a significant way. The project, in its final phase this year, includes new outdoor tennis courts to support growing demand for youth programs, adult play, and tournaments, alongside broader upgrades including a larger fitness center, new education spaces, and an accessible welcome center.

Public courts are evolving, too. In Brookline, the long-closed Amory Tennis Center is reopening this spring after a full reconstruction, debuting six new clay courts alongside programming and amenities. The project wasn’t without debate—pickleball advocates pushed to convert the space—but the town ultimately doubled down on tennis, preserving one of the region’s few public clay-court experiences.

With these upgrades to the local tennis scene, the sport may be easier to try now, but it still rewards the same things it always has: time, focus, and repetition. The difference is that getting started no longer feels out of reach.

During a mid-May grand opening party, the new Governor Bradford in Provincetown feels remarkably like the old Governor Bradford. The interior is a bit different, sure: new floors, a new bar with a tile backsplash, a new wood ceiling in the main restaurant area, windows that let in lots more natural light. But that seaside watering hole vibe still permeates the decades-old place at the corner of Commercial and Standish Streets—an enviable spot so bustling that a police officer directs foot and car traffic during busy season—and thankfully.

Familiar sights for anyone who’s frequented the tavern abound: the pool table, albeit sporting fresh blue felt to match the refinished chair cushions; the same black and white sign bearing the iconic spot’s name on the wall of the stage that has seen memorable karaoke performances over the past 20-odd years. And because it’s Provincetown, some TVs play the Sox game while others are tuned to RuPaul’s Drag Race. Not that you can hear much over the pleasant hubbub as servers pass around free bites from the new comfort-food-focused menu, including chicken pot pie croquettes and bang bang shrimp. In other words, even if the spot’s handsome wood detailing now boasts a bit of shine, new management (again, following the 2022 changing of the guard) doesn’t change the fact that the Bradford is still a favorite townie bar in the very best possible way.

See also: The Top Restaurants in Provincetown Right Now

“We are big on saying that we are custodians, we are not owners,” says Joe Johnston—the director of operations of Coastal Hospitality Group, which now leases the building—a few hours ahead of the opening party. “I’m not coming into the Bradford and whitewashing it.”

Whitewashing, no—except maybe the new literally gleaming white exterior siding. Another upscale perk: Seats by the new giant accordion windows will be future people-watching spots for the Carnival parade in August and other town events, too. But despite the newness, customers can still sip cocktails in a space full of charm, history, and just the right amount of kitsch.

What helps, surely, is that the staff knows Provincetown. When word came late last year that the building’s owner, Lexvest Group, had found a new tenant for a fifteen-year lease, the town collectively held its breath. Surely, this was another sign of Provincetown’s corporatization—another hospitality giant coming in to kill the local charm. And, yes, Coastal Hospitality Group is, indeed, a group, with four Cape Cod restaurants under its belt (Chapin’s Bayside in Dennis; the Chatham Cut, Codo Mexican Kitchen, and Pate’s in Chatham). “That just means that we have the support to give the buildings what they need,” Johnston says. In Bradford’s case, that means upgraded TVs and a new sound system, a new forthcoming patio, and—hallelujah!—goodbye to the tiny old bathrooms.

Like the restaurant that’s been called the Governor Bradford since 1960, Johnston has been kicking around Provincetown for a while. He was the general manager of seafood-focused Fanizzi’s for two decades. Governor Bradford’s new general manager, Vincent Bosely, worked with Johnston at Fanizzi’s and managed Codo last year. Most of the staff stayed on from the previous incarnation of the Bradford that featured chef/co-owner Collin Kolisko at the helm, serving an izakaya-inspired menu. (Kolisko and his team took over in 2022.)

“It was like a hidden gem,” Johnston says of Kolisko’s concept. “All of our industry was like, ‘Oh, it’s great. You gotta go.’ But it was tough in a tourist town where you walk into this [building] and you don’t necessarily expect that concept.” (Kolisko previously told the Provincetown Independent that he’s looking for a smaller spot in town, and we can’t wait.) “The building dictates what works,” Johnston says. As in, most people walk into a pub and expect pub food.

Johnston developed the new menu of elevated diner-type food himself over about four months and describes it as “comfort chic” and “elevated enough, but still approachable.” Think: a beef Wellington/shepherd’s pie hybrid, branded with the bar’s name on the puff pastry; hearty meatloaf with creamy, garlicky potatoes dauphinoise; shake-and-bake pork schnitzel; and burrata-topped chicken, cod, or shrimp parmigiana. Some particularly retro favorites make the cut, like deviled eggs, oysters Rockefeller, and fondue, not to mention laidback classics like burgers and fried chicken. “We wanted to give you that grandma’s cooking feel,” he says. “The emotional strings that come attached with the food—we really wanted to tug on those.”

Other dishes lean into Provincetown’s Portuguese heritage and the building’s history as a Portuguese fisherman hangout: Portuguese kale soup, for one, as well as cod, seafood stew, and a seven-cheese version of mac and cheese with spicy pork sausage and a garnish of crumbled bolo lêvedo (a slightly sweet Azorean roll that’s like the lovechild of an English muffin and cake).

The bar program boasts some surprises. Johnston is excited to offer wines on draft, including beauties like a rosé from Provence, France; sauvignon blanc from Marlborough, New Zealand; and prosecco—all dispensed from a temperature-controlled system that’s free of potentially wine-spoiling exposures to sunlight and air. “It’s not too prevalent in town,” he says. “It’s a huge up-and-coming trend in Europe. A lot of people think draft wine is like boxed wine, but it’s totally different.” The draft wine program allows easy sampling of different varietals without committing to a whole bottle. Highlights of the cocktail menu, meanwhile, include a blueberry basil smash with gin and a reimagined mint julep with butter-washed whiskey and matcha syrup. Boozy milkshakes and zero-proof offerings (an espresso cocktail with orange zest syrup and a cream float; smoked tea with maple, orange, and club soda) are on offer, too.

Governor Bradford, like other spots on Commercial Street, has always pulled triple duty—at once a bar, restaurant, and entertainment venue. The legendary drag karaoke isn’t going anywhere. And at least five nights a week, diners can come in for live music. “In such a huge art community, we wanted to give performers a chance to get their face out there,” Johnston says. And like a heckler in the concert crowd, there are always going to be naysayers when something new—or sort of new—happens in town. That packed first night of service, though, saw Johnston, Bosely, and familiar staff working in harmony. “It put people at ease, seeing Vince and I,” Johnston says. “We’ve worked here [in Provincetown] forever. We’re not strangers.”

312 Commercial St., Provincetown, thegovernorbradford.com.

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More Cape Cod dining

Here’s what you already know about the Fourth of July on the Esplanade: You must arrive too early. You sit on a blanket that’s too small. You eat something lukewarm out of a cooler and pretend to enjoy it. You sweat. You hear “The Stars and Stripes Forever” and feel, despite yourself, genuinely moved. And then the Pops pack up, the fireworks start, and you wonder why the orchestra isn’t playing anymore. Every year, the same thing.

This year, finally, Keith Lockhart agrees with you.

“It’s something I have always wanted to do,” says the conductor, now in his 31st year with the Pops, explaining that for the first time, the orchestra will play live during the fireworks—not before them, not adjacent to them, but actually choreographing the explosions in real time. “It’s always felt strange that the celebration finished with us sitting on the back of the Hatch Shell, watching the fireworks with everyone else.” Strange is one word for it. Anticlimactic is another. But not this time.

The rest of the upgrades: The special-guest lineup includes names with real sizzle: country-music star Lainey Wilson, hip-hop artist Chance the Rapper, and trombonist Trombone Shorty. There will be a Revolutionary-themed drone show during Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, as well as two world-premiere works celebrating America’s 250th.

Given all the fanfare, it’s not surprising that the crowd is expected to be 25 percent larger. CNN is broadcasting the Boston spectacular nationally and streaming worldwide, so if you’d rather watch from your couch in air conditioning, no one will judge you.

But if you go—and you should go, at least once, at least this year—you’ll get the Charles, the cannons, the sweat, the lukewarm pasta salad, and a birthday party 250 years in the making. The Pops will finally stick around for the whole thing. It’s about time.

This article was first published in the print edition of the June 2026 issue, with the headline,“Happy 250th.”

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More about America 250

If you’re wondering who’s responsible for bringing the FIFA World Cup to Boston, it isn’t Robert Kraft, or the Healey administration, or the mayor’s office, or the loose confederation of pols, boosters, sports fans, glory-hogs, and straight-up opportunists that instinctively forms at the prospect of such events.

No, the credit lies with a man named Jason Waddleton.

Waddleton grew up in Scotland, outside of Aberdeen. Twenty-eight years ago, he attended Scotland’s last World Cup appearance, a 3-0 loss to Morocco. Twenty-five years ago, he immigrated to Boston. Sixteen years ago, he opened a beloved Scottish bar called the Haven in Jamaica Plain. And four years ago, he moved it from its original location in Hyde Square to the redeveloped brewery complex off Armory Street in J.P.

At some point during those years, Waddleton began willing into existence, with his mind, a Boston World Cup, featuring the Scottish national team. Last year, his efforts paid off. Scotland qualified for the Cup in November. And while some may have wondered where the team and its attendant Tartan Army would end up, Waddleton knew it would be Boston. After all, he says, “I had already manifested that to be the case.”

When we spoke in late March, Waddleton was in the middle of preparing a giant World Cup party in the bar, around the bar, and in the parking lot of the bar: “A three-day festival of food, drink, music, and whiskey,” he calls it. Many Scots are expected to turn out, and Waddleton is thrilled at the opportunity to introduce people from his native land to neighbors from his adopted home. In fact, he had already placed an order of Tennent’s beer so large—120 kegs—that the Scottish newspapers covered it. And that’s just the first wave. “We’re going to be swamped, mate,” he says.

It’s a lot, but Waddleton has had decades to prepare. “I’ve been manifesting this for a long time,” he says, laughing.

THIS IS A BIG SUMMER for Boston. The World Cup may be sucking up most of the oxygen, but it’s only one of several high-profile and likely well-attended events the city will be hosting this season. There’s also the return of Sail Boston, featuring a flotilla of tall ships from around the world, and Boston 250, a yearlong, citywide commemoration of Boston’s role in the American Revolution. Combined, these events are expected to attract millions of visitors, on top of the usual throngs who come to attend the Fourth of July festivities, see the Sox, or participate in that time-honored ritual of death-marching clutches of damp, unhappy children down the Freedom Trail in 98 percent humidity.

Boston isn’t great because it’s the best at everything. It’s great because it’s its own thing.

We’re told these events will generate more than a billion dollars in revenue for the city and state, all while showcasing to the world all that is great and good about Boston and Massachusetts. Wildly irrational projections are the oxygen of mass events, so those numbers are to be viewed with skepticism. But, on the whole, these are positive things—potentially enjoyable, edifying, and maybe even an occasion for genuine civic pride. Right? Aren’t they?

Because even as I write those words, an old ambivalence begins to creep in: Is this whole thing going to be a pain in the ass? A money pit? A traffic nightmare? Will the city’s narrow arteries be choked with the plaque of wayward French? Is the T going to crumble like a cracker under the added poundage? “Screw this,” writes a Reddit user. “We’re in no shape to host a global party.”

Many residents are understandably wondering who all of this is actually for. Is it for locals, or is it all just a sop to rich tourists and international travelers? If the latter, what are we even showing them? As Paul Ford, a 69-year-old lifetime Southie resident and small-business owner, put it, “Are they trying to show off the city, or are they showing off the real estate value because they’re looking for tax money?”

These sorts of concerns are, of course, part of Boston’s DNA, rooted in a deep and justified suspicion of overt boosterish activity. Boston never fares well when it tries to compete on the terms set forth by a New York, or a Los Angeles, or a Paris, or a Tokyo, or a petro-state nightmare like Abu Dhabi. There is nothing more third-rate than a second-rate city trying really hard to be a first-rate city

I’m on a group text chain with a handful of prominent former and current Bostonians. Recently, while discussing why Boston even wanted this thing to begin with, an ex-Bostonian argued, “There’s a case to be made that Boston as a people don’t really give a fuck about being seen as a top-tier metropolis. Perhaps only its leadership still longs for that status. It is a great city. It has excellent food, sports, history, architecture, schools, et cetera. And in recent years, it seems to have only improved on a number of those fronts. But it’s always punched above its weight class. Maybe the people of Boston just want to be a great place to live and not have to act like they’re on the same status as NYC and L.A. Maybe they’re done status-chasing.”

Maybe they are. Or should be. A disinclination to participate in these sorts of pageants is understandable. Even honorable. I don’t consider it a failing. Boston isn’t great because it’s the best at everything. It’s great because it’s its own thing. Just like biologists measure animal intelligence by how well animals succeed at being animals, not by how well they act like people, we should judge Boston by how well it succeeds at being Boston. And we should only do things that enhance its Boston-ness, whatever that may be right now.

How will the events of this summer do that? Who are they actually for? What are we actually showing? And what does it all say about what this city has become—and is becoming—in the year 2026?

WITH APOLOGIES to Sail Boston, I’m going to only briefly address the tall ships. They’re coming from July 11 to 16. The city has hosted them multiple times, it always draws a good crowd, it looks cool, kids like it, it gets people outside, it’s not ruinously inconvenient to locals, other neighborhoods like Eastie and Charlestown get a piece of the action, and it’s fun to see Italian sailors getting plastered for free in the North End. Organizers are estimating the event will attract millions of visitors, which—who knows? Probably not? But it doesn’t matter. The tall ships are fine. We probably don’t have to worry about the tall ships. Go see them.

The World Cup, going from June 13 to July 9, is another matter. It’s expected to attract some 2 million visitors and generate more than $1.1 billion. To put it nicely, the preparation for the seven games planned for Gillette Stadium has been uneven. To put it accurately, it has been a goat rodeo. By spring, as most other host cities were hysterically setting whole dumpsters of cash on fire and sewing the last sequins on their pageant gowns and practicing their best smiles, we were still fighting in the mud over who was supposed to be doing what, and who would be responsible for paying the bill, and how any of this stuff was supposed to actually work. For a minute, it wasn’t even clear if the World Cup was going to happen here at all. The Athletic memorably called Boston’s preparations the “most fraught” of all World Cup host cities. But while it remains to be seen whether it’s reasonable to expect millions of foreign tourists to attend your party in the age of ICE, or sane to mount a World Cup whose success relies heavily on a flawless performance by the MBTA, or cruel to inflict the Gillette Stadium fan experience on a legion of unsuspecting foreigners, the World Cup will happen.

And it will probably all be fine. Chris Dempsey is the cofounder of Speck Dempsey, an urban design and city planning firm headquartered in Brookline. In a previous life, he was one of the founders of No Boston Olympics. That was the group that masterfully torpedoed Boston’s bid to host the 2024 Olympic Games a decade ago. While in some quarters that effort was seen as the handiwork of parochial killjoys lacking in vision, the city owes Dempsey and company a great debt for steering Boston away from what he estimated would have been a $10 billion boondoggle, destined to become a permanent feature in the fiscal lives of taxpayers for the next several ice ages.

Dempsey doesn’t buy the estimates that the state will reap $1 billion in revenue from the Cup, and he predicts it’ll end up costing far more than officials believe. He wishes that money and care and time could have gone toward things like schools and public health centers, but on the whole, he’s okay with the World Cup. “I’m pretty confident it’s all going to work out in the end, and there’s not going to be some embarrassment or disaster,” he says.

Okay, so what about the locals? What’s in it for them? Can they go to the games themselves? Or, as Southie’s Paul Ford put it, “How many people have $5,000 to toss away to go see soccer games?” As of April, tickets are mostly spoken for. You could still get a ticket to Haiti-Scotland on StubHub for between $700—for a seat so far from the action it might as well be in a bar in Mansfield—and more than $40,000 for one that allows you to see that the players have faces. You can also get a “hospitality package” for all seven games for $11,150 per person or rent a private suite at Gillette for between $102,000 to $162,800. It’s all just another opportunity for the rich to spend richly, in a city that does not lack for such opportunities. Maybe after the game, everyone can go try the $95 lobster tail at Nine restaurant on Beacon Hill. Maybe grab a spare to feed to the ducks in the park after. Maybe the ducks will give some to the homeless.

So no, the games themselves aren’t really for the locals. Their World Cup experience is likely to take place closer to home. In February, Boston’s host committee announced a fan festival on City Hall Plaza, promising a space in which “Fans will enjoy live match broadcasts, highlights, interactive games, activities, and a food and beverage program that reflects Boston’s local flavor.” As of presstime, no one has been able to give me any specifics about what the festival will actually entail. But the festival is happening. You will be able to go to the festival.

More promising than the prospect of hanging out in the wind-blasted wasteland that is City Hall Plaza, however, are the smaller events. These are also coming together higgledy-piggledy. Only in late March did the state award $10 million in grants to support community gatherings around the region, including viewing parties and neighborhood activations.

“The real question is: Are these events for locals?” says Ruthzee Louijeune, an at-large city councilor and daughter of immigrants who grew up in Hyde Park and Mattapan. Louijeune is pushing the city to include Black-, brown-, and veteran-owned businesses in the festivities, and pressing City Hall to support more events in the neighborhoods, particularly for Boston’s sizable Haitian and Cape Verdean populations (both countries will be playing in this year’s tournament). While Louijeune admits the city’s planning “is happening slower than any of us would have wanted…I do think that there’s still going to be really phenomenal events.”

These sorts of gatherings and the connections they may foster are also what excite Sam Mewis. She’s a women’s soccer legend from Massachusetts who played on the Women’s National Team in the 2019 World Cup, among many other accomplishments, and hosts The Women’s Game podcast. Mewis grew up in Hanson, a blue-collar community that placed a heavy emphasis on family and hard work. “I have a lot of pride in being from Massachusetts,” she says. “The opportunity to have soccer bring more people to the area, or help us stand out, feels like a convergence of my home and the thing that took me away from home,” she says. “For me, it feels like a really special opportunity to have all the people who made me the way I am cross paths with this huge global event celebrating the sport that has taken me to so many places.”

In other words, for Mewis, the World Cup will reunite the place that made her who she is with the person she has become. The past, the present, and the future will meet, and a newer, better, richer story will emerge.

Which brings us to Boston 250.

BACK IN MARCH, I walked the Freedom Trail for the first time in probably 40 years and listened to the National Park Service’s audio tour. At one point, the Northeastern professor Bill Fowler, a guest speaker on the tour, told a story about the Puritans. At the end, Fowler remarked, “It made for an interesting, if somewhat raucous, community, which is what Boston has always been.” I emailed Fowler to ask him what he made of the confluence of big events coming to Boston this summer. “Boston loves to celebrate!” he replied. He loves these parties, he said, “But celebrations should also be cerebrations. After the bands have gone home and the last firework has been sent off—what’s left?”

Boston 250 can be that cerebration. (Which is a word. I checked.)

But before we continue, a couple of caveats. Reporting on Boston 250 was…complicated. No one at City Hall was able to give me a definitive schedule of upcoming events, nor much by way of specific detail on what Boston 250 would entail, beyond a PowerPoint presentation and a couple of press releases. Mayor Wu wouldn’t agree to an interview. Nor would she answer emailed questions on the city’s preparations for the events of the summer in general, or Boston 250 in particular, or take a swing at what she considers singular about the city she governs. The mayor’s office did allow me to take a stroll with some officials working on Boston 250, who were passionate, intelligent, articulate, and a credit to the city and its mayor. But they weren’t authorized to speak on the record, so you’ll have to take my word for it. You can maybe request a transcript from the aide who followed us around recording the whole conversation on their phone. The paranoid ghost of Tom Menino, it seems, still stalks the corridors of City Hall.

Okay. That being said, let’s continue.

The theme of Boston 250 is “everyday revolutionaries.” The idea is to highlight the standard Revolutionary history that everyone learns in school, weave it together with the local histories that haven’t gotten as much attention—Black history, immigrant history, cultural history, scientific history, and oddball history like how the disco ball was invented in Charlestown—and place it all firmly in the context of how Bostonians live now.

There are a few things comprising Boston 250. By the time July Fourth rolls around, City Hall expects to mark a few dozen new historic sites around the city. They’ve established a $300,000 grant program, which community organizations can apply for to research and propose community markers in neighborhoods around the city. The city is working on a new app that will allow people to visit these historic sites, read the plaques, and then scan a QR code and listen to a story, or even enjoy an augmented reality presentation. All cool, and overdue. The city is also preparing a marketing push to introduce visitors to the city to Boston’s layered history.

There are also events. These are aimed at displaying history not as a thing that happened once upon a time, but is still happening, a continuum that modern Bostonians are very much a part of. For instance, in March, Boston 250 re-created part of Henry Knox’s famous march from Fort Ticonderoga to Roxbury with 59 stolen British cannons. The Boston event featured reenactors, horses, drums, fifes, and cannons—all the usual stuff—but they also wove in stories about Roxbury’s history as a cultural hub, showcased work curated by local artists, and brought in a drumline from the Hamilton-Garrett Center for Music & Arts.

I can’t offer much more about Boston 250 by way of specifics, as I don’t really have them as of presstime. But having discussed it with nameless individuals at a nameless City Hall, I have come to believe Boston 250 could actually be quite valuable, though as much as a thought exercise as an event. If the world is indeed coming here to see the best of this place—and not, you know, checking into a hotel, paying a fortune to ride the commuter rail, paying a fortune to attend a game, returning to their hotel, and flying home—what does Boston want them to see? To answer that, we have to ask, What is Boston? And to answer that, we have to ask, Who are Bostonians?

The fact is, I don’t have an answer to that question. I used to. But I haven’t for years, as the city changed so radically. Gentrification is a boon to a city’s finances, and diversity is a godsend for its dynamism, but both—separately or in tandem—can scramble a city’s identity and weaken its social fabric. What is a Bostonian in 2026? On the most basic level, a Bostonian is someone who can afford to live in Boston. But a city needs more than economic means to build its identity on. It needs something people can be proud to be a part of.

Boston 250’s idea of “everyday revolutionaries” is a good starting point. It draws from a past where ordinary Bostonians did extraordinary things, as a way to inspire modern Bostonians to see themselves as part of that lineage—to show them that they’re capable of similar feats of great daring in the face of cruelty, stupidity, and injustice, just by dint of being Bostonians, whether they grew up in Southie in the ’80s or came from Sulawesi a year ago.

“There are stereotypes that exist,” says Louijeune, “but I think that we are curious people, and we are interested in helping out our neighbors. I try to fight for a city that is warm and welcoming to all, and that doesn’t take any bullshit from people who are trying to bring us backward.”

As the world comes to Boston, show them that.

Back at the Haven in J.P., Jason Waddleton is ready. The kegs are ordered. The Tartan Army is coming, and so are the neighbors, and anyone else who wants to join.

He says it doesn’t matter where they come from. All are welcome. After all, that, to him, is the essence of the city. “If you walk into a bar in Boston and start talking,” he says, “you’ll have a conversation.”

And that’s a great place to start.

First published in the print edition of the June 2026 issue, with the headline,“The World Is Coming. Now What?”

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IF YOU could conjure a postcard of Cape Cod in your mind, it’d surely look a lot like Chatham. The always-charming town is packed with miles of beaches, sprawling shingle-style homes framed by hydrangeas, and a lighthouse that looks like it came straight out of central casting. It’s also home to one of the most walkable (and shoppable) main streets in all of the Cape, lined with upscale boutiques and ice cream and candy shops. And late June/early July is one of the best times to go, as the town ramps up to its epic July 4 weekend, which includes one of the country’s oldest parades, fireworks, and a carnival along the beach at Chatham Bars Inn, the beating heart of the town’s summer festivities.

PLAY

Mornings always start with a stroll down Main Street for coffee at the Snowy Owl Espresso Bar, a little java shack with big ambitions. The day is your oyster (quite literally). You can hit one of the town’s many beaches, from the sweeping Lighthouse Beach to the calm, sea-life-filled waters of Ridgevale. Boating is also a big draw: If you’re staying at Chatham Bars Inn, it’s easy to hop on its gratis boat shuttle over to North Beach Island for a peaceful walk—or charter a vessel for any number of saltwater pursuits, from whale watching to fishing. Prefer to stay on dry land? Watch the seals munch on lunch at the Chatham Fish Pier; take a hike in the Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge; or hop on the Old Colony Rail Trail. It connects to the iconic Cape Cod Rail Trail, which you can pick up from Depot Road in the center of Chatham. Beginning in mid-June, you can also stroll Kate Gould Park to take in works from local artists through the town’s Art in the Park program. See something you like? Go online and bid on it—you’ll find out if it’s yours at the end of the summer.

EAT

Another benefit of staying in Chatham is the proximity to so many Boston-quality restaurants. Fuel up for the day’s adventures at Chatham Bars Inn’s Stars restaurant, easily the best breakfast in town (don’t miss the homemade doughnuts on the buffet). Lunch is at Codo Mexican Kitchen, a recently opened counter-service spot with some seriously good tacos and margs. Dinner options abound, whether you go for French at Pain D’Avignon‘s Chatham outpost, seafood at Drifters, or hearty American fare at CBI’s Sacred Cod tavern. But a new town favorite is Aplaya Kitchen + Tiki Bar, where owners Pelinda and Tom Deegan show off Pelinda’s Filipino heritage with homemade lumpia (pork egg rolls), siopao (meat buns), and a tropical tiki-bar ambiance on the patio. And whatever you do, grab a few mini pies from Marion’s Pie Shop after the beach—especially the Razzleberry (blackberry, raspberry, and apple). Our advice? Don’t share.

SHOP

Shopping is one of the best ways to pass the time in Chatham between beach and boating trips—or on a rainy day. You could spend a full afternoon with the kids just hitting up the Chatham Candy Manor and Ducks in the Window, where they’ll delight in choosing from more than 1,000 styles in all shapes, colors, and sizes. Grownups will enjoy browsing the many home, clothing, and souvenir shops, including local fave BroDenim, where you can customize jean jackets and hoodies with cool patches. Newly opened boutique Main Street Mahjong, meanwhile, is a must-visit for those who play the game.

STAY

Situated on a pristine stretch of sand, Chatham Bars Inn is the ideal Cape resort—grand enough to feel like a proper getaway, but spread out enough to feel like a home away from home. Accommodations range from luxe rooms in the circa-1914 main inn to multi-room suites with water views—either way, you’ll have access to the resort’s gorgeous oceanfront pool, private beach with cabanas, and fleet of Lexus vehicles for borrowing—including an oversand SUV should you decide to trek out to Race Point Beach at sunset (first come, first served!). Bonus points for a robust kids’ club that keeps the little ones entertained while their parents kick back with a cocktail in hand at the new South Lounge Bar—or unwind at the excellent on-site spa.

GETTING THERE

You know the drill—straight down 93 and Route 3, cross the bridge, U.S. 6 East all the way to Chatham. Easy as pie—unless, of course, there’s traffic, which you know there will be.

This article was first published in the print edition of the June 2026 issue, with the headline,“Chatham, Cape Cod.”

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See also: 12 Cape Cod Must-Visit Restaurants

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