5 Best Sights in The South End, Boston

This pocket of early-19th-century brick row houses, near Arlington and Piedmont Streets, is a fine, mellow neighborhood (Edgar Allan Poe was born here). Its window boxes and short, narrow streets make the area seem a toylike reproduction of Beacon Hill. Note that, owing to the street pattern, it's difficult to drive to Bay Village, and it's easy to miss on foot.

Of Boston's multiple arts organizations, this nonprofit arts-and-culture complex is one of the most lively and diverse. Here you can see the work of budding playwrights, check out rotating exhibits from contemporary artists, or stop in for a curator's talk and other special events, including book fairs, dance, and kids programming. BCA houses several performance spaces, a community music center, the Mills Art Gallery, and studio space for some 40 Boston-based contemporary artists.

This enormous 1875 Gothic cathedral dominates the corner of Washington and Union Park Streets. The main church of the Archdiocese of Boston and therefore the seat of Cardinal Seán Patrick O'Malley, Holy Cross is also New England's largest Catholic church. It's also home to an 1875 Hook & Hastings pipe organ, the largest instrument ever built by that company.

Reflecting a time when the South End was the most prestigious Boston address, this slice of a park is framed by lovely Italianate bowfront houses.

Cast-iron fences, Victorian-era town houses, and a grassy area all add up to one of Boston's most charming slices of a neighborhood.