Normally I enjoy the Improper Bostonian and look forward to reading what's new and interesting around town. I also generally think they put together one of the better Best of Boston lists, better even than Boston Magazine's. This year's edition of the Improper's Boston's Best list, however, was seriously lacking in geographic and ethnic diversity. Couldn't they find anything else going on in Chinatown, JP, Dorchester, and the South End other than restaurants and bars? Each of those neighborhoods has large concentrations of Latinos and Asians, but you'd hardly know it by their choice of categories and the winners. And what of Roxbury, Mattapan, and East Boston? As far as I can tell, those neighborhoods weren't even included or considered as the panel did its survey.
I'm not begrudging the winners for their placement in the magazine. Boston has many, many exceptional restaurants, bars, arts venues, and entertainment options. But, even if I were to concede that not a single establishment in the "outer" neighborhoods was able to compete on a citywide basis, wouldn't there at least be some way to acknowledge that there are quality options in all of the neighborhoods? Given that some of the categories are neighborhood bars and neighborhood restaurants, where are the entries from East Boston, Roxbury, and Mattapan?
Just using Roxbury as an example, Merengue, Haley House, The Savant Project, and Ashur would have been some of the eateries that could've been judged for best neighborhood restaurant. Brigham Circle also has enough bars to give the reviewers something for the neighborhood bar category. Considering how overlooked Roxbury is most of the time anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if the panel found tons to consider for the best-kept secret category, too. How many of them know about the Shirley-Eustis House or the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists?
Again, this isn't to say that the winners don't deserve their spots in the sunshine. But this collection of recommendations doesn't even begin to cover the full breadth of diversity that exists in Boston. I suspect that the choice of categories is one of the underlying reasons, as well as the need to satisfy advertisers. Still, how would this list look if it included additional categories like best soul food, Dominican food, African-American history tour, Latin music & dance venue, Asian cultural resource (the magazine only mentions food), Caribbean festival, neighborhood tour (most neighborhoods including Chinatown, JP, Roxbury, and Dorchester have them), and neighborhood arts venue?
I'm hoping that their August 12th Neighborhoods issue will be more inclusive, although I believe that I'm going to be disappointed again. I sent a letter to the editor last week and followed up with a voice message encouraging him to include Roxbury in the neighborhoods issue. Both messages referred to the Roxbury Cultural Network, which I hope he will use as a resource. Let's see if he sends someone out to do some legwork. With the Roxbury Film Festival, Discover Roxbury's high tea at the Shirley-Eustis House, and Berklee's Jazz at the Fort coming up, there are a variety of options on the table for the Improper to learn something new about one of the "outer" neighborhoods and add it to their body of knowledge.
For those of you who would also like to contact the editor to encourage him to expand the magazine's horizons, contact Andrew Rimas at andrew@improper.com or 617-859-1400. Please leave positive messages and constructive criticism that reflects the true quality and character of our communities.
Full disclosure: The Third Decade works at Discover Roxbury, a member of the Roxbury Cultural Network.
Recent Comments