E-Mail This Article to a Friend Movin’ on up Neighborhood rising stars strut their stuff BY NINA MACLAUGHLIN
	Where to find them: Chelsea • El Borinken, 49 Everett Street, (617) 889-3654. • Chung Wah, 460 Broadway, (617) 884-8286. • Dillon’s Russian Steam Bath, 75 Chestnut Street, (617) 884-9434. • King Tacos, 388 Broadway, (617) 884-4900. • Old Pal’s, 158 Washington Avenue, (617) 887-1400. • Tijuana Mexican Food, 164 Broadway, (617) 884-7494. Dorchester • Blarney Stone, 1505 Dorchester Avenue, (617) 437-8223. • Chris’ Texas BBQ, 1370 Dorchester Avenue, (617) 436-4700. • Commonwealth Museum, 220 Morrissey Boulevard, (617) 727-9268. • Dennis G. Barbadian Restaurant, 521 Washington Street, (617) 474-2900. • Gerard’s, 772 Adams Street, (617) 282-6370. • Hi-Fi Pizza, 1508 Dorchester Avenue, (617) 436-9656. • Irie Four Seasons Ice Cream, 5 Bowdoin Street, (617) 929-0212. • John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Columbia Point, (617) 514-1600. • Neville’s Bakery, 394 Geneva Street. • Pho’ Hòa, 1356 Dorchester Avenue, (617) 287-9746. • Strand Theatre, 543 Columbia Road, (617) 282-8000. Teele Square • House of Tibet Kitchen, 235 Holland Street, (617) 629-7567. • PJ Ryan’s, 239 Holland Street, (617) 625-8200. • Renee’s Café, 198 Holland Street, (617) 623-2727. • Rudy’s, 258 Holland Street, (617) 623-9201. • Sabur, 212 Holland Street, (617) 776-7890. • Soleil Café, 1153 Broadway, (617) 625-0082.

ON the Red LINE recently, I watched a girl get on the train wearing patent-leather platform boots laced up above her knees and a skirt that fell nowhere near them. Silver rings and studs hung from her lips, cheeks, nose, ears, and eyebrows. Her companion had a swatch of hot-pink hair on top of his otherwise shaved head; buckles lined his pant legs, and he sported a black mesh tank top of the type worn for gym-class dodge-ball games and soccer-practice scrimmages.

Most remarkable, though, wasn’t the pair’s sense of style. What was more outrageous was how all eyes were on them: every passenger on the train looked them up and down, some more blatantly than others. Two neatly dressed women whispered to each other, looked at the pair, and giggled like catty seventh graders. A bearded man with crescent-shaped sweat stains on his shirt looked lecherously at the girl’s barely covered rear. From Porter Square to Park Street, the couple stood silently with the bristled air of people who know they’re being watched. And are used to it.

The phrase "anything goes" doesn’t really apply to Boston. Sure, you’re more than welcome to wear what you want, but you might get noticed — or looked, leered, or laughed at. Boston can be a little cold and sometimes standoffish. We’re a city quick to judge. Perhaps it’s because Boston’s a college town, and the culture of competition and selectivity extends beyond admissions offices and permeates the city’s streets and scenes. Perhaps it’s lingering Puritan ideals. Perhaps it’s the awareness — the sometimes self-conscious hyperawareness — that we’re a world-class city with a reputation to uphold.

Regardless of the reasons, Boston’s character makes digging your heels into a neighborhood — finding a few blocks where you feel at home — all the more important. A stomping ground. A nest. A niche. Sure, Boston’s got fabulous museums, top-tier universities, rich history, a potent local music scene, a great ballpark, and international eateries. Indeed, it’s a city of brain (Cambridge is the Silicon Valley of the biotech industry) and brawn (major muscle goes into the Big Dig). But its neighborhoods make the city what it is and give Boston its vitality. It’s a sense of neighborhood that allows you to feel part of a place when the city writ large feels a little too discriminating.

And when looking for a place to call home, the most immediately discriminating (or welcoming) aspect is the price tag. That price tag varies across the city. Boston ain’t cheap, but some areas are less prohibitive than others.

Gentrification follows a familiar path. Students and artists move into an affordable neighborhood. The place gets a reputation for being cheap, as well as diverse, hip, and happening. More people want in. Restaurants open. Bars appear. Rents get raised. Yuppies come. Starbucks comes. Rents get raised some more. The artists and students and everyone else who lived there before find they can’t afford it, move to the next cheap region, and the cycle continues.

Below you’ll find some neighborhoods in Boston that haven’t yet become through-the-roof expensive. And, perhaps more important, they retain a neighborhood feel, a sense of community, and give the impression of having not only an open door, but also a welcome mat.

Chelsea

In her memoir The Chelsea Whistle, Michelle Tea writes, "It’s cracked pavement and trashy curbs, plastic playgrounds stained with spray paint, and mean kids on every corner, wanting to kick your ass — that was Chelsea."

Emphasis on was.

For a long time, Chelsea teetered toward crime, drugs, and violence. It had an unsavory reputation for political cronyism, environmental violations, and economically unsound properties. Corruption saturated every stratum of society. Slowly but surely, though, Chelsea has been shedding its unpalatable past, and today, it’s begun to blossom. The Tobin Bridge, visible from most points here, used to serve as a symbolic separation, a barrier dividing Chelsea from Boston, a steel reminder of what wasn’t possible. As Tea writes, it was "a town five minutes away from Boston that might as well have been five hours, five days." But now the Tobin Bridge serves its actual purpose, connecting Chelsea with Boston, uniting one with the other. And furthermore, it provides a quick commute between the two.

According to Michael Albano, vice-president of Boston Real Estate Group and a Chelsea resident, there are only 10 cities and towns in Massachusetts where the average cost for a single-family home is less than $350,000. Chelsea is among them. Drive around Chelsea now, and you’ll see scaffolding on storefronts, apartments being renovated. Things are being repaired, spruced up, enhanced. The Admirals Hill development, a cluster of condos edging the waterfront, is a rehabbed Navy yard, redeveloped after a fire in the ’70s. The community, with its brick buildings and neat balcony flower beds, has a retirement-home feel.

On Spencer and Webster Avenues, on the other hand, there are about 100 new lofts, a signal, according to Albano, of the demographic that Chelsea’s starting to attract. Brick townhouses line Beacon and Tremont Streets, and you’d be hard-pressed to distinguish the difference between these streets and those of Beacon Hill — until you see their price tags. Condos in Chelsea, says Albano, run about $200 per square foot, with lofts costing between $225,000 and $325,000. Two-bedroom apartments rent for between $1250 and $1500 a month, and one bedrooms run anywhere from $700 to $1000.

A sweeping variety of restaurants, bars, cafés, and stores line Broadway, Chelsea’s main drag. There’s an abundance of beauty parlors and chintzy shops with lacy dolls and other assorted bric-a-brac. Unlike in most areas of Boston, here neon Tecate signs outnumber Guinness insignia in bar windows. The local eateries have a similar Latin tilt: there’s El Borinken with its can’t-be-missed awning; Tijuana Mexican Food; and King Tacos, with its killer pork tacos and colorful sombreros. A growing Vietnamese population has brought with it a slew of Vietnamese and Chinese restaurants like Chung Wah, which has bubble-tea latte posters in the window. And then there’s Old Pal’s Piano Bar, a dive of the highest order, where the lights, ceilings, and prices are low. In the back room sits an elevated piano, and on Friday nights, old-timers come for Sinatra sing-alongs. It feels like another era, as does Dillon’s Russian Bath, established in 1885.

In 1937, the WPA Guide to Massachusetts called Chelsea "a city of transformations. Humbly beginning as a trading post, it has been successively a manorial estate, an agricultural community, a ferry landing, a summer resort, a residential suburb, and finally an industrial city." Past, present, and future, Chelsea’s still transforming. It’s on the rise, and the time to be there is now, on the brink of its next phase. As Michael Albano says, "Chelsea’s where people get started in life."

Dorchester

Dorchester is another area where people get started — and also tend to stay. Not only the largest neighborhood in Boston, Dorchester is also one of the oldest. Settled in 1630 — around the same time as Beacon Hill and the North End — Dorchester has long attracted large numbers of immigrants, making it one of the most economically and racially diverse neighborhoods in Boston. It would seem the only thing that doesn’t change about Dorchester is that it’s always changing.

This mercurial melting pot comes as a refreshing change from Boston’s sometimes pristine predictability. When your peregrinations around Boston pivot on hubs like Harvard Square, Back Bay, and Brookline, it’s easy to forget that Boston’s made up of more than over-privileged college kids, overworked hospital employees, and overpaid suits. It’s good to be reminded otherwise, and Dorchester is unpredictable, with new waves of people coming in all the time. Most recently, those waves have included Jamaican, Haitian, and Vietnamese populations, but who’s to say who’ll come next?

It’s been whispered for a while now that Dorchester’s the next South End, and the voices are getting louder. According to Ted Bolton, a real-estate agent at Century 21 Dorchester Associates, rent for a one-bedroom apartment runs between $750 and $1100 a month, and two bedrooms go for between $1100 and $1400. He says there are quite a few condos available for under $200,000. "Dorchester is ripe for development," notes Albano, who watches as South End trends and styles extend toward places like Jones Hill. In Fields Corner, you’ll find signs of the same. Despite its traditional Irish-pub name, the Blarney Stone bar is the picture of hip, with dark lighting, high stools, a red-felt pool table, and a patio fenced off from bustling Dorchester Avenue by trimmed shrubs.

Dorchester — Dot — Avenue, which serves as the spine of the city, hums, buzzes, and crackles with sounds and signs in lots of languages, and a selection of restaurants to match. There’s Hi-Fi Pizza, the Emerald Isle, Dippin’ Donuts ($3.25 for two pancakes and two eggs), Chris’ Texas BBQ, Pho’ Hòa, where the banner boasts SEVEN COURSES OF BEEF!, Neville’s Bakery (with West Indian, Spanish, and American food), the Dennis G. Barbadian Restaurant, local favorite Gerard’s, and Irie Four Seasons Ice Cream shop, which imports its ice cream from Jamaica and peddles flavors like soursop. You won’t find a Starbucks or a Cheesecake Factory, and there’s nary a Gap in sight.

The New Kids on the Block — four out of five of whom hail from Dorchester — didn’t quite launch their hometown to mainstream status, but its proximity to UMass, its history, and its community spirit have given rise to a cultural hub away from Huntington Avenue and Newbury Street. The 1400-seat neo-Baroque Strand Theatre in Uphams Corner, for example, has undergone a renaissance recently. At Columbia Point sits the famed John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, stocked with memorabilia celebrating the life, times, and legacy of our 35th president. Hard-core history buffs should also check out the lesser-known Commonwealth Museum, with its original Paul Revere engraving of the Boston Massacre. You can find it all just a few short stops past Park Street on the Red Line.

Most Bostonians know the view from the Longwood Bridge, crossing over the river between Charles/MGH and Kendall Square. The postcard-pretty scene — of the river, fleets of sailboats, the prim and proper brick of Beacon Hill, the Esplanade, the Citgo sign in the distance, and the Pru looming over it all — features heavily in many residents’ mental maps of the city. It’s Boston’s splendor on display. There’s a similar moment riding the Red Line between Savin Hill and Fields Corner in Dorchester. Above ground, the angle affords a view of the harbor and the voluminous rainbow KeySpan gas tank, with its bold swaths of color. You may not see any postcards of the image, but the scene is as quintessentially Boston as the sailboats and brick visible from the Longwood Bridge.

Teele Square

Of these three up-and-coming neighborhoods, Teele Square comes closest to already up-and-come, but that in no way detracts from its low-key neighborhood feel, its casual community, and its relaxed atmosphere. According to Albano, Somerville on the whole is still on the rise. "Somerville’s really changing," he says. "Cambridge is five to 10 years ahead of Somerville in terms of pricing, but Somerville is catching up fast." In Teele Square, Albano estimates that one bedrooms run between $800 and $1250 per month, two bedrooms between $1500 and $2000, and condos between $300 and $350 per square foot. Tufts University students and professors populate the square, as well as a twentysomething crowd and people priced out of wildly popular nearby Davis Square.

In the last 10 years, Davis has garnered loads of attention and a reputation for being a corner of cool, a hipster haven with its smattering of bars, ethnic restaurants, coffee shops, galleries, and bookstores. Only a 10-minute walk up Holland Street, Teele couldn’t help but bask in some of Davis’s limelight. Close enough for a beer at the Sligo or dinner at Diva, and far enough away to avoid the rising rents, Teele was Davis’s unassuming neighbor, it’s lesser-known sibling. For a while, it would’ve been fair to call Teele a suburb of Davis.

Not anymore. Now, with its own sampling of bars, boutiques, and restaurants, Teele stands firmly as a destination in and of itself. In the span of just a few blocks, you can get a Guinness, Tibetan momos, enchiladas, grilled Balkan sausages, scrambled eggs, and a damn good sandwich. PJ Ryan’s is an Irish pub with a characteristically casual feel. A small Tibetan cultural center adjoins with House of Tibet Kitchen. Rudy’s offers Mexican fare. Sabur serves Balkan food in an exotic setting. The newly opened Soleil Café keeps things fresh with a large selection of sandwiches and sides. And the bright and breezy Renée’s is often packed on weekend mornings with diners lingering over waffles, eggs, and coffee.

What you won’t find in Teele Square is attitude. It hasn’t reached its prime, and there’s a sense that even when it does, it’ll retain its easygoing air. Unlike neighboring Davis, Teele Square and its denizens exude a we-have-nothing-to-prove air. Teele Square’s Newbury Street and Clarendon Avenue — again, offering housing for hundreds of dollars less than their downtown doppelgängers — are lined with comfortable multi-family homes. And more developers are swooping in and scooping up properties all the time, says Albano. "It means that you’re going to find a lot of apartments in mint condition, really buffed-out places," he adds. Albano also cites East Somerville, by Sullivan Station, as an area to keep your eye on.

In addition, Teele Square plays host to a handful of corner convenience stores, a couple of Chinese take-out spots, and a place that sells welcome mats adorned with elephants and Oakland A’s insignia for only a buck or two. How can you afford not to have one?

Nina MacLaughlin can be reached at nmaclaughlin[a]phx.com