E-Mail This Article to a Friend A walking tour of the new Fenway neighborhood, 2015

BEACON STREET FROM AUDUBON CIRCLE TO KENMORE SQUARE

Audubon Circle, at the intersection of Beacon and Park Drive, once marked the far reaches of Brookline-flavored civilization. It’s centrally located to the Fenway-are colleges like Emmanuel and Simmons, and to Boston College students who commute to Chestnut Hill via the C line, and of course to BU, which owns considerable property in the area.

But head toward the beckoning Citgo sign in Kenmore Square and you once entered a wasteland, not to mention a cold walk across the lengthy bridge.

No more. Today, in 2015, the entire right-hand side is like a regular streetscape lined with storefronts. Dominating the view from this approach is a 17-story glass residential tower, and beyond that an even higher 20-story building, all part of One Kenmore. Between the two high-rises is an enclosed plaza, lined with small retail stores, leading into the expanded Yawkey Station.

If you cut through that way, you emerge right onto Brookline Avenue across from the Fenway Park ticket office.

But continuing along Beacon Street, you pass more ground-level stores, and for drivers, a parking garage entrance. The suddenly you’re at the Buckminster Hotel, Pizzeria UNO, and the familiar buildings of Kenmore Square, now surrounding the new, attractive, efficient bus terminal.

BROOKLINE AVENUE FROM KENMORE SQUARE TO SEARS ROTARY

Remember the old days, walking out of Kenmore Square on Brookline Avenue and contemplating the long, dreary walk past desolate Newbury Street, the fenced crossing over the turnpike, and the graffiti and sticker-covered side of the Cask ‘N Flagon?

Today, you don’t even have to make this walk — you can walk straight from the T platform through a short tunnel and come out on Lansdowne Street.

But why skip the street? Even Newbury Street is lively, thanks to the new BU graduate student dorm behind the Hotel Commonwealth, and other improvements. And beyond it, you can’t even tell the turnpike is down there anymore. To the right, it’s covered all the way to Beacon Street, and to the left it’s covered to roughly the back of Bill’s Bar. (Don’t worry, the massive gun-safety billboard has been relocated to where cars re-emerge further down; after all, the billboard is the pet project of John Rosenthal, the developer who built One Kenmore.) Parking entrances are on both sides of Brookline Avenue, tucked among the restaurants and shops. Patio cafes spill onto the wide sidewalks, and cover the roof of the Cask ‘N Flagon.

The Boston Beer Works is still here, but not the big open parking lot next to it. There’s a new building there, filled — like so many of the buildings on and behind that side of Brookline Avenue — with adjunct clinical and administrative offices for Longwood medical centers.

That new road next to the Beer Works — the Yawkey Way extension — takes you to Yawkey Station, and then to the renovated Fenway Green Line stop behind Landmark Center. (No, that smell isn’t there anymore.) As you keep walking up Brookline Avenue you’ll notice that the old roads to nowhere now connect to the Yawkey extension and then — why did nobody think of this before? — to Beacon Street.

Across from the Landmark Center’s movie theater now stands the huge Trilogy apartment building, and the even taller tower of apartments on the slender corner. There are some decent shops and restaurants on both sides; unfortunately, they receive little sunlight.

BOYLSTON STREET FROM SEARS ROTARY TO PARK DRIVE

The other side of the high rises, on Boylston Street, is nicer — thanks to the 26-foot-wide sidewalks that now extend the length of both sides.

This street has completely transformed. Boylston is now a little like Newbury Street or Downtown Crossing — except for the heavy traffic cutting through. The street is non-stop shopping, mostly little neighborhood stores but also the occasional clothing outlet and restaurant.

Remember when 1369 Boylston — the building with the Brooks Pharmacy — was the biggest building on the block? At four stories, it’s now a dent in the street’s profile.

On the right, inside 1330 Boylston, you’ll find Fenway Community Health Center. After an aggressive fundraising effort, the center was able to lease the space set aside for it by the building’s owners. With the extra space, the center has been able to vastly improve and expand its services to the city’s gay and lesbian residents, and reach out to other underserved communities.

Further along, the new hotel and the buildings on both sides are, unsurprisingly, done in red brick and green trim reminiscent of Fenway Park. All except one, that is. The old building on the end is still there; the owner never chose to sell. It’s the oddball of the neighborhood, with its music studio and other little businesses — and Ramrod, still going strong. Some things never change.