Despite a surge of performance venues, presenters, and ensembles, New York will still have to contend with Boston as the American capital of early music. And whether you’re just stopping by to catch a performance at the Handel and Haydn Society, pursuing your studies at the New England Conservatory of Music, or taking a regular job with Boston Lyric Opera, it helps to know the budgetary lay of the Hub’s land.
It may have nothing on New York in terms of pedestrian culture (and, as some may argue, a baseball team), but Boston is a fairly walkable city with striking architecture, free galleries, and even a self-guided, two-and-a-half mile Freedom Trail that lets visitors tap into the city’s rich history. Beacon Hill is a haven for the other half, and you can see how they live on Louisburg Square. Back Bay and South End deal in several winning buildings, including the Boston Public Library and Trinity Church (where a spiritual experience will cost you $4). The area around Boston Harbor offers some of the best free views (especially 221 feet high at Bunker Hill Monument) and Cambridge will allow you to soak up a bit of the Ivy League—even if you went to a state school.
For the rest of your time in town, you will have to shell out some cash. But, thankfully, you can still get some representation for your taxation, especially when it comes to the classical singer’s four essentials: room, board, transportation, and music.
Lodging near Logan
If you’re staying short-term, there are the usual suspects for crash pads: Hostelling International ($28 to $45 for dorms), the YMCA ($25 to $50) and 40 Berkeley (rates start at around $60) are all found in the Back Bay area, and a cursory search on CouchSurfing.org yielded a few hundred sofas available for a song (and perhaps a six-pack). There’s also the appropriately wild Florence Frances Guest House, run by a hospitable and flamboyant actress of the same name. Three guest rooms in the town house are available from $97 for doubles. Additionally, the Oasis Guest House and College Club of Boston boast rates starting at $79 per night—as does 463 Beacon Street, which also offers options for longer-term weekly and monthly stays.
While it’s by no means the cheapest city to live in, Boston’s penny-pinching puritans have had a lasting effect on the city’s real estate (at least in some neighborhoods). Buildings have begun to go the route of condominiums in Jamaica Plain—Sylvia Plath’s former stomping grounds—but the neighborhood is still very much artist driven. If commuting is your thing, living in Rhode Island (particularly the towns north of Providence) offers lower rents that, with transportation factored in, still hover under some of the city’s more expensive neighborhoods.
Midnight (or Midday) Rides
Save yourself the cab fare when getting in from the airport and take the Logan Express bus ($12 one way from the airport to Braintree, Framingham, Peabody, and Woburn). Or skip the airport altogether—especially those of you based in New York—and grab the downmarket favorite Fung Wah Bus ($15 one way from New York to Boston and vice versa) or new-to-the-scene BoltBus ($15 to $20 one way, depending on time of day). Neither is a luxury ride in any sense of the word, but for less than $50 for a round-trip, you can make it work. Trust us. And don’t even bother with the silliness of renting a car in Beantown. The T is the oldest subway system in the United States, and it’s even cheaper to use than New York’s MTA: one ride will cost $1.70, but a weekly pass with unlimited rides on the subway, bus, and commuter rail is just $15.
Beyond Beans
You know how we always tell $50 Week budgeters to break up with Starbucks? Good luck resisting Boston’s temptations: a Dunkin’ Donuts on every corner. Fortunately, Trader Joe’s and Shaw’s supermarkets are also plentiful and will help you to save your cash for the real fun at lunch and dinner.
In Cambridge, Bukowski’s Tavern is a fitting homage to the author from whom this dive bar takes its name. There’s a handsome selection of beers for every budget, but the real happy-hour draw here are $1.69 burgers and foot-long hot dogs if you arrive before 8 p.m. Fries will set you back another $1.10. It’s not the healthiest food, but hey, you’re in the nation’s Irish pub capital (and when in Rome . . . ). Irish charmer Matt Murphy also serves up more traditional fare (think: fish and chips and shepherd’s pie) to go with their Guinness. On the waterfront, the Barking Crab will fulfill the seafood quotient of Boston’s culinary scene and won’t leave you mortgaging your house for a fried clam roll or a bucket of steamer clams. The artsy Jamaica Plain hosts the renowned El Oriental de Cuba with popular and satisfying Cubano sandwiches for under $10. But, perhaps unsurprisingly, your best “nabe” for a smorgasbord of cheap eats is Chinatown, which ranges from the rock-bottom dim sum at Chau Chow City, to the too-good-for-this-price-range scallion pancakes at King Fung Garden, to the Malaysian specialties at Penang.
And if you’re looking for a true Bostonian experience, make sure you’re in town for the first Wednesday of the month when the merchandisers at legendary Faneuil Hall (a marketplace and meeting hall since 1742) offer free samples on this day from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. If scheduling leaves you in town at another time, there are still specials like $1 oysters at KingFish Hall (Sunday through Thursday from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. at the bar) that keep this place buzzing on the cheap year round. For seasonal promotions, check out FaneuilHallMarketplace.com.
Mass Art
Your top splurge this month may be a $29 ticket to Opera Boston’s Fidelio (October 22-26), starring Christine Goerke as Leonore and directed by the visionary Thaddeus Strassberger. However, you can supplement that 30 bucks with discount tickets to the city’s other classical offerings.
College students can get free tickets to the Boston Symphony Orchestra on select nights with the BSO College Card (see bso.org/collegecard for more details on purchasing a pass). Once you’re registered, you can get one free ticket—subject to availability—Tuesday through Saturday by visiting the BSO box office (on Massachusetts Avenue) on the day of the performance. A minimum of 100 tickets are available for each of the 25 concerts included in the scheme. If your college days have gone by, $9 cash can still get you a rush seat on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and Friday afternoons. Tickets are available at 5:00 p.m. for evening performances and 10:00 a.m. for afternoon performances. And, of course, there are always open rehearsals. The season opens this month with an all-Wagner program courtesy of (who else?) James Levine and Bryn Terfel and devotes most of October to Mahler’s symphonic world.
Students can also save big with Boston Lyric Opera, which offers a 50 percent discount on student tickets and the occasional open dress rehearsal pass (this spring, they present Handel’s Agrippina in a production borrowed from Glimmerglass and New York City Opera and conducted by keen Handelian Gary Thor Wedow and starring fast-rising countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo). The Boston Philharmonic sells $8 rush seats to students and seniors for each of its four concerts this season, and Collage New Music (whose single tickets are a mere $15) lets students in gratis. While as of press time their 2010-11 season had yet to be announced, you can join their mailing list to stay in the loop by e-mailing danny@collagenewmusic.org.
For the general public, the New England Conservatory features free student performances (about 100 annually at Jordan Hall). And on the early music front, tickets for Emmanuel Music—which has presented the complete cycle of Bach’s 200 cantatas twice and hosts guest artists like Mark Morris and Peter Sellars—are as low as $18. Boston Cecilia’s seats start at $15 and the Handel and Haydn Society can be seen for $25. Performances at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts can be a little pricier (MFA has student tickets for $24 and general admission for $30; ISGM lets adults in for $23 and students in for $10), but show off some of Boston’s brightest Baroque specialists.
