In this book, which covers not only downtown Boston but its outlying districts and its neighboring towns, are hardware stores, bookshops, tobacconists, fishmongers, grocers – what is said to be the nation’s oldest family-run barber shop. There are shoe companies and flag companies and locksmiths, florists and bakeries and clothing stores, art galleries and music stores. Founded by Puritans as it was, Boston has always taken its social obligations seriously and among its long-standing enterprises are an animal hospital and a thrift shop for those in need.
      Through the years, immigrants from many lands have settled in the city and established their own communities. Often restaurants and bakeries are in first and second-generation Italian hands; taverns and stone-cutting yards are Irish-American-owned; clothing stores owned by the descendants of Jewish immigrants.
From its very beginning in 1630, Boston was a bustling port with energetic tradespeople clustered around its docks. In 1996, conscious of this enterprising past, the city inaugurated a Boston Business Heritage Project that pinpointed city businesses that had existed and prospered down through the centuries. Some were 200 years old; some 150, some 100.  Nearly 200 were found that were more than a century old. Not all of these have survived in this last decade, but many have, and in this book their histories are recounted.

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