Boston’s Kenmore Square is the conflux of streets that have long seemed to come together for one central purpose: to sweep passersby in the direction of Fenway Park, home of the Red Sox Nine, which is just over a rise that crosses the Mass Pike. Fans of rock & roll trivia know it for some non-sporty reasons. For more than 20 years, there was a club here called the Rathskeller—the Rat in local parlance—where scores of punk bands raged. The Beatles stayed at a hotel not far down the road on their final tour.
There is also a nondescript Pizzeria Uno housed in the Hotel Buckminster, an oblong building resembling a shoebox with curved ends. On the side of the street that most often remains in shade, heading toward Boston University, one finds a tiny placard informing those who elect to look—and I never have seen anyone do so—that this eatery used to be the jazz club Storyville.
