Commonwealth Ave, Allston Brighton

Comm Ave is the possibly the longest thoroughfare and the hardest to "categorize". If you're really close to downtown Boston (like in the Back Bay part of Comm Ave), it's a nice, upscale address. But once you pass Kenmore Square (aka BU-zone) and are following the B train to the preppy, bro hell that is Boston College, you have passed into student-land. Most of Boston's students live on this road, especially in Allston and Brighton, because of the low rent+high quality & affordable dining+affordable parking, etc. Comm Ave's character changes depending on the neighborhood it's passing through (gritty hipsterville in Allston, then fratty college town + semi-suburbia in Brighton and Newton for example), but it has always been a crowded, lively long road full of students and young professionals. The girls behind the Game of Thrones cookbook, Inn at the Crossroads, live here. Aerosmith wrote their first song while living at 1325 Commonwealth Ave. There are kids from Harvard, MIT, Boston College,Boston University, the Berklee School of Music, The Art Institute, Emerson College, Suffolk University, Northeastern, New England Conservatory, and many others here.

For all of its problems - really shitty old buildings, nasty sidewalks, and occasionally terrible traffic - Comm Ave is an extremely fun place to live if you're young and single. It's not a place to raise the kids.

Comm. Ave in Boston is a funny sort of street. When you're downtown, right where Comm starts, it's one of the toniest places in town to live (if you live around the 300s, one of your neighbors is the Harvard Club of Boston. Yeah.). Even before I could put it at the end of my address line, I simply adored walking down the green boulevard in the middle of Comm, admiring the statues and the beautiful brick residences. Now, when you move into the 1900s and up, where I call home, it's not exactly the same picture of class, but definitely can boast as much if not more character. The location is great-the B train is right outside your door, and you're never far from the C or D. You have food and shopping always nearby, even if you don't have a car (though it really helps here). You do have BC in your backyard, which can be annoying, funny, or both-my favorite example is when I woke up at 3 in the morning to a group of BC gents scream-singing the "Kars-for-Kids" jingle from the radio. This may be a deterrent for young families or the older set, but if you're a young professional single or couple, this is a place you can afford to enjoy the real Boston: part-college town, part-swanky metro, part-working class town, all home. Plus, you get a different pizza delivery menu in your mailbox every week-there's no better way to enjoy a slice of Beantown.