The Charlestown Ferry: Ten Minutes Across the Harbor, a World Apart
The MBTA's little boat between Long Wharf and the Navy Yard may be the most pleasant commute in Boston — and one of the oldest harbor crossings in the country.
Every city has a commute it secretly loves, and Boston's floats. The ferry between Long Wharf downtown and the Charlestown Navy Yard crosses Boston Harbor in about ten minutes, trading the Red Line's tunnels for gulls, skyline and whatever weather the harbor is serving that morning.
The route, run for the MBTA, connects downtown to one of Boston's most historic neighborhoods. Riders step off at the Navy Yard within sight of the USS Constitution, the world's oldest commissioned warship still afloat, and a short walk from Bunker Hill. In the other direction, the boat delivers passengers to the edge of the Financial District and the New England Aquarium.
Ferries are the romantic branch of the MBTA, but they are working transit: the Charlestown boat runs through the year, in cold that keeps the harbor steaming and in summer crowds headed for harbor tours. Regulars time their mornings to it the way subway riders time a train, coffee in hand, watching the skyline do its slow turn across the bow.
The crossing is also a history lesson hiding in plain sight. Ferries stitched this harbor together long before tunnels and bridges did, and the Navy Yard run keeps a version of that older Boston alive — a working waterfront you can still ride for the price of a transit fare.
If you have never taken it, November is a fine time: bundle up, stand at the rail, and watch downtown grow out of the gray water. Ten minutes is all it takes to remember that Boston is a port first and everything else second.
