Modern Pastry

The North End of Boston has pretty much become a theme park, compared to what it was when we lived on Beacon Hill in the late 1960s. But then, it seems like that has become the case with a lot of Boston neighborhoods.

Even though Meyer's Meat Market on Salem Street, where Harold the butcher knew exactly the cuts of meat we liked, is long gone, there are flashes of the old North End still there to see if you know where to look for them. 

Modern Pastry, for example. 

Established in 1930, it was named "Modern" because it differed in certain ways from the traditional home-made pastries that the first wave of Italian immigrants brought with them from the old country. It was "modern" in the context of its times - the midst of the Great Depression. The first American generation were transforming the "old ways" of pastry-making and selling, and this bakery on Hanover Street was the showcase for it.