Boston's Secret Places

Tucked between Beacon Street and Amory Playground in Brookline, Hall's Pond Sanctuary protects one of only two natural ponds remaining in the town, surrounded by a short loop trail, a formal garden, and genuinely dense foliage for an urban setting.

The Town of Brookline's own Conservation Commission maintains it as a free public sanctuary, open to walkers year-round, with a good chance of spotting birds and other wildlife rarely seen this close to downtown Boston.

The sanctuary reopened in June 2026 after a round of path and boardwalk renovations that added universal access, so the loop trail is now easier to navigate than in years past.

Set within the Back Bay Fens — part of Frederick Law Olmsted's famous Emerald Necklace park system — the Kelleher Rose Garden holds more than 1,500 rose plants across over 200 varieties, laid out behind a tall green yew hedge in a formal 1930s landscape style.

Stone-dust pathways wind past statues, a fountain, and arched trellises, with benches positioned throughout for anyone who wants to simply sit among the roses rather than just walk through.

The Emerald Necklace Conservancy, together with the City of Boston, maintains the garden and runs a weekly volunteer session called 'Tuesdays with Roses' through the summer growing season.

Inside the Mary Baker Eddy Library's Christian Science Center, a three-story stained-glass globe lets visitors walk on a bridge straight through its center, standing inside the Earth itself rather than looking at it from outside.

Built in 1935, the globe's political borders were never updated — so the countries, colonies, and borders you see are frozen exactly as they stood before World War II, making it as much a historical time capsule as an architectural curiosity.

An included audio tour plays as you cross the bridge, and the surrounding exhibits explore how sound behaves strangely inside a perfectly spherical room — whispers on one side of the globe can be heard clearly on the opposite side.