Boston is an historic city of contrasts. Ancient red-brick sidewalks twist past handsome Federalist houses on the way to soaring glass towers housing state-of-the-art technology. The sports teams are the best loved and the most hated at one and the same time. Residents are fiercely protective of their neighborhoods and fiercely critical of the MBTA, the government and the weather. In the harbors of Boston lie both the majestic U.S.S. Constitution, still commissioned to fight America's battles, and scores of sleek white fiberglass pleasure boats.There are tiny restaurants tucked into rosy brick town houses on Beacon Hill and huge restaurants on the dizzying tops of skyscrapers in the downtown. Food ranges from the most radical of nouvelle chic to down-home Cajun. Boston is a diverse modern city of neighborhoods. From the North End to Bay Village, Back Bay to the South End, Jamaica Plain to Charlestown, the city shows its diversity of populations, of languages, of foods and philosophies. Immigrants from every corner of the globe have been welcomed by the city and re-shaped into Americans whose memories and customs enrich the community. Boston is a city where politics is everyone's hobby but sports are taken very seriously; where you can hear six different languages in Filene's Basement in one morning; where the world's largest record store and the stately dome of the Mother Church of Christian Science are in the same neighborhood, and where gilded stone lions and a towering 60-story wedge of glass comfortably rub shoulders. ,