Harborwalk to the Seaport

New England Aquarium

A free outdoor tank of Atlantic harbor seals at the edge of Central Wharf, in front of Boston's big 1969 aquarium.

You're standing at the edge of Central Wharf, where Boston's working waterfront runs head-on into the Harborwalk. The big concrete aquarium behind you opened in 1969, but its most public exhibit is out here, outside the building. This open tank holds about 42,000 gallons of cold harbor water and five Atlantic harbor seals. Watch them for a minute.

They haul out onto the rocks, slide back in, and sometimes press a nose against the glass inches from the sidewalk. The tank is free and open all day, so you can come back after dark. Some of these seals descend from animals rescued off the New England coast, and two of them, Amelia and Trumpet, were born here in 1985. Wild harbor seals rarely live past twenty-five years; these two turned forty in 2025.

Boston Harbor was a dumping ground for much of the twentieth century, and cleaning it up became a local cause. A new treatment plant cut the harbor's pollution by about 85 percent, and the wild seal population came back with it.

Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum

Replica tea ships on the Congress Street Bridge, over the same water where the tea was dumped in 1773.

You're standing on the Congress Street Bridge, halfway across the Fort Point Channel, and the museum's replica ships are tied up beside you. This is the water where Griffin's Wharf once stood, and where, on the night of December 16, 1773, Bostonians dumped the East India Company's tea over the side to protest the tax. The museum sits where the old bridge tender's house used to be; it opened in 1973, and a lightning fire in 2001 and a welding fire in 2007 forced the version you see now, which reopened in 2012. Inside, costumed interpreters put you in the crowd, and you can toss a crate over the rail into the channel.

The bridge under your feet is a bascule bridge from 1930, with a lifting span that has been welded shut since the 1970s. Its designer, Joseph Strauss, also drew the Golden Gate Bridge. In the museum, look for the Robinson Tea Chest, the only known surviving chest from the night itself. When you're ready, cross to the Seaport side.