Navigating through the North End can often make this neighborhood feel like the Prague of Boston — narrow streets laden in antiquity. Tracing the history of these streets can often reveal less-known stories that coincide with the advent of days like today.
Valentine’s Day calls upon the opportunity to share the nomenclature of Love Lane, otherwise known as Tileston Street.
“Tileston Street is the Love Lane of our ancestors, not from the Love Deity,– else we may believe it would have been the favorite resort of the North End damsels and their lorn swains. It was named from the Love Family, who owned most of the street. Mrs. Susannah Love sold the ground on which the Eliot School was built, and the name of the lane was changed about 1820, for good old Master John Tileston of that school. Master Tileston presided over the school for two thirds of a century.” (Old Landmarks and Historic Personages of Boston by Samuel Adams Drake).
