If you commute to Boston by way of the Maverick Square T station, then you know how much has changed in the past few years.
First, there is the square itself – robust, alive, different, with numerous businesses and plenty of human activity that is all within proper scale for the place.
Everything about the square feels active and for the most part friendly.
The T station gives the square a reason to exist.
Upstairs at the street level it shines with stainless steel, broad swaths of curved glass and the architectural feel of a modern, open, inviting urban space.
Forget that it is a T station for a moment.
In its mass, it evokes a soaring, clean modern appearance with a friendly, inviting, openness that was never present in the square with the old station.
Inside the station is another success story.
The interior space is clean and strong, everything is made of mortar and steel, glass and cement.
It is lit properly – not too bright and it is spacious and appealing, and above all, it is kept immaculately.
The Maverick Square transit experience is as changed an experience as anything East Boston has to offer in the way of new accoutrement.
Around the new station the new Burger King highlights the resurgence of the square as a major place worthy of a second look.
It is as appealing a Burger King as one will ever set their eyes upon and mixes well with the new retail spaces popping up in the square.
What makes the square so special in this new era that is upon it are the people transiting through it.
It remains a United Nations of sorts, with people from all over the world coming and going.
It is easy to spot the faces of the new urban pioneers, the newest generation of young people willing to experiment with their lives by moving here because they enjoy the city without having to be in the middle of it.
This is what makes Maverick Square such a hopeful place these days.
All those new faces coming here, enjoying the place, taking a stake in it, and carving out a new future for East Boston is all part of the new Maverick Square.
There is something inviting about it that never existed before.