the old cow paths that the streets of Boston were carved out of (so I was told)

From the tearing down romantic, fun, interesting myths department:

The streets of Boston were not laid out according to cow paths. The city's layout is a fairly standard medieval one. The first two streets in Boston were King Street (now State) and High Street (now several names, including Columbus Av.). High St. ran along "the Neck", which was the thin strip of land connecting the near-island of the Shawmut penninsula (Downtown Boston) to the Dorchester Flats King St. intersected at a right angle and ran out to (and on to) the Long Wharf. Later streets were laid out parallel to High (particularly as the Neck was thickened through filling in the spaces between the numerous wharves) or King, but often curved to avoid the three hills that originally marked the pennisula (hence Tremont St.) or directly connected important sites in the city (the North End and the Common) or ran along the original coastline, but are now well inland (Atlantic Av.). Check out the site below for a wonderful collection of historic Boston maps. Check out the Composite Map, which clearly shows the city's vastly altered outlines.

http://www.mappingboston.com/html/explore.htm

The above was based on memories from a college course, so forgive me if I have some names wrong. I certainly won't argue that Boston is easy to get around (particularly by car), but there was some planning that went into it all, even if the results seem to adhere to only bovine logic.

EDIT: The link should work now, wow. Sorry for the error in the original posting (my first {url} tag!).