The real Boston?

Twenty one people were killed on Commercial Street in Boston’s North End on Jan. 15, 1919, when a tank of molasses ruptured and exploded. An eight-foot-high wave of the syrupy brown liquid moved down Commercial Street at 35 mph. Wreckage of the collapsed tank is visible in background, center, next to light -colored warehouse.

The original Dunkin’ Donuts store, in the Boston inner-suburb of Quincy.

“I guess no true Bostonian would trust a place that was sunny and pleasant all the time. But a gritty, perpetually cold and gloomy neighborhood? Throw in a couple of Dunkin’ Donuts locations, and I’m right at home.”

— Rick Riordan (born 1964), raised in Texas, this novelist now lives in Boston.