{{Unreferenced, date=June 2019, bot=noref (GreenC bot)

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

's High Spine is an

architectural plan In architecture and building engineering, a floor plan is a technical drawing to scale, showing a view from above, of the relationships between rooms, spaces, traffic patterns, and other physical features at one level of a structure. Dimensio ...

ning design that arose in 1961, designed by the Committee of Civic Design, part of the

Boston Society of Architects One of the oldest and largest chapters of the AIA, the Boston Society of Architects (BSA) is a nonprofit membership organization committed to architecture, design and the built environment. History On June 20, 1867, approximately 50 architects co ...

. The basic idea of the High Spine is to create a string of

skyscrapers A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ri ...

that runs from Massachusetts Avenue to downtown, between Boylston Street on the north and Huntington Avenue and Columbus Avenue on the south. This path follows part of the

Massachusetts Turnpike The Massachusetts Turnpike (colloquially "Mass Pike" or "the Pike") is a toll highway in the US state of Massachusetts that is maintained by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT). The turnpike begins at the New York state li ...

that was extended along the

Boston and Albany Railroad The Boston and Albany Railroad was a railroad connecting Boston, Massachusetts to Albany, New York, later becoming part of the New York Central Railroad system, Conrail, and CSX Transportation. The line is currently used by CSX for freight. Pa ...

tracks and includes some former rail yards. Development here avoided disruption of pre-existing, historical communities and gave the city a distinctive skyline that acts as a visual reference for one's location within the city.

Buildings of the High Spine

Two peaks of the High Spine, the

John Hancock Tower 200 Clarendon Street, previously John Hancock Tower and colloquially known as The Hancock, is a 60-story, skyscraper in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston. It is the tallest building in New England. The tower was designed by Henry N. Cobb of ...

and the

Prudential Tower The Prudential Tower, also known as the Prudential Building or, colloquially, The Pru,subscription required'The Pru' everyone calls it: a resigned shrug of a name, as flat and uninflected as the wan moue its pronunciation requires." is an Inter ...

are found in Boston's

Back Bay Back Bay is an officially recognized neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, built on reclaimed land in the Charles River basin. Construction began in 1859, as the demand for luxury housing exceeded the availability in the city at the time, and t ...

between Massachusetts Avenue and Arlington Street. Others include

111 Huntington Avenue 111 Huntington Avenue is a Boston skyscraper. Located on Huntington Avenue, it is part of the Prudential Center complex that also houses the Prudential Tower. Completed in 2002, the tower is tall and houses 36 floors. It is Boston's tenth-tall ...

, 500 Boylston Street and the

Berkeley Building The Berkeley Building (also known as the Old John Hancock Building) is a 26-story, building located at 200 Berkeley Street, Boston, Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="n ...

, which are all visible from outside the city. Skyscrapers in Boston