Boston is awash in tourism “trails,’’ such as the Freedom Trail, the Women’s Heritage Trail, and so on. Just recently, Emerson College journalism professor Manny Paraschos created the Boston Journalism Trail, celebrating his contention that “Boston is the birthplace of American journalism.’’
It may well be. Our first newspaper, Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick, started publishing in 1690. Paraschos’s trail escorts us past the original site of America’s oldest continuously published English language Jewish newspaper, the Jewish Advocate, and of course along downtown’s Newspaper Row, once home to 13 newspapers, depending on who is counting.
Yet there is a reason that journalism history cannot be left to the professorate. Where, for instance, is Dave Farrell’s table at Anthony’s Pier 4, where the veteran Herald and Globe columnist held court? Or George Higgins’s spot at Locke-Ober, where the novelist (“The Friends of Eddie Coyle’’) and newspaperman always welcomed guests willing to pay a tab?
I would add a few more stops to the Journalism Trail, beginning perhaps . . .
At Howard Matheson’s house in Stoneham, just off Interstate 93, where Globe reporter Peter Gosselin knocked on the door in February 1985 and said: “I need to use a bathroom.’’ Gosselin relieved himself and then grilled Matheson on his career as head teller at Bank of Boston’s North End branch, the first step toward unveiling a complicated money-laundering scandal.
From Stoneham, we plunge into Cambridge, to the Harvard Square Theater, where, for good or ill, a young Brandeis graduate named Jon Landau wrote of a rocker he liked, a lot: “I have seen rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen.’’
Now we take a short walk to 929 Massachusetts Ave., home to the famous Real Paper, which may have spawned more A-list journalistic talent than the Columbia Journalism School. Landau worked there, as did Joe Klein, David Ansen, Stephen Schiff, David Thomson, and a host of other notables.
Staying on Mass. Ave., we cross the river to the former site of the Eliot Lounge, now a luxury hotel. As the after-hours headquarters of the Boston Phoenix, the Eliot attracted a motley crew of visitors, including golfer Fuzzy Zoeller, pianist Dave McKenna, and the Stanford University marching band, with cheerleaders. The visiting band serenaded the hard-working journalists with their rendition of “Truckin’ ’’ and “White Punks on Dope.’’
Yes, we should stop in at One Norway St., headquarters of the Christian Science Monitor, to see if they still have my 1976 job application on file, but let’s head instead for Lansdowne Street, where the Citi nightclub used to be. That’s where longtime Herald gossip hound Norma Nathan scaldingly dumped a cup of coffee into the lap of Phoenix editor Richard Gaines. The two pursued a long-running, hilarious feud, with the Phoenix prissily correcting errors in Nathan’s copy, while Nathan riposted with occasional items about the “Boston Feenix - did I spell it right?’’
Now to the South End, say, 3 Appleton St., to take a gander at the Icarus restaurant. That’s where New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Globe publisher Ben Taylor gobbled an amicable dinner in the spring of 1993 that helped smooth the way for the Times’s takeover of this newspaper. The rest, as they say, is history.
Over there . . . it’s J.J. Foley’s! Talk about a combustible mix: Cheap alcohol + underpaid Boston Herald hacks = rambunctious behavior. Let’s see . . . the Metro reporter dancing on the table; the aspiring job applicant who bit the late Globe editor Kirk Scharfenberg during an argument, and Howie Carr’s successful insistence that gubernatorial aspirant/slummer extraordinaire Bill Weld play “whip out’’ - that is, fish out his wallet and stand some rounds for the thirsty tabloid hacks.
OK, my knees are a bit wobbly, but I think I can make it to the next stop, 77 North Washington St. in the North End. Lots of history here. This is where Atlantic magazine owner David Bradley assured a New York Times reporter in 1999 that he had no plans to relocate the venerable Boston institution to Washington, D.C. Six years later, he did.
That same building briefly housed the Worst Magazine Ever Published, the doomed, idiotic “02138,’’ the glossy lovechild of Vanity Fair and the Harvard alumni magazine, chronicling the graduates of the World’s Greatest University. 02138 attracted financing from Bradley before expiring like a dead dog on a hot pavement.
But you can’t leave the premises without paying homage to the former home of Fast Company magazine, a so-so rag that made journalism history when German mediaites Gruner + Jahr overpaid a whopping $350 million for FC in 2000. Five years later, G + J abandoned the US magazine business. Auf Wiedersehen!
From North Washington Street, it’s not far to India Wharf, home to Inc., one of Boston’s most successful magazines, ever. Founded by serial entrepreneur Bernie Goldhirsh, Inc. paid well, treated its employees decently, and was conveniently located near the mooring of the Sans Serif, Goldhirsh’s yacht.
I hope you have enjoyed your tour, and don’t ignore the tip jar when you leave the bus.
Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com. 
