A Boston almanac

You still can have the sweetbreads at Locke-Ober, just as your great-grandfather did (if your great-grandfather was named Saltonstall). But you can also get a salad of strawberry papaya and lobster on Kentucky Bibb lettuce with poppy seed dressing.

''You wouldn't have seen that on the menu 50 years ago," says owner/chef Lydia Shire, who has spent the last three years updating what the natives call ''Lockobiz." ''But you see it now."

You can hear Haitian Creole on the Dudley bus now, too. There's a city councilor named Arroyo. And people in Codman Square and Uphams Corner say they live in Dorchester, not Dot.

Many of the icons that once symbolized Boston -- political, cultural, culinary -- are either vanishing, morphing, or being replaced. Half of the people living in Boston weren't here 10 years ago. They've probably never heard of longtime weatherman Don Kent or radio personality Jess Cain or School Committee member Pixie Palladino.

Boston Garden, the rickety, ratty arena, is long gone, replaced by a generic building practically devoid of personality. ''If someone were to knock down the FleetCenter and build a new arena, nobody would care," muses Larry Moulter, who oversaw the transition a decade ago. ''The teams aren't winning now. There's no tradition."

How many current residents of Boston's neighborhoods saw Bruin immortal Bobby Orr flying through the air as the Stanley Cup was won in 1970? Who saw Celtic star John Havlicek steal the ball? Nobody who moved here after former mayor Ray Flynn moved on to the Vatican.

''Maybe the sign that things are changing," says Paul Watanabe, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, ''is that [former mayor] Kevin White's daughter didn't make the cut in the City Council election."

The Boston pol has gone the way of the Boston Brahmin and the Bank of Boston. The Hub of the Universe is becoming just another branch town of New York. The New York Times owns The Boston Globe. Jordan Marsh, the quintessential Boston department store, has long since become Macy's, and the Rockettes have displaced the Nutcracker as the city's Christmas tradition. Next thing you know, they'll be putting tomatoes in the chowder.

That won't happen at Lockobiz, where you still can get JFK's Lobster Stew. But you can also order the chilled white corn soup with homemade ricotta and a drizzle of mille fiore honey.