LADDER DISTRICT
Stepping Up
The candied redolence of honey-roasted peanuts floats into the urban breeze at Downtown Crossing near the famous Filene's Basement department store. Pushcart vendors lure hungry pedestrians with Italian sausages, burritos and steaming fried dough. A street musician plays a percussive empty-bucket sonata in front of Macy's. The flurry of humanity here is as diverse and spirited as anywhere else in the city. A couple of blocks away on shadowed West Street, writers, readers and curious passersby thumb through used books on discount racks outside the Brattle Book Shop, one of the oldest bookstores in the country. High above within a slate-tinted glass tower, someone is enjoying the royal treatment at the new Ritz-Carlton hotel-the proverbial top of the ladder. Actually, such a proverb is still in-the-making, as Boston's newest Old Neighborhood, The Ladder District, is enjoying a swift revitalizing boom that has shifted affections in this city.