BOSTON – If you’re looking for a way to enjoy the outdoors, but at the same time break away from the usual routine, there’s just the place for you in a cemetery in Boston.

Where is Forest Hills Cemetery?

Tucked in a small area between Franklin Park and the Arnold Arboretum is the Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain.

The 275 acre parcel of land features manicured landscapes, beautiful structures, and rare works of art. Visitors are encouraged and free tours are given.

It’s a lovely place if you don’t mind the headstones.

Forest Hills Cemetery was founded in 1848 by Henry Dearborn. Back then, most cemeteries were for the rich and connected. Dearborn had a different vision. Initially, plots were given away at low or no cost to the working class. Over the years, it’s grown in size and scope.

Who is buried at Forest Hills Cemetery?

“Architecture, abolitionists, artists, just a wide variety of people of interest that are interred here,” cemetery director George Milley told WBZ-TV.

The cemetery features impressive sculptures, a half dozen from the designer of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

“We’re very fortunate. We have the largest collection of Daniel Chester French memorial sculptures in the country, we have 6 pieces,” Milley said.

The Dearborn Pavilion is a welcoming, landscaped area that features a stonework gazebo that attracts all sorts of people. It’s also an expansive mausoleum.   

“Many times we’ll come by and there will be people sitting underneath, reading or having a coffee. On occasion we’ll have kids’ groups playing instruments under there,” Milley said.

The girl in the glass

There are more haunting attractions at the cemetery, like the “girl in the glass.”

“Upon her passing, the family commissioned a local sculptor to sculpt a full-size likeness of her in marble,” Milley told WBZ.

From creepy to inspirational, there’s a little of everything at Forest Hills. Boston College graduates will recognize an eagle sculpture atop a headstone that was the basis for the golden sculpture that greets visitors by the main entrance on campus. There are also highly symbolic pieces like the Fireman’s Lot which is the location for an annual memorial service.

Tours are offered during the warmer months and visitors are asked to respect the grounds. Dogs and bicycles are not allowed. For more information, go to the cemetery’s website.

WINCHESTER — As the regular season dwindles down to its final days, the Newton North boys volleyball team keeps making its case as the bona fide favorite in the Div. 1 state title race.

Despite losing the first set while missing head coach Nile Fox on the sidelines, the No. 1 Tigers (17-2) handled business as usual Wednesday night with yet another signature win — this time via a 3-1 (21-25, 25-17, 25-21, 25-18) nonleague victory over No. 7 Winchester (15-4).

Adam Christianson led the way with 20 kills, 15 assists and three blocks, pacing an otherwise well-balanced effort that saw several others carve out high-impact roles.

The win comes in assistant coach Claire MacIntosh’s debut leading the varsity team’s sideline, giving Newton North 11 straight wins and its fifth win over a top-six team in the latest MIAA Div. 1 power rankings.

“We didn’t play the best, we got it done thankfully, but it was ugly,” MacIntosh said, before getting into the mentality without Fox there. “I think the guys know what they need to do. They’re all smart, they all understand volleyball. They know the plan, and what they don’t know, I can supply.”

The Red and Black came out on fire and energized in the opening set, using contributions from premier hitter Jamie Watt (13 kills, two blocks), Adam Lubomirski (33 assists), Tuto Sampaio (10 kills) and middle Kirk Levesque (six kills, five blocks) to edge out a 25-21 win.

But Newton North responded fast with a 5-0 start to the second set and didn’t look back from there.

Christianson posted seven of his kills in the frame to help keep the Red and Black at an arm’s length the whole way. Simon Vardeh (15 kills, three aces) closed out the win with an ace while Paul Nelson posted both of his blocks and two of his four kills in the 25-17 frame.

Winchester matched Newton North with side-out volleyball in stretches of the third and fourth sets, but a collection of mini-runs from the Tigers boosted them to close out each one.

Joaquin Cuevas-Torres (26 assists) helped Christianson cook for four kills in the third set to turn an 18-17 lead into 23-20.

Sam Huang (seven kills, five blocks) heated up with a kill and block to finish off a 25-21 win in the third, before catching fire in the middle of the fourth for a 14-9 lead. Nelson, Christianson, Peter Reale (four kills, two blocks), Huang, Vardeh and Amaris Cotto all notched points from there to hold off a couple Winchester charges for a 25-18 win and the match.

That included a 4-1 run that built up the lead to 20-15 as the Red and Black hung around.

Middles have been featured a lot lately in the attack, but Newton North approached this one a bit different.

“Winchester has one really good middle, (Levesque), who we just decided we can’t go at,” MacIntosh said. “With (Watt) being so big also and helping on the middle on every ball, we just thought it was better to go to the outsides a lot of the time.”

Newton North libero Brady Dwyer also played well while dishing six assists.

With just Milford left on the schedule (Friday) before taking on the state tournament, the Tigers are well aware of the challenge ahead.

Their 11th straight win shows they can handle the task.

“I think the biggest difference between this year and last year is that we know going into the tournament we’re the team to beat,” MacIntosh said. “We have the target on our backs. Last year it was Needham, it’s been Needham for four years. I think now we know it’s us, every team wants to take us down. Every time we show up to a gym, the other team is going to give us their best. I think we’re really stepping up to the pressure.”

Whose city is it? As he wrapped up a recent rally to protest Boston’s ban on outdoor street dining in the North End, restaurant owner Jorge Mendoza described Mayor Michelle Wu as an out-of-touch out-of-towner “who wants to tell the rest of us how to live in our city.”

“This is not her city. This is our city. The citizens of Boston. And those citizens of Boston are tired of being pushed around by the Chicago political mob,” said Mendoza, taking a rude jab at Wu via her hometown.

Outsider vs. insider. New Boston vs. old. If Wu, the first woman and person of color elected to the mayor’s office, runs for a second term in 2025 and faces a challenger, those classic themes of Boston politics will surely get a reboot.

Mendoza and his family migrated from Argentina to the North End in 1984, so he is not a native Bostonian. Yet he still felt welcome to tap into the outsider/insider mentality that has shaped Boston’s culture and politics for centuries. Sometimes, it unites Boston. Remember the rallying cry of Red Sox slugger David Ortiz after the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013? “This is our f***ing city.” But too often, that us against them mind-set divides people along ethnic, racial, and religious lines.

Portraying Wu — who came to Boston to attend Harvard University — as an outsider is not new. In the 2021 mayoral race, Annissa Essaibi George tried to make ownership of a Boston accent an asset. Wu won that contest with over 64 percent of the vote. With her decisive victory came a progressive agenda of social and economic justice, one that critics now boil down to an over-abundance of bike and bus lanes and a controversial proposal to temporarily increase the commercial property tax rate.

Last summer, notice of a fund-raiser for then-City Council President Ed Flynn that was sent from the office of public relations executive George Regan referenced a mission to “save” the city from “the negative impacts of the ultra-progressive policies” that “dominate” the current administration in Boston City Hall. At the time, that fund-raiser also looked like a possible mayoral trial balloon by Flynn, a city councilor from South Boston and the son of former mayor Ray Flynn. However, Ed Flynn recently told the Boston Herald that he’s not planning such a run. His denial came after a North End appearance with three of the restaurant owners, represented by Regan’s firm, who are suing the city and Wu over the outdoor dining ban.

The latest rumors about a possible challenge to Wu focus on the younger son of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, Josh Kraft, who told the Globe’s Niki Griswold he’s “looking at a lot of opportunities now.” Where Josh Kraft stands on the political spectrum is unknown, since he has never run for office. But with his family name and money, he represents old Boston power with a new, younger twist. Through his philanthropy, Kraft also has strong ties to the city’s diverse nonprofit community.

To his potential advantage, it is in communities of color that Wu has faced challenges, from her plan to move the John D. O’Bryant School from Roxbury to the predominately white neighborhood of West Roxbury to her plan to redevelop White Stadium in partnership with a women’s professional soccer team. Wu rolled out both proposals without first getting buy-in from people affected by them. She backed off from the O’Bryant plan and faces a lawsuit regarding White Stadium. With both, she has given critics another chance to frame her as a mayor who, as Mendoza put it at that North End rally, “wants to tell the rest of us how to live in our city.”

Wu’s battle with the North End restaurant owners is a microcosm of her own “us vs. them” attitude. For sure, the restaurant owners are a loud and raucous bunch who have been holding weekly rallies to bring attention to their cause. The lawsuit they filed in federal court charges the Wu administration with “unequal, unfair and discriminatory treatment of Italian restaurants in Boston’s North End.” The city filed a motion to dismiss, and while the case is pending, Wu has said she can’t talk to the restaurant owners. So the strategy is to ignore them — or needle them.

For example, on her recent trip to Italy to meet with the pope, Wu visited the Italian city of Sulmona, which a press release from her office identified as “a town with strong ties through immigration to Boston’s North End.” That led to another North End rally, with restaurant owners noting that Wu had visited a place that celebrated outdoor dining. That in turn led Wu to tell GBH News that she “didn’t see a single example of a street in Italy with the outdoor dining set up that the litigants are pushing.”

To Wu, those restaurant owners, who surely love Boston as much as she does, are simply “the litigants.” New Boston, same old divide — unless she reaches across it.

Joan Vennochi is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at joan.vennochi@globe.com. Follow her @joan_vennochi.