On a recent visit, I spotted this pub. Boston is famously a Puritan town. Would the Puritan founders have been outraged by the pseudo-paganism of a shop being called "River Gods" or something similar? How about during the great awakening, or other religious revivals? Did neo-classical trends make it more acceptable? Or is this kind of name the sort of thing that has only become acceptable in modern times?
It's been acceptable since at least 1998, when River Gods opened. Best place to eat a kimchi taco while feeling like you're in Carcosa.
http://www.masslandrecords.com/MiddlesexSouth/ImageViewerEx.aspx BK: 35527 PG: 353
Seriously however, while Boston has a historic reputation for propriety, now it only rears its head in strange blue laws like the massively unpopular happy hour ban. Cambridge has a well-deserved reputation of being even more liberal than Boston. There's nothning even close to an actual societal undercurrent demanding a return to Victorian mores beyond bitter blue hairs on Beacon Hill and their letters to the editor. Obviously there's no one discrete event that "opened up" Boston from its staid past, but the events of the 1960's and 1970's on culture had much the same effect here as everywhere else.
For further reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_Zone,_Boston