The Boston mayoral shelter is a pre-War location in 2287, created to shelter the former mayor of Boston, and his family.
Layout
The entrance to the shelter consists of a bunker and a control room to the immediate north of the bunker. In front of the bunker is a digger with a door lying in front of it, linked to its bucket by cables. This used to be the door to the bunker but was pulled off by the angry mob trying to get in. The bunker entrance has many skeletons in it, with two that appear to have been guards and the rest possibly part of the mob. The door to the shelter is controlled by a terminal in a security building just to the north of the entrance.
The shelter itself consists of multiple layers including a gym, sleeping quarters, and a maintenance room with a crafting bench and armor crafting station. Initially the door will be locked and the Sole Survivor must activate an unlocked terminal in the nearby control room.
While in the bunker, several holodisks can be found documenting the stay in the bunker itself. From the moment they entered the bunker, the mayor and his wife address their concerns about the food stock and if they're able to survive the initial eighty days after the bombs dropped. As the Sole Survivor wanders deeper into the bunker, the remains of the wife and child can be found in the maintenance room, indicating their unfortunate demise.
It is made apparent to the player that the mayor was extremely corrupt. As the player goes further down into the structure, there are holotapes confirming that he had constructed a luxurious nuclear shelter at the tax payers' expense, answering to his wife's every demand, such as a minibar, a fireplace, a home theater, and even a full-sized gym, while many people were simply left for dead outside. After the bombs fell, a mob of angry citizens gathered outside the shelter, demanding entrance and blood. It is learned through a holotape that the mayor committed suicide, apparently by dropping a radio into the bathtub with himself. His goal was to have his wife produce his corpse to placate the angry crowd, in hopes they would spare her and his child. However, the crowd stormed the shelter before she even knew of his demise. They killed all the guards, and finally slaughtered both her and the child.
There is a button upstairs in the gym that unlocks a shortcut back to the entrance. Alternatively, the player can take a right turn when exiting the elevator (gas leak) and use a pipe to traverse to the lower level.
When the player enters the shelter the only hostiles at first will be the three laser turrets. As soon as the player sets foot in the gym, synths will appear throughout the shelter and occupy it. If not friendly with the Institute, one can fight through all of them back to the entrance or bypass a majority of them with the pipe in the gym. Entering the rough tunnel through the southwest corner of the gym will cause a deathclaw to enter through a hole in the ceiling as the player approaches the light.
Notable loot
- Astoundingly Awesome Tales #1 (+1 HP/minute), found in the room just past the bathroom containing the mayor's skeleton at the end of the hallway. It is in the same room as a safe, on a small table next to the bed.
- Boston shelter - mayor's goodbye holotape in the locked bathroom mentioned above.
- Fat Man, found in the cave branching off from the gym. Approaching the Fat Man will trigger the spawning of a leveled deathclaw and it is recommended that the player character be ready to deal with it in close quarters, though it will not follow through small apertures, e.g. the pipe.
- Boston mayoral shelter safe key - in a suitcase found in a storage room upstairs. Opens a safe.
- Boston mayoral shelter bathroom key - in a dresser next to a terminal, same level as the bathroom. Opens bathroom door. Another copy is in one of the houses of the West Everett Estates, in a dresser next to a crib.
- Boston shelter - where are you? in the utility room off the gym, near the skeleton of the mayor's wife.
- Fusion core in a generator in the utility room off the gym - the same room as the Boston shelter - where are you? mentioned above.
- Stealth Boy, in the tunnel leading to the entrance of the shelter. Look to the right for a skeleton of a soldier inside a small dead end corner.
- Overdue book, in the kids' room just east of the mayor's bedroom.
- Mr. Gutsy model kit, in the same room as the overdue book.
- Bottlecap mine at a dead end behind a cymbal monkey, toward the end of the long red pipe tunnel that serves as an alternate entrance to the gym.
- Boston shelter - guard update holotape. Found in the room with the terminal (master difficulty) locked security cage.
- Mini nuke in the room with the mayor's wife's skeleton, on the shelf of the wall mounted cabinet next to Weapons workbench.
- Eight baseballs, a large number of baseball gloves, and basketballs, can be found in the gym, along with miscellaneous other sporting-related items.
Related quests
- Learning Curve - This is one of the locations where you need to escort a scribe of the Brotherhood.
Notes
- The laser turrets, for some reason, shoot the blue beams of Institute-affiliated weaponry instead of the usual red ones. While this may serve as subtle foreshadowing to what awaits the Sole Survivor if they delve too deep into the bunker, it remains unclear how Institute laser tech found its way into a pre-War installation centuries before its time. It is also never made clear why the Institute forces show up at the shelter in the first place.
- The synths spawn regardless of whether the Institute is still active or not, making their origin and their purpose even more of a mystery.
- A teddy bear can be found in the children's bedroom with wooden blocks next to it spelling "I AM D".
Appearances
The Boston mayoral shelter only appears in Fallout 4.
Behind the scenes
 | The following is based on unverified behind the scenes information and may be inaccurate. |
|---|
The shelter may be based on the Massachusetts State Emergency Operations Center [1], located in the same approximate location (next to Natick). It is a Cold War era bunker designed to withstand the blast from a potential nearby nuclear detonation. It's still in use as the headquarters of the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency located in Framingham.
| End of information based on unverified behind the scenes information |
|---|
Gallery
