BOSTON--I began my trek to the South End last Friday in search of the Three Choir Festival at the Immaculate Conception Church. Originally, I had hoped the South End journey would offer a chance to glimpse the distinctive architecture of the buildings and churches of Columbus Ave. and Brookline Street.

But by the end of the night, I was sitting in a Salvation Army shelter--a long way from the Immaculate Conception Church and even farther from quaint architecture.

Hitting the Streets

A broad area that changes like quicksilver, the South End has a disorienting effect. In the same city block, grand apartment houses overshadow ramshackle convenience stores.

The area stretches southwest from the Theater District and westward along the Mass Pike until Copley Square. The "Emerald Necklace" laid out by Frederick Law Olmsted, Class of 1894, borders it on the west. Its southern border is less distinct, eventually melting into northern Roxbury along an ambiguous dividing line.

Regardless, no bright sign heralds the neighborhood as "Boston's Heart and Soul," like the sign at the entrance to the North End.

In fact, though it is one of Boston's nicer areas, parts of the South End are routinely forgotten.

As I exited the Back Bay T station, the curious orange glow of sodium lamps guided the path. A warm mist gathersedaround the Mass. Pike, a bifurcating behemoth as visually jarring as I-93. Streets narrowed and warehouses multiplied. Combined with the dim lighting, the northeastern segment of the South End looked eerily like Gotham City.

Despite my confidence in the directions that I had to the Immaculate Conception Church, I soon discovered that they were wrong.

Tremont Street made a nasty cut to the southwest and as I continued along Shawmut Drive. I stepped out of swanky brownstone-lined streets.

I was soon lost, caught out of sight of any T Stop, the church or any recognizable landmark.

Continuing on Shawmut Drive and getting more and more lost, I soon realized I needed help.

A Light in the Darkness

Around a corner, a Baptist church rose between the buildings, and the Salvation Army came to the rescue.

Leroy, a man in his thirties wearing a Yankees cap and a down coat, sat inside the building at 407 Shawmut Drive.

Along with other volunteers, he tended to those who stop by the Salvation Army's Harbor Light Center.

Volunteer nurses were present to administer free medical exams to visitors (who are almost always homeless, according to Leroy). Other volunteers instructed the guests in the center's rules.

Many come to the center because they are young and unemployed. Women occasionally arrive to seek shelter from domestic abuse, while children, turned out from home, seek refuge from the damp Friday night streets.

Harbor Light Center provides beds and clean linens and it also helps to provide meals.

Harbor Light's mission is difficult to fulfill, and its codes of conduct are strictly enforced.

But what is apparent is that it is trying to make a difference in its community.

Although I began the evening in search of a church, three choirs and a little history, by evening's end, I had discovered a shelter that was a compassionate outpost of humanity.

South End, like all of Boston, is experiencing growth and rebirth.

In its transition state, however, the community is not letting anyone be forgotten.

Without the staff of the Salvation Army, the South End would be missing a piece of its humanity.