Head to Draw Seven Park and you'll surely think your directions can't be right. This state-run DCR park is hidden behind Assembly Square Mall at the end of pot-hole-ridden Foley St., which you have to follow behind the hulking Central Steel Supply Company and through a train underpass. But once there, you'll find striking urban views of the Mystic River framed by the Amelia Earhart Dam, bridges and distant smoke stacks.
The 9-acre park is popular with the local fishing crowd, and also offers two soccer fields, a picnic shelter and just two benches, which is why you'll see regulars in their own beach chairs. The terminus of the Mystic River Bike Path also runs the length of the park and heads west into Medford (ultimately linking to the Minuteman Bikeway to Bedford).
Named for the old Number Seven railroad drawbridge that once crossed the Mystic here, the park today now abuts the MBTA Orange Line and Commuter Rail tracks. Despite the rumbling trains, the park can feel quite isolated--enough so that graffiti taggers have left their mark here.