Mission Hill, Boston, Massachusetts

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Mission Hill is a neighborhood of approximately 18,000 people in Boston, Massachusetts roughly bounded by Columbus Avenue and Roxbury to the south, Huntington Avenue to the east, and Riverway/Jamaicaway and the town of Brookline and the Boston neighborhood Jamaica Plain to the northwest and southwest respectively. It is served by the MBTA Green Line E Branch and the Orange Line and is within walking distance of the Museum of Fine Arts and the Longwood Medical and Academic Area.

Due to these adjacenies, the neighborhood is often struggling with institutional growth taking residential buildings and occupying storefront commercial space. But recent years have seen new retail stores, restaurants and residential development giving the neighborhood a stronger political voice and identity.

Mission Hill is an architectural landmark district with a combination of freestanding houses built by early wealthy landowners, blocks of traditional brick rowhouses, and many triple deckers. Many are condominiums, but there are also some single-family homes.

Up until the late 19th century, much of the area was an orchard and puddingstone quarry with large swaths owned by merchants Franklin G. Dexter, Warren Fisher and Fredrick Ames. By the early 1900s, the hill was covered in triple-deckers. The neighborhood was also home to most of the breweries in Boston, many of which are now converted into loft condominiums.

1 Geography
2 History
3 Notable Residents, Past and Present
4 Neighborhood Groups (external links)
5 Newspapers
6 MBTA Subway Stops

[edit] Geography

The neighborhood has two main commercial streets: Tremont Street (running north and south) and Huntington Ave. (running east and west). Both have several small restaurants and shops.

Parker Hill, Roxbury Crossing, the Triangle District, Back of The Hill and Calumet Square are areas within the Mission Hill neighborhood, an official designated neighborhood in Boston (as attested by numerous signs prohibiting parking without a sticker which can be purchased only by residents). As such, the distinction between Mission Hill and Parker Hill is blurred, with people referring to the whole area as "on Mission Hill."

Brigham Circle, located at the corner of Tremont and Huntington, is sometimes is considered a part of the Mission Hill neighborhood, the Longwood Area, or both. For Mission Hill residents, Brigham circle is the closest commercial center, with a grocery story, drug stores, bistros, banks and taverns.

One block up the hill from Brigham Circle is Boston's newest park, Puddingstone Park[1], created when a new $60-million mixed use building was completed in 2002.

Atop the hill on Tremont Street is Mission Church [2], an eponymous landmark building that dominates the skyline of the area.

Atop the adjacent Parker Hill is New England Baptist Hospital and Parker Hill Playground, which is also the highest point in the city where you can observe the panoramic view of downtown Boston, Boston Harbor, and the Blue Hills. Also nearby is the newly restored Parker Hill Library [3], the neighborhood branch of the Boston Public Library [4] and designed by architect Ralph Adams Cram in 1929.

[edit] History

The area takes its name from a small mission church built by the Redemptorist Fathers in 1870. This humble wooden structure was replaced by an impressive basilica an built from 1876-1910 from Roxbury puddingstone. The basilica, officially named Our Lady of Perpetual Help after the icon of the same name, is still uniformly referred to as "Mission Church", even by its own parishners. Due to a sloping foundation of this landmark, the west cross tops its tower at 215 feet; the other spire is two feet shorter. The length of the church is also 215 feet, presenting a perfect proportion.

There was once an adjacent parochial school and a Catholic high school administered by the parish, but these have since been closed and sold off.

The neighborhood was once home to large numbers of families of recent Immigrant descent, mostly Irish, but also Germans, Italians and others. After the 1950s, the combined effects of urban renewal, white flight and institutional growth caused many to flee the neighborhood. In the early 1960s the Boston Redevelopment Authority razed several homes in the Triangle District section of the neighborhood to make way for new residential towers which became havens for crime.

In the late 1960s, Harvard University bought the wood frame and brick houses along Francis, Fenwood, St. Alban's, Kempton Streets, and part of Huntington Avenue, and announced plans to demolish the buildings. Most were replaced with the Mission Park residential complex of towers and townhomes in 1978 after neighborhood residents organized the Roxbury Tenants of Harvard Association convince Harvard to rebuild.

By the 1980s, the area was deemed dangerous and most White people and affluent people of color had moved away. The 1989 incident involving Charles Stuart further intensified this view. With property values low, many of the homes were bought and converted into rental housing. The inexpensive rents brought many students from nearby colleges and universities, especially MassArt and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, which has a large studio building in the neighborhood[5]. The Mission Hill Artists Collective now hosts Open Studios [6] in the fall of each year.

As past fears faded by the mid-1990s, the area began to change as homeowners moved into newly converted condominiums to take advantage of the fanastic views of the city and proximity to the Longwood Area, the MBTA and downtown Boston. Among these newcomers, gay men seeking an affordable alternative to the South End were especially-well represented.

Today, the neighborhood is briskly gentiyfying and diversifying in favor of a mix of new luxury condominums and lofts, triple-deckers converted to condominums, surviving student rental units, newly rebuilt public housing, and strong remnants of long-time residents. Racially, Mission Hill is one of the most diverse in the city, with a balance of white, Asian, Hispanic and African-Americans having little conflict along race lines.

[edit] Notable Residents, Past and Present

Maurice Tobin, Boston mayor, Massachusetts governor and U.S. Secretary of Labor under President Truman
R&B singer Donna Summer
"A Global Threat" bassist J. Curran

[edit] Newspapers

Mission Hill Gazette [15]

[edit] MBTA Subway Stops

On the Green Line, E Branch:

- Longwood, Brigham Circle, Fenwood Road, Mission Park, Back of the Hill, Heath Street.

On the Orange Line:

- Roxbury Crossing, Ruggles Street

The neighborhood is also served by MBTA Bus Route #39 running from Forest Hills in Jamaica Plain to Copley Square and Route #66 running from Dudley Square in Roxbury, through Brookline to Harvard Square in Cambridge. The Urban Ring crosstown route passes through the far eastern corner of the neighborhood along Longwood Avenue and Huntington Avenue.

Neighborhoods in Boston, Massachusetts
Allston/Brighton · Back Bay · Beacon Hill · Charlestown · Chinatown · Dorchester · Downtown Crossing · East Boston · Fenway-Kenmore · Government Center · Hyde Park · Jamaica Plain · Longwood · Mattapan · Mission Hill · North End · Roslindale · Roxbury · South Boston · South End · West Roxbury