Forest Hills, Boston
Encyclopedia
Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts
Jamaica Plain is a historic neighborhood of in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded by Boston Puritans seeking farm land to the south, it was originally part of the city of Roxbury...
neighborhood of Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
Overview
As the name indicates, Forest Hills is characterized by hillHill
A hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain. Hills often have a distinct summit, although in areas with scarp/dip topography a hill may refer to a particular section of flat terrain without a massive summit A hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain. Hills...
y terrain and wooded
Forest
A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...
areas within and adjacent to its borders. In general, the area slopes upward from Hyde Park Ave and downward from Walk Hill Street.
Forest Hills is primarily residential, although a number of small business
Business
A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...
es are located along Hyde Park Avenue. Single family homes predominate south of Walk Hill Street, but triple decker
Triple decker
A triple-decker is a three-story apartment building, typically of light-framed, wood construction, where each floor usually consists of a single apartment; although two apartments per floor is not uncommon....
s dominate near the train station. As in the rest of Jamaica Plain, many of the multi-unit houses have been converted into condominiums.
South of Walk Hill Street, Forest Hills is characterized by curving, tree
Tree
A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...
-lined streets laid out in irregular patterns indicative of how the area was thoughtfully transformed from country estates into a streetcar suburb
Streetcar suburb
A streetcar suburb is a residential community whose growth and development was strongly shaped by the use of streetcar lines as a primary means of transportation. Early suburbs were served by horsecars, but by the late 19th century cable cars and electric streetcars, or trams, were used, allowing...
.
Spaced relatively close together, homes are generally well-kept and many have lush garden
Garden
A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the display, cultivation, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The garden can incorporate both natural and man-made materials. The most common form today is known as a residential garden, but the term garden has...
s, interesting architectural
Architectural style
Architectural styles classify architecture in terms of the use of form, techniques, materials, time period, region and other stylistic influences. It overlaps with, and emerges from the study of the evolution and history of architecture...
details. A variety of home styles are represented including Arts & Crafts
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...
, Cape Cod
Cape Cod (house)
A Cape Cod cottage is a style of house originating in New England in the 17th century. It is traditionally characterized by a low, broad frame building, generally a story and a half high, with a steep, pitched roof with end gables, a large central chimney and very little ornamentation...
, Colonial Revival, Queen Anne
Queen Anne Style architecture
The Queen Anne Style in Britain means either the English Baroque architectural style roughly of the reign of Queen Anne , or a revived form that was popular in the last quarter of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century...
, Tudor Revival
Tudorbethan architecture
The Tudor Revival architecture of the 20th century , first manifested itself in domestic architecture beginning in the United Kingdom in the mid to late 19th century based on a revival of aspects of Tudor style. It later became an influence in some other countries, especially the British colonies...
and Victorian
Victorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...
.
For much of 20th century, Forest Hills was home to working class laborers on the streets adjacent to the train station, and middle class managers and professionals to the south, with neither public housing
Public housing
Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is owned by a government authority, which may be central or local. Social housing is an umbrella term referring to rental housing which may be owned and managed by the state, by non-profit organizations, or by a combination of the...
nor areas of affluence. In the last generation, this area has become not only racially integrated
Racial integration
Racial integration, or simply integration includes desegregation . In addition to desegregation, integration includes goals such as leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity regardless of race, and the development of a culture that draws on diverse traditions, rather than merely...
, but has also undergone a degree of gentrification
Gentrification
Gentrification and urban gentrification refer to the changes that result when wealthier people acquire or rent property in low income and working class communities. Urban gentrification is associated with movement. Consequent to gentrification, the average income increases and average family size...
.
These changes have been fueled, in part, by the easy access to Longwood Area
Longwood Medical and Academic Area
The Longwood Medical and Academic Area is a medical campus in Boston....
, Museum School
School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is an undergraduate and graduate college located in Boston, Massachusetts, dedicated to the visual arts. It is affiliated with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs in partnership with Tufts University...
, Mass Art
Massachusetts College of Art
Massachusetts College of Art and Design is a publicly-funded college of visual and applied art, founded in 1873. It is one of the oldest art schools, the only publicly-funded free-standing art school in the United States, and was the first art college in the United States to grant an artistic degree...
, and Northeastern
Northeastern University, Boston
Northeastern University , is a private, secular, coeducational research university in Boston, Massachusetts. Northeastern has eight colleges and offers undergraduate majors in 65 departments...
and all of downtown Boston by public transportation.
Borders
Forest Hills is not an officially-designated area of the city nor have its borders been defined. Generally, "Forest Hills" refers to the area immediately surrounding the train station, plus the residential areas on the East side of Hyde Park Avenue extending perhaps as far as Cummins Highway or perhaps only as far as Walk Hill Street.More often, Forest Hills refers to a roughly triangular area lying between Hyde Park Avenue, American Legion Highway and Morton Street, except for those areas separated from the rest by the cemeteries.
This triangle is bisected by Walk Hill Street. The blocks South of Walk Hill Street were once regarded as the White City area of Jamaica Plain. Now they are regarded as the Woodbourne area.
Early History
The first EuropeEurope
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an known to have settled in Forest Hills was Capt. Joseph Weld
Weld family
The Weld family is an extended family of Boston Brahmins most remembered for the philanthropy of its members. The Welds have many connections to Harvard University, the Golden Age of Sail, the Far East , the history of Massachusetts, and American history in general.William Weld, former Governor of...
(ancestor of former Governor of Massachusetts
Governor of Massachusetts
The Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the executive magistrate of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States. The current governor is Democrat Deval Patrick.-Constitutional role:...
William Weld
William Weld
William Floyd Weld is a former governor of the US state of Massachusetts. He served as that state's 68th governor from 1991 to 1997. From 1981 to 1988, he was a federal prosecutor in the United States Justice Department...
), the youngest of three immigrant
Immigration
Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...
brothers from England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
and a veteran of the Pequot War
Pequot War
The Pequot War was an armed conflict between 1634–1638 between the Pequot tribe against an alliance of the Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Saybrook colonies who were aided by their Native American allies . Hundreds were killed; hundreds more were captured and sold into slavery to the West Indies. ...
of 1637. For his efforts in that conflict and subsequent negotiations, the leaders of Massachusetts Bay Colony
Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast of North America in the 17th century, in New England, situated around the present-day cities of Salem and Boston. The territory administered by the colony included much of present-day central New England, including portions...
awarded him 278 acres (1.1 km²) untamed in what is now the Forest Hills area of Jamaica Plain.
His descendant Col. Eleazer Weld
Weld family
The Weld family is an extended family of Boston Brahmins most remembered for the philanthropy of its members. The Welds have many connections to Harvard University, the Golden Age of Sail, the Far East , the history of Massachusetts, and American history in general.William Weld, former Governor of...
, one of seven Weld family members who fought in the American Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
, bequeathed some of his land to fellow patriot Benjamin Bussey
Benjamin Bussey
Benjamin Bussey was a prosperous merchant, farmer, horticulturalist and patriot in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, who made significant contributions to the creation of the Arnold Arboretum....
. His combined area was subsequently willed to Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
and become the basis for Arnold Arboretum.
In 1845, the Welds sold a large piece of land that would later become the Woodbourne area to William Minot, a fellow Yankee
Yankee
The term Yankee has several interrelated and often pejorative meanings, usually referring to people originating in the northeastern United States, or still more narrowly New England, where application of the term is largely restricted to descendants of the English settlers of the region.The...
farmer. As the New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
economy shifted from an agricultural
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
base to a mercantile
Age of Sail
The Age of Sail was the period in which international trade and naval warfare were dominated by sailing ships, lasting from the 16th to the mid 19th century...
base, the Welds divided their land into smaller parcels for elite Bostonian
Boston Brahmin
Boston Brahmins are wealthy Yankee families characterized by a highly discreet and inconspicuous life style. Based in and around Boston, they form an integral part of the historic core of the East Coast establishment...
friends and relatives. Some lived here year round; for others it was a rural retreat from Boston’s summer heat and seasonal cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
outbreaks.
The Weld family
Weld family
The Weld family is an extended family of Boston Brahmins most remembered for the philanthropy of its members. The Welds have many connections to Harvard University, the Golden Age of Sail, the Far East , the history of Massachusetts, and American history in general.William Weld, former Governor of...
and families to whom they were connected—especially Guild, Minot, Perkins, Olney, Peters and Rodman—were associated with Jamaica Plain for generations. A number of local statesmen were drawn from these families, and many of them became wealthy or famous.
Richard Olney
Richard Olney
Richard Olney was an American statesman. He served as both United States Attorney General and Secretary of State under President Grover Cleveland. As attorney general, Olney used injunctions against striking workers in the Pullman strike, setting a precedent, and advised the use of federal troops,...
built what might be the first tennis court
Tennis court
A tennis court is where the game of tennis is played. It is a firm rectangular surface with a low net stretched across the center. The same surface can be used to play both doubles and singles.-Dimensions:...
in Boston on what is now Patten Street. George Minot
George Minot
George Richards Minot was an American medical researcher who shared the 1934 Nobel Prize with George Hoyt Whipple and William P. Murphy for their pioneering work on pernicious anemia.-Life:...
won a Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
. William Fletcher Weld
William Fletcher Weld
William Fletcher Weld was a shipping magnate during the "Golden Age of Sail". He later invested in railroads and real estate. Weld multiplied his family's fortune into a huge legacy for his descendants and the public.-Early life:...
(whose mother was a Minot) left behind a $20 million dollar fortune. Stephen Minot Weld, Jr.
Stephen Minot Weld, Jr.
Stephen Minot Weld Jr. , a member of Boston's illustrious Weld Family, was a horticulturalist and much-decorated United States Army officer of the American Civil War.-Early life:...
and George H. Perkins
George H. Perkins
Commodore George Hamilton Perkins was an officer in the United States Navy during the American Civil War.-Biography:...
were Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
heroes. Andrew James Peters
Andrew James Peters
Andrew James Peters was an American politician. He was born on April 3, 1872 in Jamaica Plain, a section of Boston. His family had been in Massachusetts since the first Andrew Peters arrived there in 1657. Peters attended Harvard University and Harvard Law School. He served two terms in the...
(who married a Minot), became Mayor of Boston. A previous incarnation of Perkins School for the Blind
Perkins School for the Blind
Perkins School for the Blind, located in Watertown, Massachusetts, is the oldest schools for the blind in the United States. It has also been known as the Perkins Institution for the Blind.-History:...
stood atop Wachusett Street.
In the early 20th century, the arrival of public transportation brought increasing numbers of working-class people and rich Yankee families abandoned Forest Hills. Some returned to ancestral haunts on Beacon Hill
Beacon Hill, Boston, Massachusetts
Beacon Hill is a historic neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, that along with the neighboring Back Bay is home to about 26,000 people. It is a neighborhood of Federal-style rowhouses and is known for its narrow, gas-lit streets and brick sidewalks...
or in Brookline
Brookline, Massachusetts
Brookline is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States, which borders on the cities of Boston and Newton. As of the 2010 census, the population of the town was 58,732.-Etymology:...
. Others went farther south to Dedham
Dedham, Massachusetts
Dedham is a town in and the county seat of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 24,729 at the 2010 census. It is located on Boston's southwest border. On the northwest it is bordered by Needham, on the southwest by Westwood and on the southeast by...
or Westwood
Westwood, Massachusetts
Westwood is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 14,618 at the 2010 census. In July 2005, CNN/Money and Money magazine ranked Westwood 13th on its list of the 100 Best Places to Live in the United States. Boston Magazine listed Gay Street in Westwood on its...
or even left the state entirely.
Forest Hills Station
Forest Hills is served by the Forest Hills MBTA station
Forest Hills (MBTA station)
Forest Hills Station is a station on the MBTA Orange Line, located in Forest Hills in the southern part of the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts at the intersections of Washington Street, Hyde Park Avenue, South Street, The Arborway and Morton Street.Forest Hills is the southern...
, a local transportation hub. This station is the southern end of the Orange Line subway
Orange Line (MBTA)
The Orange Line is one of the four subway lines of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. It extends from Forest Hills in Jamaica Plain, Boston in the south to Oak Grove in Malden, Massachusetts in the north. It meets the Red Line at Downtown Crossing, the Blue Line at State, and the Green...
, is a stop on the Commuter Rail's
MBTA Commuter Rail
The MBTA Commuter Rail serves as the regional rail arm of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, in the United States. It is operated under contract by the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Company a joint partnership of Veolia Transportation, Bombardier Transportation and Alternate...
Needham Line
Needham Line
The Needham Line is a branch of the MBTA Commuter Rail system, running west from downtown Boston, Massachusetts through the Boston neighborhoods ofRoxbury,Jamaica Plain,Roslindale,West Roxbury, and the town ofNeedham....
, and was previously the terminal for the Green Line's
Green Line (MBTA)
The Green Line is a streetcar system run by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in the Boston, Massachusetts area of the United States. It is the oldest line of Boston's subway, which is known locally as the 'T'. The Green Line runs underground downtown and on the surface in outlying...
E branch, until it was truncated to Heath Street
Heath Street (MBTA station)
Heath Street, announced as Heath Street/VA Medical Center, is the last stop of the MBTA Green Line's E branch located along South Huntington Avenue on the Mission Hill/Jamaica Plain neighborhood line of Boston, Massachusetts...
in north Jamaica Plain. Service along that route is provided by the 39 bus. Orange line service runs from here north to Malden
Malden, Massachusetts
Malden is a suburban city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 59,450 at the 2010 census. In 2009 Malden was ranked as the "Best Place to Raise Your Kids" in Massachusetts by Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine.-History:...
on the North Shore
North Shore (Massachusetts)
The North Shore is a region in the U.S. state of Massachusetts, loosely defined as the coastal area between Boston and New Hampshire. The region is made up both of a rocky coastline, dotted with marshes and wetlands, as well as several beaches and natural harbors. The North Shore is an important...
via Downtown Crossing
Downtown Crossing
Downtown Crossing is a shopping district in Boston, Massachusetts, located due east of Boston Common and west of the Financial District. It features large department stores as well as restaurants, music stores, souvenir sellers, general retail establishments, and many street vendors...
. Bus routes servicing the station are the 16, 21, 30, 31, 32, 34/34E, 25, 26, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 50 and 51, and are accessible from berths all around the station, on upper and lower levels.
This station created the impetus for development of the local area since the Boston & Providence Railroad opened in 1834. The local area got its name after the establishment of the eponymous cemetery in 1848; subsequently, that name was applied to the station.
Elevated railway
An elevated railway is a form of rapid transit railway with the tracks built above street level on some form of viaduct or other steel or concrete structure. The railway concerned may be constructed according to the standard gauge, narrow gauge, light rail, monorail or suspension railway system...
which lead into Boston and connected with the city's subway, the oldest in the nation..
The elevated track and the original station were torn down in the late 1980s. The station was replaced with the current, modern style
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
station and clock tower
Clock tower
A clock tower is a tower specifically built with one or more clock faces. Clock towers can be either freestanding or part of a church or municipal building such as a town hall. Some clock towers are not true clock towers having had their clock faces added to an already existing building...
designed by Cambridge Seven Associates
Cambridge Seven Associates
Cambridge Seven Associates, Inc. is an American architecture firm founded in 1962 and based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The firm was founded upon the idea that the collaborative efforts of a varied group of designers and architects would be far more effective than those of any one individual...
and completed in 1987.
The Monsignor William J. Casey Overpass (a.k.a. Morton Street overpass) stands just north of the station, was built in the 1950s to bypass Forest Hills, and connects the Arborway to Morton Street.
Green Areas
Emerald Necklace
The Emerald Necklace consists of an chain of parks linked by parkways and waterways in Boston and Brookline, Massachusetts. It gets its name from the way the planned chain appears to hang from the "neck" of the Boston peninsula, although it was never fully constructed.-Overview:The Necklace...
park system designed by Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, social critic, public administrator, and landscape designer. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture, although many scholars have bestowed that title upon Andrew Jackson Downing...
in the 19th century: Arnold Arboretum, Arborway and Franklin Park. While teaching on "Schoolmaster's Hill" in Franklin Park, Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...
boarded on Morton Street near present-day Forest Hills Station in the same house used by feminist Margaret Fuller
Margaret Fuller
Sarah Margaret Fuller Ossoli, commonly known as Margaret Fuller, was an American journalist, critic, and women's rights advocate associated with the American transcendentalism movement. She was the first full-time American female book reviewer in journalism...
.
There is a baseball field
Baseball field
A baseball field, also called a ball field or a baseball diamond, is the field upon which the game of baseball is played. The terms "baseball field" and "ball field" are also often used as synonyms for ballpark.-Specifications:...
at the top of Wachusett Street which is bordered by trees and adjacent to the well-maintained Parkman Playground. There are also small, nameless patches of woodland
Woodland
Ecologically, a woodland is a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade. Woodlands may support an understory of shrubs and herbaceous plants including grasses. Woodland may form a transition to shrubland under drier conditions or during early stages of...
, such as the one between Patten Street and Eldridge Road.
A large portion of Forest Hills is occupied by Forest Hills Cemetery
Forest Hills Cemetery
Forest Hills Cemetery is a historic cemetery, greenspace, arboretum and sculpture garden located in the Forest Hills section of the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. The cemetery was designed in 1848.-Overview:...
, a 275 acres (1.1 km²) park
Park
A park is a protected area, in its natural or semi-natural state, or planted, and set aside for human recreation and enjoyment, or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. It may consist of rocks, soil, water, flora and fauna and grass areas. Many parks are legally protected by...
and arboretum
Arboretum
An arboretum in a narrow sense is a collection of trees only. Related collections include a fruticetum , and a viticetum, a collection of vines. More commonly, today, an arboretum is a botanical garden containing living collections of woody plants intended at least partly for scientific study...
recognized as one of the finest 19th century rural cemeteries
Rural cemetery
The rural cemetery or garden cemetery is a style of burial ground that uses landscaping in a park-like setting.As early as 1711 the architect Sir Christopher Wren had advocated the creation of burial grounds on the outskirts of town, "inclosed with a strong Brick Wall, and having a walk round, and...
in the country and listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
. Eugene O'Neill
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...
, e.e. cummings and William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison was a prominent American abolitionist, journalist, and social reformer. He is best known as the editor of the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, and as one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society, he promoted "immediate emancipation" of slaves in the United...
are among the famous people buried here.
St. Michael’s Cemetery & Crematory (across Walk Hill Street from the Forest Hills Cemetery) is smaller but shares the garden
Garden
A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the display, cultivation, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The garden can incorporate both natural and man-made materials. The most common form today is known as a residential garden, but the term garden has...
-like quality of its larger neighbor.
Calvary Cemetery, Mt. Hope Cemetery and New Calvary Cemetery are also large in size but are more traditional (i.e. level and sparsely-wooded) burial grounds that lay on the opposite side of American Legion Highway. All these cemeteries forms "dead areas" that separate Forest Hills from the nearest sections of Mattapan and Roxbury
Roxbury, Massachusetts
Roxbury is a dissolved municipality and current neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was one of the first towns founded in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, and became a city in 1846 until annexed to Boston on January 5, 1868...
.
Outcroppings of Roxbury puddingstone dot the landscape, both within the green areas and in unexpected locations, such as the immense lump of puddingstone
Puddingstone
Puddingstone may refer to:*Puddingstone , a type of sedimentary rock*Puddingstone Park, a park in Boston, Massachusetts*Lake Puddingstone, a lake in Los Angeles County, California*Puddingstone Rock, a small islet in New Zealand's Otago Harbour...
on Wachusett Street across from the Parkman School.
Parkman School
In 1896, the City of Boston acquired an acre of land from Andrew James PetersAndrew James Peters
Andrew James Peters was an American politician. He was born on April 3, 1872 in Jamaica Plain, a section of Boston. His family had been in Massachusetts since the first Andrew Peters arrived there in 1657. Peters attended Harvard University and Harvard Law School. He served two terms in the...
for a school designed by Charles B. Perkins
Perkins
-People:The name is of Welsh origin from Perthyn, relative or belonging to a particular person or family, and also thought to be the Anglicized form of Peredur, from Medieval Welsh...
to be placed at the corner of Wachusett Street and Walk Hill Street. The school was named after Francis Parkman
Francis Parkman
Francis Parkman was an American historian, best known as author of The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life and his monumental seven-volume France and England in North America. These works are still valued as history and especially as literature, although the biases of his...
, local scholar whose summer home overlooked Jamaica Pond
Jamaica Pond
Jamaica Pond is a kettle pond, part of the Emerald Necklace of parks in Boston designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. The pond and park are in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, close to the border of Brookline...
.
Francis Parkman School has housed two city educational programs: the Barton Assessment Center and The Young Achievers School, a city-wide pilot school
Charter school
Charter schools are primary or secondary schools that receive public money but are not subject to some of the rules, regulations, and statutes that apply to other public schools in exchange for some type of accountability for producing certain results, which are set forth in each school's charter...
dedicated to science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
and mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
. The later program also occupies space in the Upham Church and school officials are considering expansion into one or more of the properties that comprise St. Andrew's. In September 2009 the Young Achievers School moved out of the building to a new home in Mattapan and the new Boston Teachers Union (BTU) Pilot school moved into the building.
Seaver School
On the late 1920s, the City of Boston acquired land for a school to be built between Eldridge Road and Northbourne. The city leveled the parcel and built a huge concrete retaining wall in the rear. The red brick building was designed with a Georgian RevivalGeorgian architecture
Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1720 and 1840. It is eponymous for the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I of Great Britain, George II of Great Britain, George III of the United...
style by John F. Cullen and completed in 1930. Side wings were added the following year.
The school was eventually named after Edwin P. Seaver, Superintendent of Schools in Boston from 1880 to 1904. For much of the 20th century, this school provided education for grades K-8, Many local children attended kindergarten
Kindergarten
A kindergarten is a preschool educational institution for children. The term was created by Friedrich Fröbel for the play and activity institute that he created in 1837 in Bad Blankenburg as a social experience for children for their transition from home to school...
here, even those who would later attend St. Andrew's School from 1st grade and beyond.
The Edwin P. Seaver building was sold by the city and turned into condominiums in 1983 by the Finch/Abbey Group and is now one of the largest residential buildings in Forest Hills. The former schoolyards serve as parking for residents.
St. Andrew's Parish
In 1942, St. Andrew the Apostle School was opened adjacent to the church. A convent
Convent
A convent is either a community of priests, religious brothers, religious sisters, or nuns, or the building used by the community, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion...
next to the school housed the Sisters who staffed it. First it was staffed by the Sisters of the Congregation of Saint Joseph and later by the Sisters of Charity
Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth
The Sisters of Charity of Saint Elizabeth are a Roman Catholic apostolic congregation of pontifical right, based in the Convent Station area of Morris Township, New Jersey. The stated purpose of the order is to show the love of Jesus Christ in serving those in need, especially the poor...
. A rectory
Rectory
A rectory is the residence, or former residence, of a rector, most often a Christian cleric, but in some cases an academic rector or other person with that title...
next to the church was home to four or more priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...
s at a time. Eventually, a building directly across the street from St. Andrew's Church was purchased to serve as a "community hall."
By the late 1940s, Forest Hills (on both sides of Walk Hill Street) was predominantly Irish Catholic
Irish Catholic
Irish Catholic is a term used to describe people who are both Roman Catholic and Irish .Note: the term is not used to describe a variant of Catholicism. More particularly, it is not a separate creed or sect in the sense that "Anglo-Catholic", "Old Catholic", "Eastern Orthodox Catholic" might be...
. Catholics of other ethnic groups (particularly Italians but also French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
, Poles, Portuguese
Portuguese people
The Portuguese are a nation and ethnic group native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion....
, Scots
Scottish people
The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
and others) were also present but were collectively outnumbered by the Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
.
Although small numbers of non-Catholics remained in the area, for the second half of the 20th century, "Forest Hills" and "St. Andrew's Parish" were virtually synonymous.
The 1970s busing crisis
Desegregation busing
Desegregation busing in the United States is the practice of assigning and transporting students to schools in such a manner as to redress prior racial segregation of schools, or to overcome the effects of residential segregation on local school demographics.In 1954, the U.S...
that erupted with violence in Boston neighborhoods such as Dorchester
Dorchester, Massachusetts
Dorchester is a dissolved municipality and current neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is named after the town of Dorchester in the English county of Dorset, from which Puritans emigrated and is today endearingly nicknamed "Dot" by its residents. Dorchester, including a large...
and South Boston had less visible effect in Jamaica Plain parishes such as St. Andrew's or its neighboring parent church St. Thomas Aquinas near Jamaica Plain Centre. Most White families in Jamaica Plain could afford to send their children to parochial schools, and did.
During this time in which Forest Hills was mostly Irish-Catholic, two public schools operated within its borders: the Parkman and the Seaver. Students at these schools were mostly Black
Black people
The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...
and Latino
Latino
The demonyms Latino and Latina , are defined in English language dictionaries as:* "a person of Latin-American descent."* "A Latin American."* "A person of Hispanic, especially Latin-American, descent, often one living in the United States."...
, reflecting the composition of Jamaica Plain as a whole. They travelled back and forth in yellow school bus
School bus
A school bus is a type of bus designed and manufactured for student transport: carrying children and teenagers to and from school and school events...
es and there was little interaction between these schools and the all-White residents of the area.
A thriving parish for much of the 20th century, St. Andrew's suffered a change at the end of the century. The surrounding area became increasingly heterogeneous, ethnically and culturally. Some locals resisted these changes and left the area in the process sometimes called "urban flight
Suburban colonization
The suburban colonization process is observed in larger cities that have suffered population and political power loss to suburbs. Other colonialism is often studied for the effects upon those already inhabiting the colonized area, but students of suburban colonization tend to take greater interest...
," further reducing the number the number of active parishioners.
Another strong factor in the decline of attendance and revenue at St. Andrew's was dissatisfaction with the Archdiocese in the wake of the Church sex scandal
Roman Catholic sex abuse cases
The Catholic sex abuse cases are a series of convictions, trials and ongoing investigations into allegations of sex crimes committed by Catholic priests and members of religious orders. These cases began receiving public attention beginning in the mid-1980s...
which came to light at this time. Forest Hills parishioners had particular cause to feel betrayed. John J. Geoghan
John Geoghan
John J. Geoghan was a key figure in the Roman Catholic sex abuse cases that rocked the Boston Archdiocese in the 1990s and 2000s and led to the resignation of Boston's archbishop, Cardinal Bernard Francis Law, on December 13, 2002.-Career Summary:...
, one of the most notorious molesters among Catholic clergy
Clergy
Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. A clergyman, churchman or cleric is a member of the clergy, especially one who is a priest, preacher, pastor, or other religious professional....
, served at St. Andrew's from 1974 to 1980 and ran the altar boy program. Patrick McSorley, one of Geoghan's most visible accusers, was from this parish.
St. Andrew's Church closed in 2000 although funeral
Funeral
A funeral is a ceremony for celebrating, sanctifying, or remembering the life of a person who has died. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from interment itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor...
masses
Liturgy
Liturgy is either the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions or a more precise term that distinguishes between those religious groups who believe their ritual requires the "people" to do the "work" of responding to the priest, and those...
were held there after that date. St. Andrew's School closed at the end of school year 2005. Students who had not yet graduated were given the option to attend Sacred Heart School in Roslindale.
In 2008, St. Andrews church, school, rectory, and convent were purchased by the Bethel African Methodist Church, a 20-year old church and longtime owner and occupant of the Parkside Christian School building on nearby Forest Hills Street. In August 2008, Bethel African Methodist Church leased the St. Andrews school building to the MATCH Charter School to launch its new grade 6-8 middle school, and the kindergarten building to the Young Achievers Pilot School to be used as an arts space.
Toll Gate Bridge
The Norfolk and Bristol Turnpike was created in 1803, providing a main route between Boston and Providence, Rhode Island
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...
. The Hartford and Dedham Turnpike was chartered the following year, serving as a main road through to Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, it is the second most populous city on New England's largest river, the Connecticut River. As of the 2010 Census, Hartford's population was 124,775, making...
.
At the facility that stood at what is now the MBTA station, carts and wagons from Roxbury and environs were weighed and charged a toll before being allowed onto the privately owned turnpike. The turnpike became unprofitable and changed into a public road in 1857. In 1874, it was renamed Washington Street
Washington Street (Boston)
Washington Street is a street originating in downtown Boston, Massachusetts that extends southwestward to the Massachusetts-Rhode Island state line. The majority of it was built as the Norfolk and Bristol Turnpike in the early nineteenth century...
and it remains one of the longest streets in the Commonwealth.
Long after the train station had acquired the name "Forest Hills", its older identity was preserved in the name of the Toll Gate Bridge, a metal footbridge that crossed the railroad tracks to Washington Street at the point where Walk Hill Street meets Hyde Park Avenue.
Adjacent to the footbridge entrance, the small, neglected Tollgate Catholic graveyard containing 19th and early 20th century headstones sits along Hyde Park Avenue. A monument to Irish-American war dead was created in the 1980s, and each year flags are placed on the graves of veterans.
Upham Church
Upham Memorial Church, a small MethodistMethodism
Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...
church at the corner of Wachusett and Patten Streets, was completed in 1901. Previously, Forest Hills Methodist Society had been holding services in a rented hall in the Forest Hills area. Designed by James G. Hutchinson in a Tudor Revival style, this wooden church was built with a corner tower and half-timbering. A later addition was added in 1925.
As this area became increasingly Catholic after World War II, attendance dropped sharply. The church closed in 1969 and remained boarded up and unused until acquired by the Knights of Columbus
Knights of Columbus
The Knights of Columbus is the world's largest Catholic fraternal service organization. Founded in the United States in 1882, it is named in honor of Christopher Columbus....
in 1977. The K's of C added aluminum siding shortly thereafter, obscuring much of the architectural details of the original structure.
This building, along with the Parkman School, used to house The Young Achievers School, a city-wide pilot school. The building was converted to condos after The Young Achievers School relocated to Mattapan.
Walk Hill Street
Francis Parkman
Francis Parkman was an American historian, best known as author of The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life and his monumental seven-volume France and England in North America. These works are still valued as history and especially as literature, although the biases of his...
School Building and St. Andrew's Church are located.
From this intersection, Walk Hill Street levels out. The street continues westward from its intersection with Wachusett Street and eventually crosses American Legion Highway and enters Mattapan and Roxbury
Roxbury, Massachusetts
Roxbury is a dissolved municipality and current neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was one of the first towns founded in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, and became a city in 1846 until annexed to Boston on January 5, 1868...
.
Much of the length of Walk Hill Street has cemeteries behind tall wrought-iron fences on one or both sides of the street.
The Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Council regards the area north of this street as the Weld Hill district and the area south of it as the Woodbourne district.
White City
In 1914, four apartment buildings covered with light stuccoStucco
Stucco or render is a material made of an aggregate, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as decorative coating for walls and ceilings and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture...
were erected on Hyde Park Ave far South of the train station. The complex was called "White City" in emulation of the World's Columbian Exposition
World's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...
a decade earlier.
The name was later borrowed by the White City Food Store and the White City Cleansers (sic) on the corner of Hyde Park Ave and Eldridge Road, thus putting the "White City" name on two large signs visible even to those whizzing by on Hyde Park Ave.
White City came to be regarded as its own section of Jamaica Plain (or, less frequently, as a subsection of Forest Hills). Its borders were seen as Walk Hill Street, Hyde Park Ave and St. Michael's Cemetery. The area now thought of as "Woodbourne" was contained within.
The origins of the name "White City" having been forgotten by the 1970s, the name acquired a specific meaning in the context of racially-tense Boston. White City was the last essentially all-White area of Jamaica Plain (with the possible exception of the palatial homes lining the Jamaicaway). Houses up for sale in the area were listed as being in White City and sold for more money than those listed as Forest Hills.
After the Woodbourne area was designated as historic and the area became integrated, Woodbourne replaced White City in conversation and realty listings. White City Cleansers was renamed around 2003; its sign was the last prominent reminder of the name that was once given to this section of Jamaica Plain. The name, and the racial connotations it coincidentally acquired, are largely forgotten.
Woodbourne
The Woodbourne National Register Historic District is a 30 acres (121,405.8 m²) parcel southwest of Forest Hills Cemetery, roughly bounded by Walk Hill Street, Goodway Road, and Wachusett Street. This area was developed into house lots in the early 20th century and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.
Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. was an American landscape architect best known for his wildlife conservation efforts. He had a lifetime commitment to national parks, and worked on projects in Acadia, the Everglades and Yosemite National Park. Olmsted Point in Yosemite and Olmsted Island at Great Falls...
was responsible for some of its layout.
The "bourne" element in streets such as Southbourne and Bournedale is taken from Bourne Street, a road established around 1820. Bourne Street begins at Walk Hill Street across from Forest Hills Cemetery, meanders through a scenic residential area and St. Michael’s cemetery, then comes to an end at Canterbury Street and Mt. Hope Cemetery.
The most distinctive homes in this section are designed to resemble gable
Gable
A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of a sloping roof. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system being used and aesthetic concerns. Thus the type of roof enclosing the volume dictates the shape of the gable...
d English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
cottage
Cottage
__toc__In modern usage, a cottage is usually a modest, often cozy dwelling, typically in a rural or semi-rural location. However there are cottage-style dwellings in cities, and in places such as Canada the term exists with no connotations of size at all...
s and are situated around a common courtyard
Courtyard
A court or courtyard is an enclosed area, often a space enclosed by a building that is open to the sky. These areas in inns and public buildings were often the primary meeting places for some purposes, leading to the other meanings of court....
. While the means to flatten out this terrain was readily available, developers chose to retain the uneven character of the landscape.
Since Woodbourne was designated as a historic district in 1999, homeowners and realtors have begun advertising homes there as belonging to the "Woodbourne area" rather than saying that they are in "Forest Hills". Nevertheless, Woodbourne was designed and advertised with the proximity of the train station in mind, was an integral part of the Roman Catholic parish of St. Andrew the Apostle, and was thought of as part of Forest Hills by its residents throughout the 20th century.