MISSION HILL, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

'Mission Hill' is a one square mile neighborhood of approximately 18,000 people in Boston, Massachusetts. The neighborhood is roughly bounded by Columbus Avenue and the Boston neighborhood of Roxbury to the east, Longwood Avenue to the northeast and the Olmsted designed Riverway/Jamaicaway and the town of Brookline to the west. It is northernly adjacent to the Boston neighborhood Jamaica Plain. 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. "The Hill" overlaps with about half of the Longwood Medical and Academic Area, home to 21 world-class health care, research, education institutions and are responsible for the largest employment area in the City of Boston outside of downtown. Due to these adjacencies, 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 decker. Many are condominiums, but there are also several two-family and some single-family homes. The Triangle Historic District along Huntington Ave. is one of only eight such districts in Boston. These seventy-one buildings bordered by Huntington Avenue, Tremont Street, and Worthington Street exemplify the development of the neighborhood from the 1870s through the 1910s. Construction of this area was begun in 1871. By the early 1880s Huntington Avenue was extended and brought electric streetcar service. The Helvetia, a distinctive apartment hotel, was built at 706-708 Huntington Avenue in 1884-1885; a Georgian revival apartment building known as The Esther was built at 683 Huntington/142-148 Smith Street in 1912.

Contents

Geography

History

Notable residents

Neighborhood groups

Newspapers

Bars, Pubs & Restaurants

Cafes & Take Out

MBTA subway stops

References

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. Mission Hill is at the far western end of Tremont Street, with Beacon Hill at the far eastern end. Mission Hill has two main ZIP Codes; the southern half is designated 02120 and the northern area is 02115. Additionally, a very small portion of the southeastern edge uses the code 02130 and two streets on the far western edge use 02215.
Parker Hill, Roxbury Crossing, the Triangle District, Back of The Hill and Calumet Square are areas within the Mission Hill, an official designated neighborhood in Boston (as attested by numerous signs prohibiting parking without a sticker which can be received only by residents).
Brigham Circle, located at the corner of Tremont and Huntington is the neighborhood's commercial center, with a grocery store, drug stores, bistros, banks and taverns. Additionally, two other smaller commercial areas are in the neighborhood: Roxbury Crossing and the corner of Huntington and South Huntington next to the Brookline line.
One block up the hill from Brigham Circle is Boston's newest park, Kevin W. Fitzgerald Park (formerly Puddingstone Park)^[2] created when a new $60-million mixed use building was completed in 2002.
On Tremont Street is Mission Church,^[3] an eponymous landmark building that dominates the skyline of the area. Also nearby is the newly restored Parker Hill Library,^[4] the neighborhood branch of the Boston Public Library,^[5] and designed by architect Ralph Adams Cram in 1929.
Atop the 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.

History

Like the adjacent neighborhood of Jamaica Plain to the south, Mission Hill was once considered a sub-neighborhood of adjacent Roxbury, often referenced as Parker Hill (which is the name of the geographic feature in the area). In 1870, the Redemptorist Fathers built a humble wooden mission church that was replaced by an impressive Roxbury puddingstone structure in 1876. In 1910, dual-spires were added that now dominate the skyline. The church was elevated to basilica in 1954 by Pope Pius XII and is one of only 43 in the United States. Officially named Our Lady of Perpetual Help after the icon of the same name, is uniformly referred to as "Mission Church", even by its own parishioners. 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 Catholic high school administered by the parish, that was closed in 1992 and sold off, but the Parochial elementary school still remains. The resulting monies have been used to restore much of the church. The sold buildings are currently planned for Basilica Court, a 229 unit residential complex, developed by Weston Associates, Inc.
Another example of high religious architecture is the Byzantine-style Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral at 514 Parker Street. Referred to as the "mother church" of the Greek Orthodox Church in New England, it is the cathedral of the Diocese of Boston and the seat of its Bishop Methodios. Built between 1892-1927, it is one of the oldest Greek churches in the United States, a Boston landmark, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1927 a Greek artist was commissioned to decorate the cathedral with Byzantine iconography. The radiant stained glass windows and large crystal chandeliers also contribute to the visual majesty of the cathedral's interior.
Until the American Revolution, Mission Hill supported large country estates of wealthy Boston families. Much of the area was an orchard farm, originally owned by the Parker family in the 1700’s. Peter Parker married Sarah Ruggles whose family owned large areas of land including most of what became known as Parker Hill (later renamed Mission Hill). His life ended when a barrel of his own cider fell on him. (Much of this story is outlined in "The History of Peter Parker and Sarah Ruggles", a book by John William Linzee, published in 1913.)
The orchard continued for some time thereafter, but gradually pieces of the land were sold and developed. Boston’s reservoir was once located at the top of the hill. Many of the older apple trees along Fisher Avenue. and in an undeveloped area of the playground are probably descendents of the Parker family’s original trees. The lower portion of the hill was a puddingstone quarry with large swaths owned by merchants Franklin G. Dexter, Warren Fisher and Fredrick Ames.
Development began in ernest in the mid-1800s. By 1894, the electric streetcar was in operation on Huntington Avenue. Builder-developers began cutting streets through farmland and building homes for commuters on Parker Hill Avenue, Hillside Street, and Alleghany Street. An excellent example from this era is the Timothy Hoxie House at 135 Hillside Street. A freestanding Italianate villa, it was built in 1854 across from its present location. The Hoxie family left Beacon Hill for pastoral Mission Hill. Houses of this size are rare today. Demand for housing went up and builders turned to building multifamily dwellings, generally constructed on smaller lots.
The carpenter-contractor John Cantwell lived in the Gothic Revival cottage at 139 Hillside Street, and purchased the Hoxie House after Timothy’s death. He moved the house to its present site so that upper Sachem Street could be cut through. Cantwell also developed triple deckers on adjacent lots on Darling and Sachem Streets, and in 1890 subdivided the lot on which the Hoxie House stood and built triple-deckers at 17 and 19 Sachem Street.
By the 1890s, there was a more urban feel to the neighborhood and the hill was covered in triple-deckers. Calumet, Iroquois and other streets with Native American names were built up within ten years into a dense neighborhood of triple deckers in the Queen Anne style. The Queen Anne style is prevalent in Mission Hill because this building boom coincided with the popularity of this style.
Prior to 1900, the Georgian Revival New England Baptist Hospital (at the time, the Robert Breck Brigham Hospital) at 125 Parker Hill Ave was one of the few institutions in the neighborhood. Other soon followed, moving from their downtown locations to the Mission Hill/Longwood area for more space and less expensive land (along with the completion of the Emerald Necklace). In 1906, the Harvard Medical School moved into five buildings on Longwood Avenue. Wentworth Institute at 360 Ruggles Street began building in 1911. In 1912, the then Peter Brent Brigham Hospital (now Brigham & Women's) opened on Brigham Circle. In 1914, Children's Hospital also moved to Longwood Avenue. Beth Israel Deaconess was constructed a short time later.^[6]
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 the Whitney Redevelopment Project, which is three high-rise towers along St. Francis Street. The include Charlesbank Apartments (272 unit co-op), Back Bay Manor (270 units) and Franklin Square Apartments (formerly Back Bay Towers - 146 units). This project was one of Boston's earliest redevelopment projects not funded by federal renewal monies.⁶
Industry began in the area as early as the 1600s. The first brewery was established at the foot of Parker Hill in the 1820s. By the 1870s beer production was the main industry in Mission Hill, and many breweries lined the Stony Brook (now a culvert running along the Southwest Corridor). Most of Boston's breweries were once located in Mission Hill, but three periods of Prohibition (1852-1868, 1869-1875 and 1918-1933) and the nations transition from local breweries to national mass-produced brands took their toll on business. Many of the remaining buildings are now being converted into loft condominiums.
Breweries included A.J. Houghton (1870 - 1918) at 37 Station Street, American Brewing Co. at 251 Heath Street(1891-1934)-- now American Brewery Lofts, Union Brewing Co. on Terrace Street (1893 - 1911), Roxbury Brewing Co. at 31 Heath Street (1896 - 1899) -- the building is now home to the Family Service of Greater Boston, Croft Brewing Co. (1933 - 1953), Burkhardt Brewing Co. (1850 - 1918), Alley Brewing Co. at 117 Heath Street (1886 - 1918) and the Highland Springs Brewery/Reuter & Co. (1867 - 1918) on Terrace Street -- the building is often referred to as The Pickle Factory and is in planning for conversion to housing.
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. Current long-terms plans by Harvard call for the remaining original buildings to be cleared for further development.

Also in the 1960s the federal government proposed to extend Interstate 95 into the center of Boston and began buying property and demolishing houses in the Roxbury Crossing section of the neighborhood along the Boston and Providence Rail Road. Roxbury Crossing, which has been a stop along the Boston & Providence Railroad since the 1840s, was once a vibrant commercial area with the 749-seat Criterion Theatre, a Woolworths and restaurants.
After the Interstate project was shelved by the governor in 1971 after freeway revolts Roxbury Crossing had been leveled. Ten years later saw the creation of the Southwest Corridor, a park system with bike and pedestrian trails that lead into the center of Boston. New plans call for the creation of an air-rights building on what is known to the Boston Redevelopment Authority as "Parcel 25".
By the 1980s, the area was deemed dangerous and most White people and affluent Black people had moved away. The 1989 incident involving Charles Stuart further intensified this view. With property values low, many of the homes were bought by slum lords and converted into rental housing. The inexpensive rents brought many students from nearby colleges and universities, especially MassArt, Northeastern University, Wentworth Institute of Technology and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, which has a large studio building in the neighborhood.^[7] The Mission Hill Artists Collective now hosts Open Studios^[8] 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 fantastic views of the city and proximity to the Longwood Area, the MBTA and downtown Boston.
Today, the neighborhood is briskly gentrifying and diversifying in favor of a mix of new luxury condominiums and lofts, triple-deckers converted to condominiums, 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.
Much of the early history of Mission Hill is covered in a 65 minute documentary film, ''Mission Hill and the Miracle of Boston'', which was directed by Richard Broadman and released in 1978. The film recounts the events that led to the Urban Renewal Program in Boston and its aftermath by showing how these events unfolded in Mission Hill.
Current events include the transformation of Terrace Street into an artist boulevard, with new artists' residences in the planning and approval stages. They will take their place along Diablo^[9] glass studio and the Building Materials Co-Op.

Notable residents

★ Maurice Tobin, Mayor of Boston, governor of Massachusetts, and U.S. Secretary of Labor.

★ Donna Summer, R&B singer

★ "A Global Threat" bassist John Curran

★ Mike Ross, Boston City Council Member, whose district covers Beacon Hill, Back Bay, West End, and Mission Hill^[10]

★ Therese Murray, current and first woman president of the Massachusetts State Legislature^[11]

Neighborhood groups

★ Mission Hill Artists Collective

★ Community Alliance of Mission Hill

★ Mission Hill Main Streets

★ Sociedad Latina

★ Roxbury Tenants of Harvard

★ Mission Hill Neighborhood Housing Services

★ Boston Redevelopment Authority neighborhood site

★ Mission Main Tenant Task Force

Newspapers

★ Mission Hill Gazette

Bars, Pubs & Restaurants

★ Mission Bar & Grill

★ Mississippi’s

★ Penguin

★ The Savant Project (formerly Solstice Cafe)

★ Flan O'Briens

★ Flames

★ Cafe Italia

★ The Squealing Pig

★ TGI Fridays

Cafes & Take Out

★ Mike's Donuts

★ JP Licks

★ Butterfly Cafe

★ Brigham Circle Diner

★ Joseph’s Pizzeria

★ AK's Takeout and Delivery

★ Brigham Circle Chinese Food

★ Chacho’s

★ Huntington Pizza & Café

★ Kwik-E Subs

★ Tremont House of Pizza

★ Il Mondo Pizza

★ Dominos

★ Subway

★ Dunkin Donuts

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.

References

1. National Register Information System
2. Mission Hils NHS. Puddingstone Park
3. The Mission Church
4. Parker Hill Branch Library
5. Boston Public Library
6. "Mission Hill: background information and planning issues, preliminary neighborhood improvement strategies", Boston Redevelopment Authority, (1975)
7. Mission Hill Building Project SMFA
8. Boston Open Studios Coalition
9. Diable Glass and Metal
10. City of Boston City Council
11. Theres Murray at Mass.gov