Beacon Hill is a historic neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts that along with 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. Today, Beacon Hill is regarded as one of the most desirable and expensive neighborhoods in Boston.
The Beacon Hill area is located just north of the Boston Common and the Boston Public Garden and is bounded generally by Beacon Street on the south, Somerset Street on the east, Cambridge Street to the north and Storrow Drive along the riverfront of the Charles River Esplanade to the west. The block bounded by Beacon, Tremont and Park Streets is included as well, as is the Boston Common itself. The level section of the neighborhood west of Charles Street, on landfill, is known locally as the "Flat of the Hill."
Because the Massachusetts State House is in a prominent location at the top of the hill, the term "Beacon Hill" is also often used as a metonym in the local news media to refer to the state government or the legislature.
History
Like many similarly named areas, the neighborhood is named for the location of a former beacon atop the highest point in central Boston, once located just behind the current site of the Massachusetts State House. The hill, and two other nearby hills, were substantially reduced in height to allow the development of housing in the area and to use the earth to create land by filling the Mill Pond, to the northeast.
The entire hill was once owned by William Blaxton, the first European settler of Boston, from 1625 to 1635, who eventually sold his land to the Puritans. The south slope of Beacon Hill facing the Common was the socially desirable side in the 19th century. Black Beacon Hill was on the north slope. The two Hills were largely united on the subject of Abolition. Beacon Hill was one of the staunchest centers of the anti-slavery movement in the Antebellum era. In 1937 The Late George Apley , a Pulitzer Prize winning novel, gave a satirical description of the upper-class white residents on Beacon Hill.
Until a major urban renewal project of the late 1950s, the red-light district of Scollay Square flourished just to the east of Beacon Hill, as did the West End neighborhood to the north.
Beacon Hill was designated a National Historic Landmark on December 19, 1962.
Notable residents
Beacon Hill has been home to many notable persons, including:
- Louisa May Alcott, 10 Louisburg Square
- John Albion Andrew
- William Blaxton, original owner of Beacon Hill
- Edwin Booth, 29A Chestnut Street
- Charles Bulfinch
- John Cheever
- John Singleton Copley
- Michael Crichton
- Robert Frost, 88 Mount Vernon St., 1941
- John Hancock
- Chester Harding, 16 Beacon Street
- Teresa Heinz
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
- Julia Ward Howe
- Abigail Johnson
- Edward M. Kennedy
- John Kerry
- Henry Cabot Lodge
- James Russell Lowell
- Robert Lowell
- Mary Osgood, 8 Beacon Street
- Harrison Gray Otis
- Sylvia Plath
- William Prescott
- Eleanor Raymond
- David Lee Roth
- Anne Sexton
- Robert Gould Shaw
- Carly Simon
- Charles Sumner
- Uma Thurman
- David Walker
- Gretchen Osgood Warren, 67 Mount Vernon Street
- Fiske Warren, 67 Mount Vernon Street
- Daniel Webster
- Jack Welch
Sites of interest
Sites of interest in Beacon Hill include:
- Massachusetts State House (Beacon Street): Home of the state's government
- The Unitarian Universalist Association: Headquarters of the international, liberal religious denomination, next door to the Massachusetts State House
- Louisburg Square
- Nearby Acorn Street, a narrow lane paved with cobblestones, often mentioned as the most picturesque (or the most frequently photographed) street in the United States.
- Mt. Vernon Street: "The finest address in all America"
- Bull and Finch Bar (Beacon Street): Source of inspiration and exterior shots for the Cheers television show.
- Charles Street Meeting House
- The Club of Odd Volumes (Mount Vernon Street): Bibliophiles club, library, and archive
- Suffolk University
- Suffolk University Law School
- Park Street Church
- The route taken by the fictional Mrs. Mallard and her children, depicted in Make Way for Ducklings, a book for children by Robert McCloskey. The story is commemorated every year in May by a parade through Beacon Hill to the Boston Public Garden.
- Robert Gould Shaw and 54th Massachusetts Regiment Memorial: Intersection of Beacon Street and Park Street, opposite the Massachusetts State House
- Museum of African American History, New England’s largest museum dedicated to preserving, conserving and interpreting the contributions of African Americans, located at the African Meeting House.
- Nichols House Museum, a historic 1804 townhouse
- Harrison Gray Otis House, 1796. The Otis House also houses Historic New England's headquarters.
- The Francis Parkman House
- The Vilna Shul
Former street names in Beacon Hill
- Anderson Street - West Centre Street
- Irving Street - Butolph Street
- Joy Street - Clapboard Street (between Cambridge and Myrtle Streets in 1735), Belknap Lane (between Myrtle and Mount Vernon Streets)
- Myrtle Street - May Street
- Phillips Street - Southac Street
- Smith Court - May's Court
- West Cedar Street - George Street
Notable addresses in Beacon Hill
Beacon Street
- One Beacon Street - An eponymous office tower at the corner of Tremont Street; the 14th-tallest building in the city
- 8 Beacon Street - late 19th/early 20th century home of the Osgood Family: Dr. Osgood, Margaret Osgood and daughters Gretchen and Mary
- 10 1/2 Beacon Street - Boston Athenæum
- 14 Beacon Street - Congregational House, site of the Congregational Library and City Mission Society
- 16 Beacon Street - Chester Harding House, now home to the Boston Bar Association, was home to the famous portrait painter Chester Harding from 1826-1830
- 22 Beacon Street - built in 1804 by Charles Bulfinch; now houses the Beacon Hill studio for Fox 25 News (WFXT), with a strategic rooftop camera position
- 25 Beacon Street - headquarters of the Unitarian Universalist Association, an international liberal religious denomination
- 33 Beacon Street - resident George Parkman
- 34 1/2 Beacon Street - erstwhile headquarters of Family Service of Greater Boston, a private, nonprofit social service agency founded in 1835
- 39-40 Beacon Street - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow courted and married Fanny Appleton
- 42-43 Beacon Street - painter John Singleton Copley had a house on this site, as did David Sears II, whose house is now the home of the Somerset Club
- 45 Beacon Street - 3rd Harrison Gray Otis house, now American Meteorological Society
- 54-55 Beacon Street - resident William H. Prescott had William Makepeace Thackeray as a houseguest
- 84 Beacon Street - Cheers Beacon Hill. Formerly known as the Bull & Finch Pub, this pub was the inspiration for the classic television show, Cheers, and was shown during the opening credits of the sitcom.
Bowdoin Street
- 35 Bowdoin Street - Church of Saint John the Evangelist
- 122 Bowdoin Street - nominal resident, John Fitzgerald Kennedy (registered voting address)
Brimmer Street
- 30 Brimmer Street - Church of the Advent (official site)
- 44 Brimmer Street - resident Samuel Eliot Morison
Cambridge Street
- Massachusetts General Hospital - Bulfinch Pavilion and Ether D
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