Tribute to a Fallen Hero
Funeral procession of fallen firefighter Paul Cahill along Centre steet in West Roxbury. May God bless these brave men and their families. They are truly Boston’s unsung heroes…
Real Estate Video by - Real Estate Blogger
History of Jamaica Plain (Part III)
The Pond side section of Jamaica Plain became a popular home for Boston politicians. In 1915 when politician James Michael Curley’s house on 350 Jamaica Way was designed with shamrocks carved into the shutters, it was clear that the elite of Jamaica Plain and 
Boston politics would need to make room for the Irish. In the 1950s and 60s, politicians such as John Collins lived in Jamaica Plain, as well as myriad police and city employees. Jamaica Plain was considered the most stable of all of Boston’s neighborhoods. While other neighborhoods rapidly lost their populations between 1950 and 1965, the population of Jamaica Plain was steady at 42,400.
The deterioration of part of Jamaica Plain was driven by the history of the Southwest Corridor, which was slated to become Interstate 95. By the late 1960s, a final design for the highway was well underway. The State had acquired the strip of land — dubbed the southwest corridor — and begun to demolish homes and business to clear the way for the interstate. Between 1960 and 1968, 20% of the housing that remained had moved from sound to the deteriorating or dilapidated categories. In 1968, due in large part to neighborhood resistance, the governor canceled the plans to run I-95 through Jamaica Plain, Roxbury and Roslindale and the cleared land was left alone. The cleared and vacant land along the Southwest Corridor simply languished unused. Sam Bass Warner called the corridor “a wide, unattended scab” through the neighborhoods
During this same period, many of the industries along the Washington Street corridor closed, including the Haffenreffer Brewery in 1965. By 1965, approximately 24% of the 12,600 housing units in Jamaica Plain were unsound. By the 1970s, arson had become a major threat in the neighborhood and the population of Jamaica Plain was declining. Between 1970 and 1980 the total population of the neighborhood declined by 17.7%. It became difficult to sell real estate. A real estate broker with a Jamaica Plain realty firm described the period in this way: “The time from 1973 to ‘77 was a black hole — a void. On some streets you couldn’t give houses away.”
The demand for housing in Jamaica Plain, particularly for affordable housing units, is high. The supply of new housing each year is small in comparison, in part because land for new housing development and new parking is extremely limited. In many cases, residents value small pockets of open space in their community and resist the potential for more congestion and traffic on their streets that they fear new housing development would bring. In other cases, remaining developable land may be located on steep slopes, in awkwardly-sized lots, or near undesirable land uses.
History of Jamaica Plain (part II)
In 1851, West Roxbury, including Roslindale and Jamaica Plain, seceded from the Town of Roxbury. West Roxbury was divided into five precincts: Jamaica Plain, Roslindale, Claredon Hills, West Roxbury Village, and Germantown. The most rural precincts were West Roxbury Village and Germantown (Bacon, Walks and Rides About Boston, 1896). The Town of West Roxbury was at this time developing Forest Hills, a garden cemetery intended for widespread public use. Cemeteries such as these served not only as a place to honor the dead, but also as an arboretum, a place for recreation, an antidote to the environmental ills of the city and a showcase for art. They also paved the way for the establishment of urban parks of the late 19th century.
At this time, the population of Jamaica Plain was growing rapidly and becoming increasingly foreign-born. Between 1865 and 1880, the population grew from 5,450 to 32,750. By 1880, 25% of all households in the area were Irish. Jamaica Plain also became home to a large number of German Americans, Progressive reformers, and mainstream politicians. The remaining upper-middle-class Protestants were the local social elite and included farmers, the wealthy elite, and business commuters. Jamaica Plain finally became annexed to the City of Boston in 1874, after first being part of the Town of Roxbury, and then being a part of the Town of West Roxbury.
Although Jamaica Plain retained some of its identity as a rural retreat, the centrality of industry to the life of the neighborhood increased, and Jamaica Plain became associated with industries such as the Haffenreffer Brewery. Residents of all social levels developed deep attachments to the neighborhood through real estate deals, their proximity to work, and strong local Catholic parishes. Social ties were also fostered through practices such as spigots outside the brewery that allowed workers to fill their containers with free beer.
History of Jamaica Plain, MA
Note: No one is quite sure how Jamaica Plain acquired its unusual name. Some attribute it to the legend that people here had a fondness for Jamaica rum and asked for it “plain.” Others attribute the name to an Indian chief who lived here more than two centuries ago whose name was Kutchamaiken.
Before 1630, the land around Jamaica Pond was a summer home to the Wampanoags , Native Americans who spent their winters nearby in Mattapan. In 1630, Puritan settlers built the first road in the area — which today is called Perkins Street. In the late 1630s, the settlers constructed a road to Dedham as well as the Dedham Turnpike (now Centre Street and Washington Street). The modern Boston neighborhoods of Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury, and Roslindale were, until 1851, part of the Town of Roxbury. The area that would become Jamaica Plain was settled slowly and was not even mentioned in Roxbury town records until 1683. The rich, fertile land along the Stony Brook Valley was attractive to farmers.
The Jamaica Plain area became a wealthy rural village. One of the next major streets to be laid out was South Street in 1662. In 1689, the local reverend John Eliot donated 75-acres of his land to establish a school for children of all ethnic backgrounds. The school still exists today. The area at the intersection of South Street and Eliot Street was then and continues to be a focus of community life in the Jamaica Plain area.
The first wave of gentrification of Jamaica Plain began in about 1740, when the wealthy elite of Boston built their country summer homes on sprawling rural estates in the Pond side area of Jamaica Plain. One of these was the Loring-Greenough House, which was built in 1740, was later used as a hospital for Washington’s men during the Revolution, and still stands today at the corner of Centre and South Streets.
Public transportation dramatically changed the development pattern of Jamaica Plain. In 1826, Omnibuses (known as “The Hourlies”) ran to Boston each hour for a fee of 25 cents, opening up access to what had been an exclusive rural area. By 1832, the roads in the area had increased dramatically, and included Centre, South, and Walter Streets, the Dedham Turnpike (now Washington Street), and Perkins, Canterbury, Walk Hill, Seaver, Back, Warren, Bourn, Elliot, and Burrough.
In 1834 the Boston and Providence Railroad was completed. The railroad brought settlers to the area in even greater numbers and the first suburban homes were built. With the suburbanization of the neighborhood came industrialization of the Stony Brook corridor. Beginning in the 1840s, and continuing for the next several decades, factories such as textile mills, print shops, foundries, lumber and stone yards, and twelve breweries were built along Stony Brook (roughly parallel to what is now the Southwest Corridor).
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