Forest Hills is a part of the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Forest Hills is characterized by hilly terrain and wooded 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 businesses are located along Hyde Park Avenue. Single family homes predominate south of Walk Hill Street, but triple deckers dominate near the train station. As in the rest of Jamaica Plain, many of the multi-unit houses have been converted into condominiums. A variety of home styles are represented including Arts & Crafts, Cape Cod, Colonial Revival, Queen Anne, Tudor Revival and Victorian. South of Walk Hill Street, Forest Hills is characterized by curving, tree-lined streets laid out in irregular patterns indicative of how the area was thoughtfully transformed from country estates into a streetcar suburb.

__TOC__

History

The first European known to have settled in Forest Hills was Capt. Joseph Weld (ancestor of former Governor of Massachusetts William Weld), the youngest of three immigrant brothers from England and a veteran of the Pequot War of 1637. For his efforts in that conflict and subsequent negotiations, the leaders of Massachusetts Bay Colony awarded him untamed in what is now the Forest Hills area of Jamaica Plain.

His descendant Col. Eleazer Weld, one of seven Weld family members who fought in the American Revolutionary War, bequeathed some of his land to fellow patriot Benjamin Bussey. His combined area was subsequently willed to Harvard University 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 farmer. As the New England economy shifted from an agricultural base to a mercantile base, the Welds divided their land into smaller parcels for elite Bostonian friends and relatives. Some lived here year round; for others it was a rural retreat from Boston's summer heat and seasonal cholera outbreaks.

The Weld family 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 built what might be the first tennis court in Boston on what is now Patten Street. George Minot won a Nobel Prize. William Fletcher Weld (whose mother was a Minot) left behind a $20 million dollar fortune. Stephen Minot Weld Jr. and George H. Perkins were Civil War heroes. Andrew James Peters (who married a Minot), became Mayor of Boston. A previous incarnation of Perkins School for the Blind 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 or in Brookline. Others went farther south to Dedham or Westwood or even left the state entirely.

Geographic locale

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.Even the borders of officially designated neighborhoods within the city, such as Jamaica Plain and Roslindale, do not have defined borders and might be (for example) served by the post office of one neighborhood but be listed as part of another neighborhood by a realtor. For example The Canterbury urban wild area southeast of the Forest Hills Cemetery between Canterbury Street and American Legion Highway has an ambiguous identity. Under various definitions, the Canterbury parcel is a part of Roslindale, Jamaica Plain, and Mattapan. ("Neighborhood boundaries", Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston)

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.

Subsections

White City

In 1914, four apartment buildings covered with light stucco 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 two decades 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."Cleansers", pronounced "Cleaners", is still seen on signs in the Boston-area. White City came to be regarded as a section of Forest Hills, but not a separate section of Jamaica Plain. 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.

White City was not an all-White area of Jamaica Plain. Jamaica Plain was always a diverse section of the City of Boston, as was made obvious by the diversity of Jamaica Plain High School, the most integrated school in the City of Boston in the late 1950s. 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. Racists had tried to link the name, White City, associated with the white stucco apartment buildings, with race. However, white was simply the color of the stucco applied to two buildings on Hyde Park Ave.

Woodbourne

The Woodbourne Historic District is a historic residential subdivision in Forest Hills. It consists of a parcel of land southwest of Forest Hills Cemetery, roughly bounded by Walk Hill Street, Goodway Road, and Wachusett Street. This area was developed into house lots between 1890 and 1933 by financier Robert Winsor in an effort to create a sort of utopian community for middle-class families. Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. 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 gabled English cottages and are situated around a common courtyard. While the means to flatten out this terrain was readily available, developers chose to retain the uneven character of the landscape to preserve a country-like estate feel.

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.

Parks, cemeteries, and green space

Forest Hills is surrounded by the three final "links" of the Emerald Necklace park system designed by Frederick Law Olmsted in the 19th century: Arnold Arboretum, Arborway and Franklin Park. While teaching on "Schoolmaster's Hill" in Franklin Park, Ralph Waldo Emerson boarded on Morton Street near present-day Forest Hills Station in the same house used by feminist Margaret Fuller.

There is a baseball field 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, such as the one between Patten Street and Eldridge Road.

Rock outcroppings of Roxbury puddingstone decorate the landscape, both within the green areas and in unexpected locations, such as the immense lump of puddingstone on Wachusett Street across from the Parkman School.

A large portion of Forest Hills is occupied by Forest Hills Cemetery, an active cemetery, also enjoyed as a park and arboretum, recognized as one of the finest 19th-century rural cemeteries in the country and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Eugene O'Neill, e.e. cummings and William Lloyd Garrison are among the famous people buried here. St. Michael's Cemetery & Crematory (across Walk Hill Street from the Forest Hills Cemetery) is more contemporary in design. Calvary Cemetery, Mt. Hope Cemetery and New Calvary Cemetery are also large in size and are more contemporary (for example, level and sparsely wooded) burial grounds that lie on the opposite side of American Legion Highway. Together these cemeteries form a "dead area" that separates Forest Hills from the nearest sections of Mattapan and Roxbury.Rappaport Institute A "dead area" is an area without residences, businesses, or significant pedestrian traffic. One effect of this is that Franklin Park is usually discussed in the context of Mattapan and Roxbury rather than in the context of Jamaica Plain.

Education

Parkman School

In 1896, the City of Boston acquired an acre of land from Andrew James Peters for a school designed by Charles B. Perkins to be placed at the corner of Wachusett Street and Walk Hill Street. The school was named after Francis Parkman, local scholar whose summer home overlooked Jamaica Pond.

Francis Parkman School has housed two city educational programs: the Barton Assessment Center and The Young Achievers School, a city-wide pilot school dedicated to science and mathematics. 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.Jamaica Plain Gazette 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 Revival 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 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.

Churches

Former St. Andrew's Parish (now Bethel AME Church)

St. Andrew the Apostle Church was built by the Archdiocese of Boston in 1918. It stands on the corner of Walk Hill Street and Wachusett Street diagonally across from where the city built the Parkman School some two decades earlier.