Mission Hill is a square mile (2 square km), primarily residential neighborhood of Boston, bordered by Roxbury, Jamaica Plain and Fenway-Kenmore and the town of Brookline. The neighborhood has two main streets, namely Tremont Street and Huntington Avenue. It is served by several stations on the MBTA's Green Line E branch, as well as Roxbury Crossing station on the Orange Line.
Mission Hill is home to several hospitals and universities, including Brigham and Women's Hospital and New England Baptist Hospital. First settled in the 17th century, the neighborhood is known for its brick row houses and triple decker homes of the late 19th century. It is also home to several community centers, several neighborhood groups, one branch of the Boston Public Library, one high school, and one newspaper.
The neighborhood's population was estimated at 15,883 in 2011. Of these 42.7% are white, 18.0% are black, 17.5% are Hispanic, 14.1% are Asian, 1.2% are multiracial, and 1.4% identify as "Other".
Geography
The neighborhood has two main commercial streets: Tremont Street and Huntington Avenue. Both have several small restaurants and shops. Mission Hill is at the far western end of Tremont Street, with Government Center at the far eastern end. Mission Hill's main ZIP Code is 02120. Additionally, a very small portion of the southeastern edge uses the ZIP Code 02130, areas adjacent to the Longwood Medical Area use 02115 and two streets on the far western edge use 02215.
Parker Hill, Back of The Hill, and Calumet Square are areas within the Mission Hill, an officially designated neighborhood in Boston (as attested by numerous signs prohibiting parking without a suitable Mission Hill neighborhood residential sticker, which only residents can procure legally).
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. One block up the hill from Brigham Circle is Boston's newest park, Kevin W. Fitzgerald Park (formerly Puddingstone Park) created when a new $60-million mixed use building was completed in 2002.
On Tremont Street is Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica (1878, Schickel and Ditmars, 1910 towers addition by Franz Joseph Untersee), an eponymous landmark building that dominates the skyline of the area. The church was chosen as the location for the funeral of Senator Edward M. Kennedy on Saturday, August 29, 2009.
Also nearby is the recently restored Parker Hill Library, the neighborhood branch of the Boston Public Library, and designed by architect Ralph Adams Cram in 1929. The city used eminent domain to acquire the land for both the library and the adjacent Mission Hill playground.
Atop the hill are the New England Baptist Hospital and the Parker Hill Playground, which extends from the hospital grounds down Parker Hill Avenue.
Location The neighborhood is roughly bounded by Columbus Avenue and the Boston neighborhood of Roxbury to the east, Ruggles Street to the northeast and the Olmsted designed Riverway/Jamaicaway, and the town of Brookline to the west. The Historic District was designated by the Boston Landmarks Commission in 1985 and is roughly bounded by Smith Street, Worthington Street, Tremont Street (to the south), and Huntington Avenue (to the west). The Mission Hill neighborhood is immediately north of the Boston neighborhood of Jamaica Plain. It is served by the MBTA Green Line E branch and the Orange Line, and is within walking distance of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Gardner Museum. "The Hill" overlaps with about half of the Longwood Medical and Academic Area, home to 21 health care, research, and educational institutions which together provides the largest employment area in the City of Boston outside of downtown Boston. Due to these adjacencies, the neighborhood is often struggling with institutional growth taking residential buildings and occupying storefront commercial space. Recent years have seen new retail stores, restaurants, and residential development giving the neighborhood a stronger political voice and identity, as some of the educational institutions have made commitments to house all or most of their about 2000 undergraduate students in newly erected campus housing, including several new high-rise dormitories. People aged 20 to 24 account for 32% of the population currently living in Mission Hill.
The Mission Hill Triangle is an architectural conservation district with a combination of freestanding houses built by early wealthy landowners, blocks of traditional brick rowhouses, and many triple-deckers.
The neighborhood was named in March 2008 as one of 25 "Best ZIP Codes in Massachusetts" by The Boston Globe, citing increased value in single-family homes, plentiful restaurants and shopping, a marked racial diversity, and the behavioral fact that 65% of residents walk, bike, or take public transit to their work.
Green space There are a few large parks in Mission Hill for walking or sitting.
One is known as Kevin W. Fitzgerald Park, formerly named Puddingstone Park because of the local rock sources, the park includes lawn space and asphalt walkways. The walkway is lined with benches for people to rest and enjoy the various views such as Lower Roxbury, the Fenway, and Back Bay. This park was previously one of the five quarries in Boston. This park was known as the Harvard Quarry. The operation of the quarry was ceased around 1910 and this left a 65-foot-high quarry wall. In the 1990s, the open space planning committee worked on preserving public access to the quarry. The community and the developer decided together that the walls of the old quarry would be preserved and they would create a new 6-acre open space for the community at the top of the puddingstone bowl. Harvard Quarry Urban Wild was then named Puddingstone Park. In November 2006, the park was renamed Kevin Fitzgerald Park in honor of the former Massachusetts State Representative. Most of the land is already being developed on for more housing and institutional purposes. Only 6.2 acres of land are protected for preservation of public access.
McLaughlin Park is another park located in Mission Hill. The park was renovated with a $430,000 budget in 2015, providing various upgrades such as new paths, overlooks, and reparations to the Ben's tower monument. This tower is to honor a child who once enjoyed playing in the park, but passed from cancer.
The Butterfly Garden located on the Back of The Hill is another gated garden, smaller in size.
Demographics According to the American Community Survey (ACS), Mission Hill's population was 15,883 in 2011. It listed 47.8% of the people in the community as White, 18.0% as Black or African American, 17.5% as Hispanic or Latino, 14.1% as Asian, 1.2% as "two or more races", and 1.4% as "other". Given its proximity to many colleges and universities, and because it houses several dormitories, ages in the neighborhood centered near the early to mid-20s. The ACS estimated residents between the ages 20–24 make up most of the population of Mission Hill, Boston.
Age Percent Age Percent Under 5 years 3.1% 45 to 49 years 3.9% 5 to 9 years 3.2% 50 to 54 years 2.7% 10 to 14 years 4.3% 55 to 59 years 3.1% 15 to 17 years 2.2% 60 to 64 years 3.2% 18 and 19 years 7.9% 65 to 69 years 1.8% 20 to 24 years 32.3% 70 to 74 years 2.9% 25 to 29 years 9.4% 75 to 79 years 2.0% 30 to 34 years 6.0% 80 to 84 years 1.4% 35 to 39 years 4.4% 85 years and over 2.4% 40 to 44 years 3.9%
The 2011 ACS listed median household income in Mission Hill as $33,432 during a 12-month span. 21.1% of the households made less than $10,000 yearly. The median family income during a 12-month span was $36,237. The highest percent of family income accounts for 12.0% and they make between $75,000 to $99,999 yearly. Out of 6,230 households, 1,300 received food stamps/SNAP over a 12-month span. However, Mission Hill Neighborhood Housing Services claims that "Mission Hill's population of 18,722 people is racially and economically diverse" on its website. Seeming disparities in statistics might recurringly result from the very large number of short-term undergraduates and visiting international faculty, postdocs, researchers, and professional degree candidates who may or may not appear in statistical data sets that are cited for publication.
History Industry began in the area as early as the 17th century.
Much of the early history of Mission Hill through 1978 is covered in a 65-minute documentary video, Mission Hill and the Miracle of Boston, a widely used documentary which was directed by Richard Broadman (died 2002) of the Museum of Fine Arts 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.
17th and 18th century Like the adjacent neighborhood of Jamaica Plain to the south, Mission Hill was once a neighborhood of adjacent Roxbury before Roxbury's annexation by Boston. According to maps from the period, it was often referenced as Parker Hill (which is the name of the geographic feature in the area). After annexation (and more rapidly in recent years) the area slowly came to be considered a separate neighborhood of its own right. The majority of government, commercial, and institutional entities list "Mission Hill" in the breakdown of Boston neighborhoods and its boundaries generally agreed upon.
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 18th century. 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). Parker's 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.) An annual 'cider press' neighborhood event is held in the 'top of the hill' park adjacent to New England Baptist Hospital, commemorating this neighborhood narrative.
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 descendants of the Parker family's original trees. The lower portion of the eastern hill was a puddingstone quarry with large swaths owned by merchants Franklin G. Dexter, Warren Fisher, and Fredrick Ames.
Maps of the area indicate Mission Hill development began before the Fenway and Longwood Medical Area. Huntington Avenue, now one of the main connections to the rest of Boston, once stopped at the intersection of Parker Street, near the present-day site of the Museum of Fine Arts. Up until that time, Mission Hill was connected via Parker Street (a man-made raised passage between the Stony Brook and the Muddy River – both which formed a tidal flat into the Charles River) all the way to Boylston Street in the Back Bay. Part of what was once Parker Street is now called Hemenway Street. The once main intersection of Parker Street and Huntington Avenue has been traffic-engineered, cutting the straight-line road in two and forcing traffic to first turn onto Forsyth Way to make the connection. Many other streets leading into Mission Hill were also realigned and/or renamed at Huntington Avenue (including Longwood Avenue/McGreevey Way, Smith/Shattuck Street, Vancouver Street, and Palace Road/Worthington Street), limiting both pedestrian and vehicular access.
19th century