At the apex of the hill that is Rockview Street is the home of Joyce “Joy” Fisher, a life-long resident of the Jamaica Plain neighborhood. Joy began her life at the house at 48 Rockview Street. Though modest in appearance from behind tall bushes, 48 Rockview has unusual architectural features. It also contains an exquisite mural painted by her grandfather, a German muralist and interior decorator, who once lived next door.
Read MoreNear the corner of South Street and Carolina Avenue in Jamaica Plain is 30 Carolina Avenue, a unique brick building and wooden stable that has housed the Penshorn Roofing Company since 1960. If we stand on that corner and turn back the clock over 170 years, we would visit a time of great transformation and growth for the city of Boston and a family that played a significant role in those changes.
Read More3474-3476 Washington Street in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts is a three-story, two-family house that was built sometime between 1874 and 1886 by Isaac Harris Cary, a prominent merchant and real estate developer from Jamaica Plain. The double-frame house, located at the corner of Washington and Gartland Streets, is built in the Gothic Revival style with simple decorative trusses above the third-floor dormers and a hip-on-gable, or jerkinhead, roof.
Read More69 Williams Street in Jamaica Plain is a silk dye house that was built in 1880 by Isaac Harris Cary, a prominent merchant and real estate developer from Jamaica Plain. Isaac Cary and his brother William operated dry goods stores in Boston and New York City, the NYC store eventually becoming the largest importer of fancy goods in the country.
Read MoreAt the corner of Carolina Avenue and Lee Street in Jamaica Plain sits a charming cottage on an unusually large parcel of land for the surrounding neighborhood. This house, at 101 Carolina Avenue, was the first to be built on the street. Though significant for its age, also important is the role it played in the history of Jamaica Plain. In 1913, the house transformed from a single-family home into the home of the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood House Association. This article explores the history of the people who lived within its walls and, later, its life as a settlement house.
Read MoreAt first glance, the house at 197 Green Street is unique for its small size and the colorful graffiti that has covered its exterior since 2016. But if we look behind its 1950’s siding, and comb the historical record, we discover that the house is not, as it might first appear, an outdated structure. Rather, the house represents a significant period of time in the development of Jamaica Plain, and of Green Street in particular.
Read MoreBased on preliminary research, there is strong evidence that the current building at 3326 Washington Street was built around 1851, and was the original primary schoolhouse for the Washington Street/Green Street neighborhood of Jamaica Plain in the new town of West Roxbury. Image courtesy of Digital Commonwealth (From Green Street Station)
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