The late afternoon sun at Jamaica Pond always highlights a relic of the American past probably unnoticed by many who walk or jog by. A free - stone staircase of 25 steps and a landing stretches from the west side of the only private residence left from the era before the creation of the Park, Pinebank Mansion built in 1879, down along the Pond’s slope to the shore path.
Read MoreSylvia Plath's life and death were ruled by dualities: the extremes of poetic passion. So it is no surprise that her birth in Jamaica Plain on October 27, 1932, is a little-known fact while her grave in Yorkshire, England, where the expatriate poet committed suicide at age 30, is a celebrated shrine.
Read MoreBased on 2014 interviews with six staff and board members, each of whom have left their mark on the school’s long history.
Read MoreThis presentation by Richard Vacca, author of The Boston Jazz Chronicles, looks at the career of songwriter Jimmy McHugh, who was born in Jamaica Plain in 1894 and grew up there.
Read Moren 1773, brothers David and John Greenough found themselves embroiled in a bitter controversy, the boycott of tea imported by the East India Company that led to the Boston Tea Party. In December 1773, John Greenough, then a merchant, bought tea salvaged from the William, a ship that went ashore on Cape Cod. This placed him in direct conflict with his neighbors, his town, and his family in Boston where his father and brother were active in the movement to resist Royal authority.
Read Moreynonymous with Forest Hills and all that pertains to the welfare of that place is the name of Richard E. Cochran, more generally known to the residents of the West Roxbury District as “Uncle Dick”. Aside from being its most public-spirited citizen, he also enjoys the distinction of having resided in that place for a longer period than any other person.
Read MoreThe Old Lamplighter song was introduced in 1946 by singer Sammy Kaye and it became an immediate hit; topping the charts for several weeks. Our family’s copy, on an old RCA Victor shellac-type record, was nearly worn-out on our old wind-up Victrola!
Read MoreWithin a two mile arc in Boston are three works of art by the preeminent American sculptor Daniel Chester French (1850-1931), who is best known for his design of the massive seated figure at the Abraham Lincoln Memorial.
Read MoreThis is a transcription of a four-page, unsigned document describing the first three generations of the Weld family in America. Capt. Joseph Weld received a very large land grant for his services to the Massachusetts Bay Colony and owned much of present day Jamaica Plain in the 1640s.
Read MoreRaised next door to the family brewery in Jamaica Plain and trained in Copenhagen as a brewer, Theodore C. Haffenreffer Jr. had far more discerning tastes than most who raise a mug to their lips.
Read MoreThough Morton Street may well be named for the Mortons who owned property in the area in 1871, the street could also be named for Thomas Morton, possibly a distant relative, whose richer deeds are highlighted on a plaque in Quincy.
I will share some of my memories with you about Jamaica Plain back in the early 1960s.
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