About the Brookline, Massachusetts Area 

Brookline is a unique community that blends urban excitement with suburban parks, amenities and neighborhood life. The city’s seven commercial areas are beautifully designed Main Street style neighborhoods with craft galleries, antique stores, coffee shops, bookstores, flower sellers and produce markets appearing alongside the popular chains. Beacon Street is known for its top restaurants and variety in ethnic cuisine and Coolidge Corner has over a hundred restaurants and stores. 

Local arts are flourishing and the Brookline Arts Commission arranges several excellent shows and festivals throughout the year. Boston is only 5 miles away, so all the music, arts, and theater of this world-class city are also close at hand. Brookline is a beautifully landscaped city with many lovely parks and well-designed playgrounds. The Larz Anderson Park has a beautiful skating rink and an enjoyable transport museum. 

Boston and its surrounding area, including Brookline, have some of the nation’s best universities, including MIT, and Harvard is just 5 miles away in Cambridge.  

Location
Brookline is in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, about 4 miles southwest of Boston. Brookline is just 4 miles west of Boston and 5 miles south of Cambridge. Newton is about 4 miles west of Brookline. 

Geography
Brookline is hillier than coastal Boston, with several parks and bodies of water. Jamaica Pond is the largest body of water, and the Larz Anderson Park the most extensive green area. The beautiful Charles River is a short distance away. 

Jobs
Just 10 minutes from Boston’s central business district by car or train, Brookline has the enviable position of being within an easy commute of one of the nation’s top commercial and business centers while at the same time being a city with a strong local economy of its own. 

Health-care is a primary employment sector with the many world-renowned hospitals in the area. A thriving retail and hospitality centre, Brookline also has a commercial base.  

Housing
Brookline is known for its beautiful brownstones, elegant estate homes and modern condos and apartments.  

Currently single family homes average at about $2,100,000 in Brookline; the lowest prices sit around $479,000 and the highest priced homes sell for about $15,750,000. (Current as of 11/6/2006 Source: Boston Area MLS).
 

Recreation
The Brookline Golf Club is a great local course, with 18-holes designed and built by Stiles and Van Kleek in 1931. Recently the club spent over $2 million to improve the course and it shows. Junior’s may take golf camp and a range of senior events are held.  

Brookline has many pleasant parks and good playgrounds and recreational facilities. One of the nicest is Larz Anderson Park, 64 scenic acres overlooking Boston (the view is terrific) with a children’s play area, picnic spots, ball fields, and a beautiful lagoon overlooked by two pretty pavilions—a popular wedding spot. The park also has an outdoor ice skating rink. 

The Brookline Recreation Department offers a wide range of exercise programs throughout the year and administers the community recreation centers, skate park, and swimming pool.  

The Charles River is a short trip from Brookline and is a great place for swimming, kayaking, water skiing and wildlife spotting in summer and ice skating, cross country skiing and snowshoeing in winter. 

Special Attractions/Events
Brookline has several interesting museums, including the Museum of Transportation, which has historic, classic, and unique, cars and trucks, and the Longyear Museum, which celebrates the life of famous local Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science. 

Annual community events range from art and craft fairs to pancake breakfasts, sporting events to outdoor music concerts. Locals pay homage to Brookline’s pioneering history with events like the Historic Reenactment of William Dawes Ride on Harvard Street on Patriots Day. 

Interesting Facts/Historic Buildings and Places
Boston was one of America’s first cities and Brookline was one of its earliest farming centers. The area was first parceled up in the sixteen-thirties when Boston residents were allotted a certain amount each to garden and farm. Many families found they liked the rural lifestyle and wanted to be closer to their crops and livestock, and Muddy River Hamlet was born. By the end of the Seventeenth Century Muddy River had a school, roads, and an exemption from paying taxes to Boston. Locals began seeking independence from Boston and this was granted on November 13, 1705, when “Muddy River” was incorporated as the Town of Brookline.  

Samuel Sewall, son of Judge Sewall of Salem Witch Trials fame, was the first Town Clerk and “Brookline” probably takes its name from "Brooklin", Sewell’s local lands. Most early residents were farmers. In 1721 local doctor Zabdiel Boylston (who was also uncle to John Adams), introduced the smallpox inoculation to the young American colony. 

Brookline residents played their part in the War for Independence. William Dawes rode along what is now Harvard Street to alert neighbors that the British were marching on Concord, and three companies of Brookline volunteers headed west to help rout the retreating British at North Cambridge. The following spring, Brookline Town Meeting pledged to enter the war in earnest. 

Over time wealthy Boston merchants began to buy up large portions of Brookline and build summer estates there. By the early nineteenth century the community was largely upscale and more suburban than it had been previously. Well known politicians and leaders of commerce established themselves in Brookline, including Senator George Cabot and Samuel and Thomas Hanasyd Perkins, John Lowell Gardner, Ignatius Sargent, Henry Lee, and Augustus Lowell. 

In 1806, the Boston-Worcester Turnpike (now Route 9) replaced the old road west to Boston and commuters began to relocate in force. The great nineteenth-century architect H.H. Richardson chose to live in Brookline, along with his colleague Frederick Law Olmsted. Widely acknowledged to be the founder of landscape architecture in America, Olmsted served on the Town's Planning Board. His beautiful home and gardens is now a National Historic Site. The Olmsted firm created New York’s Central Park, the U.S. Capitol Grounds, Stanford University, and Boston’s own “Emerald Necklace” park system.  

Brookline has been home to many great Americans, including Amy Lowell and John and Robert Kennedy, who were born here; physicians Walter Channing, George Minot, and William Murphy, Nobel laureate John Enders, horticulturist Charles Sprague Sargent, and musicians Serge Koussevitsky, Arthur Fiedler and Roland Hayes. 

GOVERNMENT REAL ESTATE RESOURCES
Try the US Census Bureau, FedStats.com, or the Bureau of Labor Statistics for useful information. The HUD web site is full of resources. Don't forget Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or Ginnie Mae. Get home buying tips from the Federal Consumer Information Center.

LOCAL INFO
Find your local Chamber of Commerce or State Government.

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