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Boston-Beacon Hill - If living near just about everything means anything to you, then BostonView is the place for you! Located just steps from the business and theater districts, Massachusetts General Hospital & Tufts Medical, Faneuil Hall Marketplace and the shops on Newbury Street. Concierge (lobby front desk attended 24 hours daily). Features: On-site parking (optional), Resident Manager, Roof deck. View More Listings -->
Beacon Hill Information
Beacon Hill is a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, covering
approximately one square mile (2.6 km) and home to about 10,000 people. It is a
wealthy neighborhood of Federal-style rowhouses, with some of the highest
property values in the United States. It is known for its narrow streets, brick
sidewalks, and gas-lit streets. Like many similarly named areas, the
neighborhood is named for the location of a former beacon atop the highest point
in central Boston, once located just behind the current site of the
Massachusetts State House. The hill, and two other nearby hills, were
substantially reduced in height to allow the development of housing in the area
and to create land by filling part of the Back Bay at the foot of the hill.
The Beacon Hill area is located just north of the Boston Common and the Boston
Public Garden and is generally bounded by Beacon Street on the south, Somerset
Street on the east, Cambridge Street to the north and Storrow Drive along the
riverfront of the Charles River Esplanade to the west. The block bounded by
Beacon, Tremont and Park Streets is included as well, as is the Boston Common
itself. The level section of the neighborhood west of Charles Street, on
landfill, is known locally as the "Flat of the Hill."
The entire hill was originally owned by William Blaxton, the first settler of
Boston from 1625 to 1635, who eventually sold his land to the Puritans. The
south slope of Beacon Hill facing the Common was the socially desirable side in
the 19th century. Black Beacon Hill was on the north slope. The two Hills were
largely united on the subject of Abolition. Beacon Hill was one of the
staunchest centers of the anti-slavery movement in the Antebellum era.
Until a major urban renewal project of the late 1950s, the red-light district of
Scollay Square flourished just to the east of Beacon Hill, as did the West End
neighborhood to the north.
Because the Massachusetts State House is in a prominent location at the top of
the hill, the term "Beacon Hill" is also often used in the local news media to
refer to the state government or the legislature.