Category: Features

[metaslider id=23654] This Brookline Village storefront, in one of the town’s oldest commercial spaces, has been home to many businesses since it first opened in the 1870s. Charles E. Schmalz’s barber shop had the longest tenure, from 1897 to 1943. Another long-term occupant of the space was the municipal credit union, serving town employees, in… Continue reading Brookline Then and Now: 238 Washington Street

[metaslider id=20424] This Coolidge Corner apartment building at the corner of Stearns Road and Sewall Avenue, just off Harvard Street, was completed in 1902. Originally called the Stearns Chambers, the name was changed to the Hotel Coolidge in 1904. It was what was known as a residential hotel, containing 49 rental apartments, each with two… Continue reading Brookline Then and Now: Stearns Chambers/Hotel Coolidge

[metaslider id=19570] The Brookline Department of Public Works held a ceremony on September 20th to mark the installation of seven electric vehicle (EV) charging stations in the Town-owned parking lot between Kent Street and Webster Place. (The parking lot is behind Starbucks, Caffe Nero, and other businesses. Webster Place is at the back of the… Continue reading Brookline Then and Now: Kent Street and Webster Place

[metaslider id=19312] The Pollock School was a residential school for children with Down syndrome and autism run by Dr. Miriam Pollock and her husband Morris from 1934 to 1979. “Their aim was to educate children people thought were ineducable,” the Pollock’s daughter-in-law, Betsy Pollock, told the Boston Globe after Miriam’s death, at 92, in 2002.… Continue reading Brookline Then and Now: The Pollock School, 28 Alton Place

[metaslider id=18643] Twenty-two-year-old William F. Foley, after working as a clerk at a Brookline Village grocer, opened his own grocery store in The Point neighborhood in 1895. Twelve years later, Foley, the son of an Irish immigrant, moved his business into one end of a new one-story commercial building at 228 Cypress Street. An ad… Continue reading Brookline Then and Now: Foley’s on Cypress Street

[metaslider id=18344] The brick and stone building with the rounded façade at the northwest corner of Boylston and Cypress Streets has been the location of ground floor retail space and three floors of apartments above for 126 years. The building was constructed in 1897 on what had once been part of the Goddard farm. It… Continue reading Brookline Then and Now: Boylston and Cypress Streets

[metaslider id=17722] This house on Aspinwall Hill has gone through many changes and many owners since it was constructed as a single-family home in 1896 or 1897. Early residents included Bunkio Matsuki, a Japanese immigrant and dealer in Japanese art and artifacts, and Albert Miller, an executive at the Christian Science Monitor. Later owners, including… Continue reading Brookline Then and Now: 111 Winthrop Road

[metaslider id=17509] The poster urging a second term for Herbert Hoover — “Keep Him on the Job” — dates the older photo to 1932. (Hoover would lose to Franklin Roosevelt in November.) The block of one-story retail buildings is largely unchanged, at least physically, in the newer photo, though with different stores and, of course,… Continue reading Brookline Then and Now: Beacon Street, West of Summit

[metaslider id=17272] 15 Alberta Road, pictured in 1886 and today, is one of the oldest houses in Brookline. It was built in 1820 by Thaddeus Jackson, the son of a blacksmith, who built it for his son, Thaddeus Jr. By mid-century it was occupied by the Goodnough family as part of their farm. The 1874 atlas shows a… Continue reading Brookline Then and Now: 15 Alberta Road, South Brookline