This spring's series of Brookline history walking tours kicks off on April 14th with a tour of the Coolidge Corner shopping district. There are three other walking tours in April and May. All tours are free and open to the public. Details and links for registration are below.
Sunday, April 14th, 9 am - 10 am
Walking Tour: 165 Years of Shopping in Coolidge Corner
Coolidge Corner was home to just one store—Coolidge & Brother—from the 1850s to the 1890s. Following the widening of Beacon Street in 1887-88 and the arrival of the S.S. Pierce store a few years later, a major new shopping district took root. Almost all of the existing buildings in this still thriving commercial area were built between 1890 and 1930.
Register at https://coolidgecorner041424.eventbrite.com
Tour begins in front of Trader Joe's, 1317 Beacon Street
Sunday, April 21st, 10 am - 11:30 am
Brookline Village Walking Tour
Highlights will include:
- Brookline’s earliest commercial center, featuring brick buildings from the 1870s
- The Lindens, one of the first planned residential developments in the U.S. (1840s)
- Emerson Garden and the Elijah Emerson House on Davis Avenue (1846)
- White Place, with one of the largest concentrations of vernacular architecture in Brookline
- The town’s civic center, site of the Town Hall, the public library, the Pierce School, and other municipal buildings.
Sunday, May 5th, 10 am - 11 am
Beaconsfield Terraces Walking Tour
Learn about the chateaux-like Beaconsfield Terraces, on the south side of Beacon Street from Dean Road to just beyond Tappan Street, a residential complex built in the 1880s in which people owned their units but shared ownership of a 6-acre park, stables, a playhouse (known as the Casino), tennis courts, a playground, and a central heating plant.
Register at https://beaconsfield050524.eventbrite.com
Tour begins in front of Star Market, 1717 Beacon Street
Sunday, May 19th, 2 pm - 3:30 pm
Blake Park: History of a Neighborhood
In 1880, banker Arthur Welland Blake engaged Frederick Law Olmsted to draw plans for the subdivision into roads and lots of the Blake family estate on the lower part of Brookline's Aspinwall Hill. Olmsted's plans were never executed, and the estate remained a large tract of open land until a new neighborhood finally emerged — despite failed plans, untimely deaths, and financial scandal — four decades after it was first conceived.
Register at https://blakepark051924.eventbrite.com
Tour begins in front of Brookine High School, 115 Greenough Street
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