Known for its nightlife, Allston is a historic neighborhood anchored by Boston College, Boston University, and Harvard. In 2013, Forbes ranked Allston as one of the "hippest places to live in the United States," along neighborhoods such as Brooklyn's Williamsburg and Los Angeles' Silver Lake.
Allston has a long history of artistic cred. The neighborhood was named for artist Washington Allston (1779-1843), the first important American Romantic painter, friends with Samuel Coleridge and Washington Irving. One of Allston's students was a fellow by the name of Samuel F.B. Morse, who was training to become a portraitist – but who achieved lasting fame as the inventor of the telegraph. In addition, poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow bought a large parcel of land in Lower Allston. Longfellow lived across the river in Harvard Square, and simply did not want his view changed by developments. We appreciate this. Over the years, Allston has been home to Evan Dando of the Lemonheads, actor Jared Leto, and Aerosmith. The neighborhood is also featured in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest.
The neighborhood is bisected by the Mass Pike into two main sections, Lower Allston (also North Allston) and Upper Allston (also simply known as Allston).
Lower Allston is a quieter neighborhood of predominantly single-family houses and small apartment buildings between the Mass Pike and the Charles River, from Everett Street to Windom Street. There is currently fairly limited shopping, dining, and nightlife within the neighborhood itself, although it is a short walk to both Upper Allston and Harvard Square. This section of the neighborhood contains many of Harvard's current buildings and its 350+ acres slated for its campus expansion, and has the potential to improve significantly.
Upper Allston (the section south of the Mass Pike) has better transit options than Lower Allston. Within Upper Allston, the B branch of the Green Line runs along Commonwealth Avenue, with multiple stops in the neighborhood, including at Packard's Corner and Commonwealth/Harvard. However, residents of the northern parts of Lower Allston have proximity to the Red Line at Harvard Square.
Both sections of the neighborhood are convenient for drivers, with proximity to Route 2, Mass Pike, Storrow Drive, and Soldier's Field Road.
Allston is at the northwestern edge of Boston, adjacent to the neighborhoods of Brighton and Fenway/Kenmore, and with the towns of Brookline on the south and east, and the city of Watertown to the northwest. To the north, Allston is bordered by the Charles River, and is across the Andersen bridge from Harvard Square and Cambridgeport in Cambridge
The neighborhood is generally divided into two sections, Lower Allston (also known as North Allston) and Upper Allston (also known simply as Allston), bisected by the Mass Pike. Upper Allston contains a distinct subsection known as Allston Heights.
In 1868, Allston became the first neighborhood in the United States to be named for an artist, the painter and poet Washington Allston (1779-1843). While he actually lived and worked across the river in Cambridgeport, the neighborhood is thought to have been named for his painting, "Fields West of Boston." Also, it probably didn't hurt that Allston married the daughter of one of the city's prominent families, Martha Dana daughter of Chief Justice Francis Dana.
From colonial farmland to Paul Revere's ride. The low-lying, fertile land that would become Allston was formerly part of Brighton and was known as Little Cambridge, and it was long used as farmland and later, for livestock. In 1820, the affluent Winship family opened a horticultural business, Winship Flowers, and profited greatly during the American Revolution. When the Continental Army was headquartered in Allston in 1775-1776, the Winships opened the area's first cattle market and Allston-Brighton became known for decades for their stockyards. Allston played another role in the Revolutionary War when William Dawes - the lesser-known partner of Paul Revere - rode over today's Andersen Bridge and North Harvard Street to warn the residents of Lexington and Concord.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ... worth a lot more than you think. In 1870, poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow acquired a significant parcel of land in Allston that extended from the sightline on his estate at 105 Brattle Street in Cambridge, in order to maintain open and attractive views. He deeded the land to Harvard with a restriction that it could only be used for open space use, thus stalling the expansion of the unsightly and stinky abbatoir, and allowing the eventual expansion of the Harvard athletic facilities. (For those interested, there is an parallel here to Rockefeller's acquisition of considerable land in the New Jersey waterfront to protect his views from his estate in Inwood.)
In 1869, the neighborhood became home to the Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (40 Armington St.), the first public school for the hearing impaired in the United States. Helen Keller (1880-1968) attended the school, and Alexander Graham Bell's work at the school inspired him to begin experiments in an apparatus to help deaf children hear, a precursor of his invention of the telephone.
In 1873, the town of Brighton opted to annex itself to the growing city of Boston, joining Charlestown, Dorchester, Hyde Park, Roxbury, and West Roxbury (which then included Jamaica Plain and Roslindale). The annexation became official on January 1, 1874. As an historical aside, New York City was also growing through annexation, starting with several towns in and around the Bronx in 1873. These independent towns became neighborhoods of Boston.
Allston has witnessed several notable first, including:
1836: First strawberry farmed for Boston market by Abel Rice, at the corner of Everett and Holton streets.
1878: First bicycle race in the United States at Allston's Beacon Trotting Park, built for horse races.
1972: First closed captioning and descriptive video technology, at WGBH.
1980: First U2 concert in the United States, at the Paradise Rock Club.
Allston was almost the site for the John F. Kennedy presidential library. The idea of locating his library at Harvard had been discussed as early as 1961. By 1963, the president had selected a two-acre site in Lower Allston next to the business school. However, the neighborhood opposed the plan, in part because of the expected traffic, and it was eventually moved to Columbia Point in Dorchester.
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