Why go
JP, as almost everyone calls it, holds two of the best pieces of Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace: Jamaica Pond on the neighborhood’s west side and the Arnold Arboretum to the south. Forest Hills Cemetery, a 19th-century garden cemetery full of sculpture, fills the southeast corner. Between them runs Centre Street, a long main street of cafés, pubs, taquerias, bakeries and small shops, with the city’s official Latin Quarter at its northern end.
This is not a sightseeing district. There are no major museums, and the pleasures are low-key: a lap of the pond, a hilltop skyline view, a pint where the regulars know each other. If you want monuments and crowds, stay downtown. If you want a long green walk and a good neighborhood dinner, give JP a day.
Getting around
The Orange Line runs through JP along the Southwest Corridor, with stops at Jackson Square, Stony Brook, Green Street and Forest Hills. All four stations are accessible. Centre Street runs roughly parallel to the west, a 5- to 10-minute walk from the stations. The Green Line E branch ends at Heath Street, on the Mission Hill border.
Useful buses: the 39 (Forest Hills to Back Bay station, along Centre and South Huntington) and the 41 (Centre and Eliot streets to JFK/UMass). Bluebikes has docks at Hyde Square, along Centre Street and at Forest Hills, and the Southwest Corridor path gives you a mostly car-free ride from Back Bay.
On foot: Jamaica Pond is about 15 minutes from Green Street, and the Arboretum’s Arborway Gate is 10 to 15 minutes from Forest Hills. The pond path is flat. Peters Hill and Bussey Hill in the Arboretum are steep climbs.
When to go
Spring is the showpiece. The Arboretum’s lilacs flower for several weeks in May, and Lilac Sunday, held every year on Mother’s Day, adds tours and family activities. In early May the Wake Up the Earth festival fills Southwest Corridor Park near Stony Brook, a neighborhood tradition since 1979.
Summer means boats on the pond and long evenings on Centre Street. In October, fall color comes to the Arboretum, and the Jamaica Pond Lantern Parade, held since 1984, circles the pond at dusk. The pond loop works all year, including clear winter mornings. Weekend afternoons are the busiest time at the pond; weekday mornings are quiet.
A short history
Jamaica Plain began as farmland in the Town of Roxbury, founded in 1630. In 1851, owners of the large estates here led a break from Roxbury to form the new Town of West Roxbury, which Boston annexed in 1874. The Civil War monument at Centre and South streets was put up by that town. Jamaica Pond fed Boston water through wooden pipes from 1796, and in the mid-1800s its ice was cut and shipped around the world.
The Arboretum was founded in 1872, and in the 1880s Olmsted cleared most of the summer houses from the pond’s shore to make parkland. The elevated railway reached Forest Hills in 1909 and ran above Washington Street until 1987, when the Orange Line moved to its present route. That route sits on land cleared for Interstate 95, a highway neighbors fought until the state canceled it in 1972. The park beside the tracks is the result.
Local tips
- Make it a loop: Orange Line to Forest Hills, through the Arboretum to the Arborway Gate, north on Centre Street, around the pond, and back on the T at Green Street.
- Picnicking in the Arboretum is allowed only on Lilac Sunday. On other days, save the sandwich for a bench at the pond.
- Peters Hill is on the far side of the Arboretum from the visitor center. Budget time for it; the view is the reward.
