Mission Hill

Why go

Mission Hill packs a lot of up and down into a small space. Its streets climb from Huntington Avenue and from Tremont Street, where the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, better known as Mission Church, raises twin spires that top out at 215 feet. Around it you get triple-deckers, 1870s brick rowhouses, hilltop parks with long views over the city, and the everyday traffic of a neighborhood that sits next door to the Longwood hospitals.

You come for the basilica, the views and a walk that feels like a small hike, then eat somewhere casual near Brigham Circle. If you are after boutiques or a long restaurant row, this is not it, and the steepest streets are hard going for anyone with limited mobility.

Getting around

• Green Line E branch: Brigham Circle, Fenwood Road, Mission Park, Riverway, Back of the Hill and Heath Street run along Huntington Avenue and South Huntington Avenue on the neighborhood’s western side. Brigham Circle has no elevators; the MBTA lists a portable boarding lift there.
• Orange Line: Roxbury Crossing, on Tremont Street, has an elevator from platform to lobby. Jackson Square serves the southeastern end of the hill.
• Buses: Route 39 runs along Huntington Avenue. Route 66 crosses the neighborhood on Huntington Avenue and Tremont Street between Harvard Square and Nubian station.
• Bluebikes: Docks include Brigham Circle, Smith Street at Parker Street, St. Alphonsus Street at Tremont Street and the Roxbury Crossing station.
• On foot: Huntington Avenue and Tremont Street, where the basilica stands, are fairly level; everything above them climbs. Plan a route that walks the hill once, not twice.
• Parking: Street spaces are scarce and much of the hill is residential. See the parking chapter and transit chapter.

When to go

Pick a clear day for the views, and late afternoon if you want the skyline lit by the low sun. Weekday daytime is busiest around Brigham Circle, when hospital staff and students crowd the sidewalks and the E branch; weekends are quieter. Avoid the days around September 1 if you can: most Boston leases turn over at the start of September, and a student-heavy neighborhood like this one fills with moving trucks. Fall is the best season for the Riverway side of the hill.

A short history

Mission Hill was part of the town of Roxbury, which Boston annexed in 1868. The hill itself is Parker Hill, named for the Parker family, who kept an orchard on its slopes. In the early 1800s, breweries and mills along the Stony Brook below the hill drew houses up its lower slopes, and German and Irish workers later filled them. In 1869 the Redemptorist order bought five acres on Parker Hill, and by 1871 they were saying Mass in a small wooden “mission church.” Its stone successor was dedicated on April 7, 1878.

The church’s popularity drew dense multi-family housing up the hill in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Huntington Avenue was cut through in 1882, bringing taller residential buildings, and the arrival of Harvard Medical School and its hospitals in nearby Longwood from 1906 onward tied the neighborhood’s future to medicine. The Mission Hill Triangle was protected as an Architectural Conservation District in 1985.

Local tips

• Climb once. Ride the E branch to Brigham Circle, walk up to Fitzgerald Park and down to the basilica, then follow Tremont Street to Roxbury Crossing for the Orange Line home.
• Stop at Mike’s Donuts, across Tremont Street from the basilica, before you start climbing.
• The basilica is a working parish. Keep your voice down, and skip photos during Mass.
• Heading to the MFA or the Gardner afterward? Both are a short walk or a couple of E branch stops from Brigham Circle.