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Brookline
is a jewel of a suburb. Cheek to jowl with Boston - it has managed
to maintain its own identity - a unique mixture of busy streets and
rolling countryside, upscale shops and village pubs, gracious
apartment buildings and large estates, and home for legions of
academic and scientific professionals, who work at the nearby
medical centers in Boston. Brookline has staunchly refused to be
absorbed by Boston, which surrounds it like a horseshoe. A community
of 6.6 square miles and almost 55,000 people. Brookline has kept its
town meeting form of government since 1705, when this "Muddy River"
farmland of Boston became incorporated and named for the brooks that
formed its boundaries. Among its many unusual resources, Brookline
has its own working farm (with farm stand), the oldest country club
in the nation, a town golf course, the home in which John F. Kennedy
was born, a magnificent park on a hillside overlooking Boston with a
wonderful open air skating rink and marvelous transportation museum,
and numerous neighborhood parks and playgrounds scattered throughout
the Town. Its major retail centers, like Coolidge Corner and
Brookline Village, are bustling pedestrian-oriented shopping areas
with a variety of shops - antique stores, coffee shops, bookstores,
fresh fruit and vegetable markets, delicatessens and restaurants.
Along with offering both a city atmosphere and a feeling of being in
the country, there is a wonderful mix of people in Brookline:
elderly, minorities, immigrants from many lands, young families and
college students. It is said that the student body at Brookline High
School -- a nationally renowned institution -- includes students
from more than 50 different countries. Although predominantly
residential, Brookline is anxious to attract new commercial
development, and in just the last two years, the Town has amended
its zoning to encourage new growth along its major thoroughfares. |
