Brighton, Boston, Massachusetts
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Brighton is a traditionally working-class urban neighborhood of the City of Boston, Massachusetts. It is often referred to, along with the adjacent neighborhood of Allston, as "Allston-Brighton" or "Brighton-Allston". Allston was a section of the independent town of Brighton before Brighton was annexed by Boston in 1873. Despite the fact that the two neighborhoods are often mentioned in the same breath, they have established increasingly distinct identities. The two are nearly isolated, geographically, from the rest of Boston by the interposition of the town of Brookline.
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[edit] History
Originally known as Little Cambridge, the area was settled in the late seventeenth century. Before the American Revolutionary War, Little Cambridge was a prosperous farming community of fewer than three hundred people. Its inhabitants included such distinguished figures as Nathaniel Cunningham, Benjamin Faneuil, and Charles Apthorp. Cunningham and Faneuil were wealthy Boston merchants, and Apthorp was paymaster to the British Army in North America. All three maintained country estates in Little Cambridge during the middle years of the eighteenth century.
Little Cambridge contributed Colonel Thomas Gardner to the patriot cause in the Revolutionary War. An important political figure in the years just before the war, Gardner was killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill. The town of Gardner, Massachusetts was named to honor his memory.
[edit] The cattle market
Jonathan Winship and his son, also named Jonathan, established a cattle market at Little Cambridge in 1776 to supply the Continental Army, then headquartered across the Charles River in Harvard Square, Cambridge. Initially, the Winships forged relationships with cattlemen in Middlesex County, northwest of the city, to transport their newly-slaughtered beef to market in Little Cambridge, but the Winships soon realized that they was more money to be made by buying beef "on the hoof" and slaughtering it as market conditions dictated. Consequently, they soon built the first stockyards and slaughterhouse in Brighton. The cattle pens were about a quarter-mile east of Brighton Center, near the historic Bull's Head Tavern on what is now called Washington Street, and the slaughterhouse stood at the foot of Academy Hill (then called Powderhouse Hill). The cattle business experienced rapid growth during the post-war period, and, by 1790, the Winships had become the most successful meat-packers in Massachusetts.
Throughout the 1790's, the Cambridge town government failed to repair the Great Bridge that linked Little Cambridge to (Great) Cambridge and points in Middlesex County's agricultural hinterland beyond. They also made other decisions that threatened the well-being of the local cattle trade. Infuriated, the residents of Little Cambridge resolved to secede from their parent town. In 1807, they won approval from the General Court (as the Massachusetts legislature was, and still is, known) for separation and chose the name, Brighton, for the newly-independent municipality.
During the following decades, Brighton became established as an important commercial center. In 1819, the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture built its exhibition hall and fairgrounds on Agriculture Hill in Brighton Center. For the next decade and a half, Brighton was the site of the largest agricultural fair and cattle show in Massachusetts, an event held every October.
A huge hotel - the Cattle Fair - and elaborate stockyard facilities were constructed on the north side of Brighton Center in 1832. The Cattle Fair was the largest hotel outside of Boston, containing 100 rooms. The construction of the Boston & Worcester Railroad through the town in 1834 reinforced the community's hold on the cattle trade. By 1847, the Brighton cattle traders were doing almost $2 million of business a year. By the 1860s, the town also contained an estimated 50 to 60 slaughterhouses.
The cornerstone of Brighton’s industrial edifice was its livestock trade. This town at the western gateway to Boston was the principal cattle and slaughtering center of 19th century New England. Thousands of head of livestock reached its stockyards and slaughtering facilities each week from distant points, some driven overland, some arriving by rail. In 1869 alone, 53,000 head of cattle, 144,000 hogs, and 342,000 sheep arrived in Brighton.
Brighton also contained the largest concentration of slaughterhouses in New England - over forty of them. Other Brighton manufacturing establishments produced a wide range of animal by-products, including varnish, lampblack, bone fertilizer, soap, oil, tallow, lard, whips, buttons, and corset bones. Livestock-related enterprises served as the engine of the local economy.
[edit] The market garden
In 1820, another key industry was introduced into the town - horticulture. This industry also flourished. By the 1840s, Brighton was one of the most important horticultural and market gardening centers in the Boston area. A partial list of local nurseries includes the Winship Nursery in North Brighton, Nonantum Vale Gardens at the corner of Lake and Washington Streets, Breck Garden's in Oak Square and Horace Gray's grapery on Nonantum Hill.
[edit] The suburb?
With the growth of Boston in the 1850 to 75 period, Brighton's land owners saw great opportunities for profit making in residential development. The groundwork for the transformation of Brighton into a streetcar suburb was laid in the 1870s and 80's.
While the great majority of the town’s residents were dependent on the cattle and slaughtering trades---either directly of indirectly - for their livelihoods, these industries also emitted foul odors and generated waste products that were indiscriminately dumped into its watercourses. In 1866 public health expert Dr. Henry Clark, described the waste disposal practices of the forty-plus Brighton’s slaughterhouses as "prolific and provoking causes of disease."
For these reasons Bostonians, looking for a suburban locations in which to build homes were inclined to give Brighton a wide berth. Of all the towns around Boston, it had the lowest population of commuters.
Another barrier to residential development were large numbers of drovers, cattle dealers, country farmers, and itinerant merchants who poured into the town each week to attend the Cattle Market. The town continued some fifteen hotels for the accommodation of this transient element, hotels equipped with bars that dispensed as much liquor as the patrons cared to pay for, that tolerated disorderly and drunken behavior and that furnished a haven for high-stake gambling.
The poor condition of the town’s roads, its lack of street lighting, and an almost complete absence of sewers also militated against suburban development. Believing that there was little point in investing the town’s resources in roads over which droves of cattle were regularly driven, the town fathers spent very little money on highways. They also declined to invest in sewers which might tend to undermine the freewheeling dumping practices upon which the slaughterhouse proprietors relied. A relatively wealthy town, Brighton preferred to invest in public facilities - in a handsome Greek Revival town hall, a new brick grammar school, state-of-the-art fire houses and fire fighting equipment, and an elaborate 14-acre town cemetery. Such expenditures advertised the town’s prosperity and protected its property without in any way threatening the cattle and slaughtering trades.
The economic and political landscape of Brighton was transformed quite suddenly in the 1870 to 1873 period---the four years that led up to the annexation vote - by two factors chiefly. One of these was a major technological breakthrough - the introduction of refrigerated cars on American rail lines. Once they came into service, cattle could be slaughtered nearer the source of supply. With the introduction of refrigerated cars the eastern slaughtering industry of the United States began a slow but relentless decline.
Another factor that seriously threatened Brighton’s cattle and slaughtering industries was the rise of a powerful public health movement in Massachusetts. In 1869, the newly-organized Massachusetts State Board of Health accused the Brighton slaughterhouses of sending tainted meat into Boston, and demanded stricter regulation of the industry. The State Board also pointed to Brighton’s high mortality rate as evidence of the unhealthy disposal practices - a mortality rate equal to that of most crowded neighborhoods of Boston, and higher than those of the nineteen largest cities and towns of the Commonwealth.
To solve this problem, the State Board urged the establishment of a single, modern slaughtering facility somewhere near Boston - an abattoir - which all the butchers within a six mile radius of the city would be required to use.
Brighton’s more enterprising businessmen were quick to recognize the diminished prospects of the slaughtering trade - quick to appreciate that residential development now offered greater profit-making potential. At this point a group of Brighton businessmen took the initiative by establishing the Butcher’s Slaughtering and Melting Association, the corporation that, in 1872, built the sprawling Brighton Abattoir on the edge of the Charles River in North Brighton.
The business leaders who masterminded the transformation of Brighton in the 1870 to 1873 period - beginning with the abattoir scheme - were well-to-do men who had made their fortunes, either directly or indirectly, from the town’s cattle and slaughtering trades - Benjamin Franklin Ricker, Horace Jordan, and Horace Baxter - all slaughterhouse proprietors, State Senator William Wirt Warren, the favorite lawyer of the slaughterhouse proprietors, and George Wilson, a hotel keeper. All of them owned substantial real estate which they expected would appreciate in value as a result of the measures they supported.
Prior to filing the legislation that created the abattoir corporation, this same group of businessmen - later referred to as "The Brighton Ring" - had seized control of Brighton's Board of Selectmen and Board of Health. In the four years that followed, they continued to dominate the political life of the town.
The transformation of Brighton from an industrial town to commuter suburb was accomplished in three broad steps between 1870 and 1873:
First, the town’s slaughterhouses were closed down and its butchers forced into the abattoir, thus opening previously fouled acreage to suburban development.
Then, a massive program public works program was inaugurated with the object of making Brighton more attractive to would-be commuters. In the four years leading up to the annexation vote Brighton spent some $500,000 on improved roads, curbings, sidewalks, sewers and street lighting. Additional sums were also spent on public facility improvements, including a new public library, a handsome grammar school, and several new firehouses.
The "Brighton Ring" also used its control of town meetings for private profit, frequently selling the town parcels of land at greatly inflated prices.
The impact of this orgy of spending on the town’s finances was intentionally staggering. Brighton’s income in the four years under consideration totaled only $438,000, but it level of spending reached an incredible $1,560,000, four times what it received. The difference could be made up only one way - by heavy borrowing. In the 1870 to 1873 period, Brighton’s town debt increased by 800 percent. If Brighton had remained an independent town, after 1873 its residents would have been obliged to pay substantially higher taxes.
Members of "The Ring" meanwhile filed the legislation that authorized Brighton’s annexation to Boston. In building the town’s huge indebtedness, they laid the groundwork for the annexation decision of October 7, 1873. Allow Boston to annex Brighton, they advised the townspeople, and the metropolis would automatically absorb its potentially crippling debt.
As the debt rose in the 1870 to 1873 period, the opposition to annexation, which had been fairly strong in 1870, steadily eroded. As early as December 1872, nearly a year before the annexation vote, a majority of those attending a town meeting approved instructing Brighton’s representatives in the state legislature to "use their utmost efforts in behalf of annexation." A rising tax rate, coupled with a prospect of further sharp increases, had reconciled the great majority of Brighton’s voters to union with Boston.
Thus when the question was finally put to the voters in the fall of 1873, Brighton embraced annexation by an overwhelming vote of 622 to 133.
The West End Street Railway added tracks along Beacon Street via Cleveland Circle in 1887, and Commonwealth Avenue in 1900, triggering residential building booms along both thoroughfares and contributing to the development of Brighton and Brookline as streetcar suburbs.
After World War II, the Massachusetts Turnpike Extension (Interstate 90) divided the neighborhood. Wider than the already existing railroad tracks, the Turnpike added more noise and air pollution as it severed pedestrian links on either side. Proximity to expanding universities on all sides resulted in a considerable influx of students, coupled with younger families and immigrants from. These changing population patterns in turn spurred much conversion of large-scale apartments and 19th century single family homes to smaller rental units and condominiums.
[edit] Brighton today
Brighton is home to St. Elizabeth's Medical Center, and part of the campus of Boston College is located within its borders. The university recently purchased the 43-acre campus that formerly housed the residence of the Cardinal of the Archdiocese of Boston, located at the corner of Lake Street and Commonwealth Avenue. That campus still houses chancery offices for the Archdiocese and St. John's Seminary.
The economic centers of the neighborhood include Brighton Center, Oak Square, and Cleveland Circle.
The neighborhood is primarily populated by undergraduate and graduate students, young professionals working class families, and townies. Brighton consists of an intricate network of streets lined with multi-family houses, three deckers, and apartment buildings. Local family businesses mix with national chains of pharmacies and banks along Brighton's main street, Washington Street, which runs straight through Brighton Center to Oak Square.
In 2003, the community, along with neighboring Allston, saw an outbreak of bedbugs in hundreds of apartments. A $200 subsidy was offered to tenants with infested mattresses [1], and bedbug extermination workshops were held by the Boston Inspectional Services Housing Division.
[edit] Geography
Brighton appears on the map as a western appendage of Boston, connected to the rest of the city by the Allston neighborhood and otherwise surrounded on all sides by the cities of Cambridge, Watertown, and Newton, and the town of Brookline. Allston-Brighton is often considered collectively as one neighborhood.
The Charles River separates Brighton from Cambridge and Watertown.
[edit] Demographics
County: Suffolk County
Population: 44,004
Number of Households: 20,420
Median Household Income: $46,098
Median Age: 29.40
Average Household Income: $56,474
Per Capita Income $26,493
White Collar Jobs: 81.13%
Blue Collar Jobs: 18.86%
The area is mostly inhabited by working class families and college students. Brazilians, Irish, Greeks, Italians, Pakistanis, Eastern Europeans, and Latinos are among the most prominent ethnic groups of the neighborhood. This can be observed by the abundance of Latin/Brazilian shops along Cambridge St. and Brighton Ave. along with the great number of Irish pubs and convenience stores. Similar to Brookline, its neighbor to the south, Brighton is home to a significant Jewish community.
[edit] Colleges and universities
Brighton is host to the Bryman Institute, Saint John's Seminary and part of Boston College. The area is also proximal to other colleges, including Boston University, and houses many of their students and faculty.
See also the List of colleges and universities in metropolitan Boston.
In 2006, WGBH is expected to move their studios to the corner of North Beacon and Market Street, Brighton from their current location at 125 Western Avenue, Allston.
[edit] Transportation
Major streets in Brighton include Commonwealth Avenue, Washington Street and Market Street. The B line of the Boston MBTA subway Green Line runs directly through the neighborhood along Commonwealth Avenue, and the C line of the Green Line ends at Cleveland Circle after passing through Brookline.
[edit] References
- Dr. William P. Marchione, "A Short History of Allston-Brighton"
- Dr. William P. Marchione, The Bull in the Garden (1986)
- Dr. William P. Marchione, Images of America: Allston-Brighton (1996)
Excerpts:
[edit] External links
| Neighborhoods in Boston, Massachusetts |
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Allston/Brighton · Back Bay · Beacon Hill · Charlestown · Chinatown · Dorchester · Downtown Crossing · East Boston · Fenway-Kenmore · Government Center · Hyde Park · Jamaica Plain · Longwood · Mattapan · Mission Hill · North End · Roslindale · Roxbury · South Boston · South End · West End · West Roxbury |
