West Roxbury is a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts that was originally part of the town of Roxbury, founded in 1630 the same year as Boston. Then, most of the area was used as farmland.
One of the oldest schools in the city (not to be confused with the decade older Boston Latin School) West Roxbury’s boys’ school, Roxbury Latin School was founded in 1645. The school’s endowment is said to make it the biggest of any boys’ school in the United States.
In the 1840s New England transcendentalism literally took root in West Roxbury at the utopian community Brook Farm where all balanced work and leisure and shared in the work and profits equally. The community believed in the oneness of individual souls with nature and God. Brook Farm residents included novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne. His novel A Blithedale Romance, is drawn from his stay there.
West Roxbury ceded from Roxbury in 1851 only to be annexed by Boston in 1874. Then West Roxbury also included the neighborhoods known today as Jamaica Plain and Roslindale.
West Roxbury’s development grew with the building of a branch of the Boston and Providence Rail Road. Electric streetcars followed. Today West Roxbury has a population of 29,000 people in an area of 7 square miles bordered by Roslindale to the north, Dedham to the east and south, Brookline and Newton to the west.
West Roxbury’s main street is Centre Street, lined with restaurants shops and sites of historic note.
The Theodore Parker Church of the Unitarian Universalist denomination is at Centre and Corey Streets. The church features seven stained glass windows made by the Tiffany Studios between 1894 and 1927 five of which have recently been restored. The church was named after Theodore Parker who was minister of this congregation from 1837 to 1846. He was extraordinarily ahead of his time fighting for woman’s suffrage and against slavery while preaching very progressive religious ideas
The Westerly Burial Ground at Centre and Lagrange Streets was established in 1683. The site has three centuries of funerary art showcasing the skills of local stone carvers. Headstones date from 1691-1980 and include war veterans from the Revolutionary and Civil War on.
The median household income in West Roxbury is $65,428, just a bit more than the state as a whole.
Most of the houses in West Roxbury are single family homes on tree lined streets, many of which are available for rent although most are owner occupied. The median rent paid in West Roxbury is $1156. Most renters pay between $1000 and $1250 a month for rent. Most apartments have 4-5 rooms. Most of the housing stock in the community was built before 1950, with most of that built before 1939. More than half of the renters moved to West Roxbury before 1994.
The median age for males is 38, for females 43. Two out of three West Roxbury residents were born in Massachusetts. The population is 78 % White, 7% Black, 5% Latino 3% Asian. Much of the population is Irish Catholic.
