Living in Allston, Boston, MA

About Allston

Where it is

The Charles River forms Allston's northern and eastern edges, across from Cambridge; it borders Brighton, generally along Everett, Gordon and Kelton Streets, as well as the Fenway-Kenmore area and the town of Brookline. The Massachusetts Turnpike crosses it, with Lower (North) Allston north of Cambridge Street and the Turnpike.

Allston grew up as the eastern part of Little Cambridge, which became the town of Brighton in 1807. The Boston and Albany Railroad opened a new depot here in 1867, and in 1868 the station and post office in Brighton's eastern portion took the name Allston, after the painter Washington Allston. Allston became part of Boston when Brighton was annexed in 1874, and it has never been a separate municipality. Railroad and livestock operations shaped the area; the livestock trade ended by the mid-20th century, and the Beacon Park rail yard, later CSX's Beacon Park Yard, stayed in use until 2013. Streetcar service along Commonwealth Avenue began on May 18, 1896, from Governors Square to Brighton Avenue.

Large institutions arrived in the 20th century. Harvard Stadium, an early large structure in reinforced concrete, opened on November 14, 1903, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987. Harvard Business School, founded in 1908, has its campus in Lower Allston; its Morgan Hall dates from 1927. Braves Field opened on August 18, 1915, at Commonwealth Avenue and Babcock Street on the site of the Allston Golf Club, and Boston University bought it on July 30, 1953; Boston University's schools and facilities now extend from Kenmore Square to Packard's Corner. The Massachusetts Turnpike Extension opened through Allston in 1964 and 1965, largely on the old Boston and Albany right-of-way. The Boston Planning Department counts 358 acres of academic space in Allston, the most of any Boston neighborhood, and notes that Harvard owns more land in Boston than in Cambridge.

Brick apartment buildings line Commonwealth Avenue and nearby streets, wooden triple-deckers stand along Brighton Avenue toward Brighton, and Lower Allston has Victorian single- and multi-family houses built between the 1890s and 1920s. Harvard's Science and Engineering Complex opened in 2020. In 2019 work began on a bus lane from Union Square to Packard's Corner. The largest pending change is MassDOT's I-90 Allston Multimodal Project, which is progressing the design to replace the I-90 viaduct in Allston; MassDOT says cost and engineering analyses by an independent review team are to be examined in 2026. The plans include West Station, proposed at Ashford Street in the former Beacon Park Yard on the Framingham/Worcester Line.

Homes in Allston

Allston's housing is mostly brick apartment buildings, especially on Commonwealth Avenue and nearby streets, with wooden triple-deckers along Brighton Avenue and Victorian single- and multi-family houses from the 1890s to the 1920s in Lower Allston. The Boston Planning & Development Agency's tabulation of the 2016-2020 American Community Survey counts 8,040 occupied housing units in Allston, 14.0% of them owner-occupied and 86.0% renter-occupied, compared with 35.3% owner-occupied citywide.