Living in Brighton, Boston, MA

About Brighton

Where it is

The northwestern corner of Boston: the Charles River separates it from Cambridge and Watertown, Newton lies to the west and Brookline to the south, and it meets Allston generally along Everett, Gordon and Kelton Streets.

The land that became Brighton was assigned to Watertown in 1630 and moved to Newtowne, later Cambridge, in 1634; the settlement south of the Charles was known as Little Cambridge. In 1775 Jonathan Winship I and Jonathan Winship II established a cattle market here to supply the Continental Army. After disputes with Cambridge over the cattle trade and the failure to repair the Great Bridge, Little Cambridge was incorporated as the town of Brighton on February 24, 1807. The Boston & Worcester Railroad came through in 1834, and by 1866 the town had 41 slaughterhouses, later consolidated into the Brighton Stock Yards and the Brighton Abattoir. Brighton, then in Middlesex County, voted in October 1873 to join Boston, and annexation took effect on January 5, 1874.

The old town center runs along Washington Street. The Brighton Center Historic District, 15 acres around the junction of Washington Street with Market Street and Chestnut Hill Avenue, was listed on the National Register on February 20, 2001; its oldest resource is the Market Street Burial Ground of 1764. In the southwest corner, the Chestnut Hill Reservoir was dedicated on October 25, 1870, as part of Boston's water supply. Nearby, the Aberdeen section was developed after 1887 as a suburb of detached houses along winding roads, served by the Beacon Street trolley, in Colonial Revival, Georgian Revival, Queen Anne and Shingle styles. Brighton is also home to Saint John's Seminary, whose classes began in 1884, portions of Boston College, and St. Elizabeth's Medical Center, founded in 1868.

The Boston Planning Department describes Brighton's housing as wooden triple-deckers, suburban-style single-family houses and brick apartment buildings, with business districts in Brighton Center, Cleveland Circle and Oak Square. Since the mid-2010s, New Balance has developed Boston Landing, a mixed-use district around Guest Street: it built its headquarters on Guest Street in 2015, the Warrior Ice Arena opened on September 8, 2016, and Boston Landing station opened on May 22, 2017, with New Balance funding its design, construction and maintenance. WGBH built its headquarters on Guest Street in 2007. On the river, the Charles River Speedway headquarters at 525 Western Avenue, built between 1899 and 1940, was rehabilitated from 2019 and reopened as The Speedway in 2021.

Homes in Brighton

Brighton's housing includes wooden triple-deckers, suburban-style single-family houses and brick apartment buildings, according to the Boston Planning Department; the Aberdeen section holds detached houses in Colonial Revival, Georgian Revival, Queen Anne and Shingle styles, along with apartment and condominium buildings. The Boston Planning & Development Agency's tabulation of the 2016-2020 American Community Survey counts 21,002 occupied housing units in Brighton, 22.7% of them owner-occupied and 77.3% renter-occupied, compared with 35.3% owner-occupied citywide.