Living in Roslindale, Boston, MA

About Roslindale

Where it is

Boston's open space plan notes that Roslindale's edges are not distinct, but describes the planning district as bounded by the Arnold Arboretum and the Walter Street Tract to the north, the former Boston State Hospital campus and the Forest Hills and Mount Hope cemeteries to the east, the West Roxbury Parkway to the west, and the George Wright Golf Course and part of the Stony Brook Reservation to the south. Jamaica Plain, Hyde Park, West Roxbury and Mattapan are its neighbors.

Roslindale was part of the town of Roxbury until 1851, when it, Jamaica Plain and West Roxbury left Roxbury to form the town of West Roxbury. The Boston and Providence Railroad opened its West Roxbury Branch from Forest Hills to Dedham on July 14, 1849, with a station at South Street, and by the 1860s the area was known as South Street Crossing. When residents sought their own post office district, the government rejected that name, and John Pierce proposed Roslindale, after Roslin, near Edinburgh. Voters approved annexation to Boston in 1873, and it took effect in 1874. Horse-drawn street railway service between Forest Hills and Dedham followed in the 1880s.

Washington Street runs through Roslindale Square, which took its present layout in the 1920s around Adams Park. In the square stands the Roslindale Substation, built for the Boston Elevated Railway in 1911 to a design by Robert S. Peabody and listed on the National Register in 2013. In 1929 Ashland Street, by then widened, was renamed Cummins Highway, from Washington Street to River Street. Roslindale Village Main Street, established in 1985 as one of the first urban Main Street programs in the country, runs the farmers' market and events in the square. To the north, the part of the Arnold Arboretum south of Bussey Street, including Peters Hill, at 240 feet, lies in Roslindale, and rail lines divide the neighborhood roughly into thirds.

Boston's 2008-2014 open space plan counted one- and two-family houses as 60% of Roslindale's housing, against 32% citywide; the western streets resemble West Roxbury, while the northern streets mix two- and three-family houses with light industrial buildings. Roslindale Square was the first plan adopted under the city's Squares + Streets initiative: the planning process ran from February 2024 to February 2025, the Boston Planning & Development Agency board adopted the Roslindale Square Small Area Plan on February 13, 2025, and the Zoning Commission approved new zoning in May 2025, effective June 2, 2025. It was the second area of the city with Squares + Streets districts in force, and the zoning allows multifamily housing near and above ground-floor businesses.

Homes in Roslindale

Roslindale is mostly one- and two-family houses: Boston's 2008-2014 open space plan put single-family homes at 33% and two-family homes at 27% of units, 60% together, compared with 32% citywide. Its western streets are mainly one- and two-family houses, its northern streets have more two- and three-family houses, and newer apartment buildings stand around Roslindale Square. The Boston Planning & Development Agency's tabulation of the 2016-2020 American Community Survey counts 53.8% of occupied units as owner-occupied (6,539 units), compared with 35.3% citywide.