Living in South End, Boston, MA

About South End

Where it is

The South End Historic District on the National Register is bounded by the Southwest Corridor Park to the northwest, the Massachusetts Turnpike to the north, Herald Street to the east, Albany Street to the southeast and Massachusetts Avenue to the southwest; the neighborhood borders Back Bay, Chinatown and Roxbury.

The South End was tidal marsh around Boston Neck, the strip of land joining Boston to Roxbury; Washington Street follows the original causeway between them. In 1801 Charles Bulfinch proposed a single oval park there, Columbia Square, which by 1814 appeared as two halves on either side of Washington Street, today's Blackstone and Franklin Squares; the area developed slowly until the 1850s. Large-scale filling made the rest of the neighborhood, and construction began on January 7, 1849. The main period of development, from 1850 to 1873, produced brick and brownstone row houses built as single-family homes. After the Panic of 1873 many of the houses were converted to multi-unit housing, and by the turn of the century lodging houses were almost the only residential buildings being built.

The row houses, built between 1850 and 1880 in brick and brownstone, mix Greek Revival, Italianate and later Victorian styles, and the neighborhood has eleven residential parks. Union Park, an elliptical park laid out by Ellis S. Chesbrough, had its lots auctioned in June 1851 and every house finished by 1859, with bowfront and square-front bays facing a cast-iron fence copied from Louisburg Square. Chester Square, laid out in 1850 as a larger oval, became part of Massachusetts Avenue in 1891. The Cyclorama, built in 1884 to show a panoramic painting of the Battle of Gettysburg, is now part of the Boston Center for the Arts, and Patrick Keely's Gothic Revival Cathedral of the Holy Cross, at 1400 Washington Street, was dedicated in 1875.

The South End Landmark District, designated in 1983, requires South End Landmark District Commission approval for exterior work on front facades, rooftops and some side and rear elevations before it begins. The National Register district was listed on May 8, 1973, with boundary increases in 2014 and 2025. Along the northwest edge, the Southwest Corridor Park, managed by the state Department of Conservation and Recreation, opened in segments from 1987 and was completed in 1990 over and beside the Orange Line and the rail corridor, with paths, courts and playgrounds. East of Washington Street, the area known as SoWa (South of Washington) runs roughly from Albany to Washington Street between East Berkeley Street and Massachusetts Avenue.

Homes in South End

The South End's row houses were built as single-family brick and brownstone homes between 1850 and 1880, and many were converted to multi-unit housing after the Panic of 1873. The Boston Planning & Development Agency's tabulation of the 2014 to 2018 American Community Survey counts 17,936 housing units, 16,606 of them occupied; 38.6% of occupied units were owner occupied and 61.4% renter occupied.