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Brookline Massachusetts
is a jewel of a suburb. Cheek to jowl with Boston - it has managed to maintain
its own identity - a unique mixture of busy streets and rolling countryside,
upscale shops and village pubs, gracious apartment buildings and large
estates, and home for legions of academic and scientific professionals,
who work at the nearby medical centers in Boston. Brookline has staunchly
refused to be absorbed by Boston, which surrounds it like a horseshoe.
A community of 6.6 square miles and almost 55,000 people.
Brookline has kept its town meeting
form of government since 1705, when this "Muddy River" farmland of Boston
became incorporated and named for the brooks that formed its boundaries.
Among its many unusual resources, Brookline has its own working farm (with
farm stand), the oldest country club in the nation, a town golf course,
the home in which John F. Kennedy was born, a magnificent park on a hillside
overlooking Boston with a wonderful open air skating rink and marvelous
transportation museum, and numerous neighborhood parks and playgrounds
scattered throughout the Town.
Its major retail centers, like Coolidge
Corner and Brookline Village, are bustling pedestrian-oriented shopping
areas with a variety of shops - antique stores, coffee shops, bookstores,
fresh fruit and vegetable markets, delicatessens and restaurants. Along
with offering both a city atmosphere and a feeling of being in the country,
there is a wonderful mix of people in Brookline: elderly, minorities, immigrants
from many lands, young families and college students. It is said that the
student body at Brookline High School -- a nationally renowned institution
-- includes students from more than 50 different countries. Although predominantly
residential, Brookline is anxious to attract new commercial development,
and in just the last two years, the Town has amended its zoning to encourage
new growth along its major thoroughfares.
Brookline Massachusetts is located
in Eastern Massachusetts, bordered by Newton on the west and south and
Boston on the east, south, and north. Brookline is 4 miles west of Boston;
36 miles east of Worcester. |