Brookline, Massachusetts
Brookline /ˈbrʊklaɪn/ is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States, and part of the Boston metropolitan area. Brookline borders six of Boston's neighborhoods: Brighton, Allston, Fenway–Kenmore, Mission Hill, Jamaica Plain, and West Roxbury. The city of Newton lies to the west of Brookline. Brookline was first settled in 1638 as a hamlet in Boston, known as Muddy River; it was incorporated as a separate town in 1705.
Not to be confused with Brooklyn, a borough of New York City.
Brookline, Massachusetts
1638
1705
Charles Carey
Heather A. Hamilton (Chair)
John VanScoyoc (Vice-Chair)
Bernard W. Greene
Miriam Aschkenasy
Michael Sandman
6.8 sq mi (17.7 km2)
6.8 sq mi (17.6 km2)
0.1 sq mi (0.1 km2)
50 ft (15 m)
63,191
9,292.8/sq mi (3,590.4/km2)
25-09175
0619456
At the time of the 2020 census, the population of the town was 63,191.[1] It has been the most populous municipality in Massachusetts to have a town (rather than city) form of government since Framingham changed to a city in 2018, following a 2017 referendum.[2]
Brookline, along with the nearby Boston neighborhood of Brighton and the city of Newton, is a cultural hub for the Jewish community of Greater Boston.
[35]
Brookline Village is home to , New England's only dedicated puppet theater and center for puppetry arts. The theater is located in the historic 32 Station Street building directly across from the Brookline Village MBTA Green Line stop.
Puppet Showplace Theater
There have been three Poet Laureates of Brookline: Judith Steinbergh, , and, currently, Zvi Sesling.[37]
Jan Schreiber
Government[edit]
Since 1916, Brookline has been governed by a representative town meeting, which is the town's legislative body, and a five-person Select Board, the town's executive branch.[42][43] Fifteen town meeting representatives are elected to three year terms from each of the town's seventeen precincts.[44] From 1705 to 1916, the town was governed by an open town meeting and a Select Board.
New and existing laws[edit]
In 2017, a Brookline Town Meeting voted to recognize Indigenous Peoples' Day instead of Columbus Day.[45]
In 2019, Brookline banned the distribution of carry-out plastic bags at grocery stores and other businesses.[46]
In 2021, Brookline banned the sale of tobacco and e-cigarettes to anyone born after January 1, 2000, in Article 8.23 of the town bylaws, expanding on Massachusetts' existing prohibition on the sale of tobacco products to anyone under the age of 21.[46] In March 2023, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld the bylaw in the case Six Brothers Inc. v. Town of Brookline.[47]
Beaver Country Day School
– partly in Newton
Brimmer and May School
Ivy Street School
Maimonides School
The Park School
Saint Mary of the Assumption School
Public Library of Brookline, 361 Washington St., Brookline, MA 02445
Coolidge Corner Branch Library, 31 Pleasant St., Brookline, MA 02446
Putterham Branch Library, 959 West Roxbury Pkwy., Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
king of Thailand, lived in Brookline during his infancy while his father the prince studied at Harvard Medical School
Bhumibol Adulyadej
sports radio host and businessman, moved to Brookline as child, graduated from Brookline High
Eddie Andelman
U.S. Ambassador to Japan
Larz Anderson
professor at New York University. She was the former chief tax counsel to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee under the Obama administration and appointed to head Joe Biden's IRS transition team
Lily Batchelder
novelist
Linda Barnes
Nobel Prize-winning novelist, lived the last 12 years of his life in Brookline
Saul Bellow
professional basketball player, lived in Brookline while he played for the Boston Celtics
Larry Bird
jazz pianist and composer
Ran Blake
mayor of New York City 2002–2012, lived in Brookline as a child
Michael Bloomberg
(1899–1971), writer, essayist, and playwright
Marita Bonner
physician who introduced inoculation against smallpox to the North American colonies in 1721
Zabdiel Boylston
science-fiction writer
Michael A. Burstein
(born 1923), statistician
Herman Chernoff
actress
Ida Conquest
(1798–1845), businessman and mayor of Boston
Thomas Aspinwall Davis
(born 1933), former Governor of Massachusetts and 1988 Democratic Presidential candidate
Michael Dukakis
(born 1991), American-born four-time Israeli National Champion in skeleton event, and Israeli Olympian
Adam Edelman
(born 1973), Chicago Cubs President of Baseball Operations and former Boston Red Sox general manager
Theo Epstein
radiologist
Alice Ettinger
professional mixed martial artist
Kenny Florian
venture capitalist and entrepreneur
David Frankel
digital physics pioneer, inventor of the trie data structure, the Fredkin gate and the Billiard-Ball Computer Model for reversible computing
Edward Fredkin
(1851–1935), water engineer, plant collector, and botanist with a particular interest in algae and diatoms
Fayette F. Forbes
dermatologist
Irwin Freedberg
LGBTQ activist and first openly transgender White House staffer
Raffi Freedman-Gurspan
baseball writer and ESPN commentator
Peter Gammons
popularizer of the safety razor
King Gillette
(born 1932), Nobel Prize-winning physicist
Sheldon Glashow
(1930–2010), editor-in-chief of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery for 25 years, professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School, and chief of Plastic Surgery at Beth Israel Hospital
Robert Goldwyn
(born 1941), American journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist
Ellen Goodman
(1871–1952), WWI nurse and nurse educator
Minnie Goodnow
(1887–1977), lyric tenor and composer
Roland Hayes
(1921–2009), the Bostoner Rebbe
Levi Yitzchak Horowitz
(1895–1974), painter and sculptor
Isabella Howland
an American entrepreneur and venture capitalist
Daniel Hoffer
(1946–1983), musician, singer, songwriter, and television personality
Peter Ivers
(1919–2011), psychiatrist, humanist and longtime Brookline resident who was a member of the faculties of Harvard University, the University of Pittsburgh and the McLean Hospital
Irene Jakab
US ambassador to Israel, lived in Brookline with his family
Richard Jones
(born 1943), mathematician, MIT faculty, creator of Kac-Moody algebras, creator of Superalgebra
Victor Kac
biomedical researcher
Jeffrey Karp
(1917–1963), 35th President of the United States (1961–63), born and lived first 10 years of his life in Brookline
John F. Kennedy
(1920–1948), sister of President John F. Kennedy, born in Brookline
Kathleen Agnes Kennedy (Kathleen Cavendish, Marchioness of Hartington)
(1925–1968), Attorney General, US Senator, brother of President John F. Kennedy, born in Brookline
Robert F. Kennedy
(1886–1969), author
Louise Andrews Kent
(born 1954, raised in Corvallis, Oregon), author of Into the Wild and Into Thin Air, columnist for Outside magazine
Jon Krakauer
(1903–1995), American violinist
Louis Krasner
leader of the worldwide macrobiotic movement
Michio
(1814–1886), merchant and abolitionist
Amos Adams Lawrence
(1856–1943), former president of Harvard University
Abbott Lawrence Lowell
(born 1946), musician
Tony Levin
(1874–1925), poet
Amy Lowell
(1903–1984), 10-year-old caddie of Francis Ouimet during 1913 U.S. Open held in Brookline
Eddie Lowery
king of Thailand, lived during age 1–3 years in Brookline while his father the prince studied at Harvard Medical School
Ananda Mahidol
documentary filmmakers
Albert and David Maysles
(1926–1980), theologian, philosopher, author and editor, Harvard professor 1971–1980
Arthur Chute McGill
youngest member of musical group New Kids on the Block, lived in Brookline
Joey McIntyre
(1927–2006), psychoanalyst, feminist, author, social activist
Jean Baker Miller
rock musician
Roger Miller
(1885–1950), winner of the 1934 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
George Minot
(born 1948), photographer, professor at Massachusetts College of Art
Abelardo Morell
(1892–1987), winner of 1934 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
William Murphy
photographer, professor at Massachusetts College of Art
Nicholas Nixon
(born 1963), television host, comedian, writer, producer
Conan O'Brien
(1936–2023), short story writer
Edith Pearlman
(1930–2003), boxer, middleweight champion
Paul Pender
M.D., neurosurgeon and author
Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa
(1915–2011), winner of the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physics
Norman Ramsey
short story writer
Rishi Reddi
(1861–1943), civil rights activist, suffragist, teacher, writer, and editor
Florida Ruffin Ridley
(born 1954), jazz guitarist, recording artist, composer, arranger, author, jazz educator
Steve Rochinski
(1890–1984), pioneer in the development of in vitro fertilization and the birth control pill
John Rock
(born 1932), writer and Maine politician
Neil Rolde
(born 1967), tech entrepreneur and scientist at the MIT Media Lab
David L. Rose
(born 1931), attorney and author
Larry Ruttman
(1800-1884), merchant, member of the Boston Associates, horticulturalist, early benefactor of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society
Ignatius Sargent
(1874–1951), composer, lived at 1280 Beacon Street during the 1930s
Arnold Schoenberg
American neuroscientist
Allison Sekuler
(1652–1730), judge in the Salem witch trials
Samuel Sewall
(born 1976), film and television producer
Sarah Schechter
(1903–1993), Jewish scholar
Joseph B. Soloveitchik
(born 1947), novelist
Sarah Smith
economist, president of Harvard University 2001–2006
Lawrence Summers
entrepreneur and residential contractor featured in numerous national publications
Cindy Stumpo
(1920-1987), producer of TV, movies, and stage plays; TV talk show host.
David Susskind
(born 1941), two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist
Paul Szep
(born 1947), composer
Karen Tarlow
musician, owns a home in Brookline
James Taylor
(1968–1998), actress who played Justine Phillips on The Cosby Show and Myra Monkhouse on Family Matters
Michelle Thomas
(1929–2022), television commentator and journalist
Barbara Walters
cancer researcher known for discovering a gene that causes normal cells to form tumors, and the first tumor suppressor gene
Robert Weinberg
blogger, internet expert, and political consultant
David Weinberger
(1839–1923), businessman and developer of the Beacon Street boulevard
Henry Melville Whitney
(1811–1878), businessman and politician
James Scollay Whitney
(1922–2015), lithographer, sculptor, painter, muralist, and art teacher
John Woodrow Wilson
(1929-1993), Sports agent who represented athletes including Larry Bird, Carl Yastrzemski, John Havlicek and others
Bob Woolf
chaplain at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, researcher on American presidents and childhood trauma, and media host[59]
Danny Yamashiro
electrical engineer and entrepreneur
Moshe Yanai
Scenes from (2023) were filmed in Brookline.
American Fiction
Also included under the two sister cities for the , Hokkaidō, Japan (since 1990). Basel-Stadt, Switzerland.
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Brookline is twinned with:
Greater Boston
European beech in the Longwood Mall
Metropolitan area
National Register of Historic Places listings in Brookline, Massachusetts
Representative town meeting format
Ronald Dale Karr. Between City and Country: Brookline, Massachusetts, and the Origins of Suburbia. (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2018).
Keith N. Morgan, Elizabeth Hope Cushing, and Roger G. Reed. Community by Design: The Olmsted Firm and the Development of Brookline, Massachusetts (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2012).
. Voices of Brookine Foreword by Michael Dukakis. (Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Peter E. Randall Publisher LLC, 2005). ISBN 1-931807-39-6