Area Architecture

Much has changed in JP over its 400-year history, but important parts of the town’s past have been preserved and these elements contribute to the area’s unique feel and quality of life. The neighborhoods just off Centre Street reflect its colonial roots with narrow, winding one-way streets. Areas to the east and west of Centre Street are both designated historic districts containing beautiful Victorian-style residences.

Along Centre Street many older commercial buildings have been replaced in the last fifty years, but some structures dating back to the Victorian era through the 1920s do remain. The building that now houses the very popular JP Licks was built in the 1870s as a firehouse.

Other examples of fine architecture include the Loring-Greenough House and Museum, located at 12 South Street. Built in 1750, this Georgian house was used as a hospital during the Revolutionary War. On nearby Eliot Street stands Eliot Hall, an 1831 Greek Revival structure housing The Footlight Club, America’s oldest continuously active theatre group. Close by and also built in 1831 is the Eliot School, a schoolhouse that now houses an art school.*

*Information for this section was obtained from the excellent Jamaica Plain Historical Society web site, http://www.geocities.com/jphistoricalsociety/. Additional information came from Anthony Mitchell Sammarco’s wonderful book, Images of America: Jamaica Plain, published by Arcadia in 1997.

More information about JP’s architecture can be found at:
Boston Public Library, http://www.bpl.org/branches/jamaica.htm.
Loring-Greenough House, www.lghouse.org
Eliot Hall/Footlight Club, www.footlight.org