Living in Mission Hill, Boston

The Mission Church's twin spires rise over Tremont Street; the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help drew so many reported healings in its early years that newspapers once called it the 'Lourdes of the East.' Triple-decker houses climb the hill's slopes in tidy rows, many built in the early twentieth century for the hospital and streetcar workers who first settled the area. Brigham Circle's shops sit at the neighborhood's commercial center, and the Southwest Corridor Park's bike path runs along the old railroad cut toward Roxbury Crossing. The Longwood Medical Area's hospital campuses border the neighborhood's western edge, putting Brigham and Women's Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute within walking distance for anyone who works there, and the Orange Line's Roxbury Crossing station and the Green Line E branch's Longwood stops put downtown within a fifteen-minute ride.

Ambulance sirens and hospital traffic move through the blocks nearest Longwood at most hours, a sound that fades within a few streets further up the hill.

Steep side streets climb from Huntington Avenue toward the hill's quieter blocks, shaded stoops and the occasional community garden sitting above the hospital district's daytime bustle.