For the first twenty years of my life, I was a city kid. I grew up in Forest Hills, which is part of Jamaica Plain, which is one of the 21 neighborhoods of Boston. Yep, 21 neighborhoods. Brookline is *not* a Boston neighborhood. It’s a separate city. Do not let people who live in Brookline tell you they live in Boston. They’re not telling the truth.

While I grew up in a two-family house on a street lined with other two- and three-family houses in a neighborhood full of streets crammed with two- and three-family houses, Forest Hills has a vast amount of green space. The downside is that it’s contained within Forest Hills and St. Michael’s Cemetaries. Forest Hills is more like a park, with 275 acres of meandering paths and self-guided tours. St. Michael’s is not quite as large or well-landscaped, but still full of interesting monuments. My mother, uncle, and maternal grandparents are all buried at St. Michael’s.

As I said, Forest Hills is part of Jamaica Plain, and Jamaica Plain is home to the Arnold Arboretum, Jamaica Pond, and the Jamaica Way — all part of Frederick Law Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace. We lived at 50 Wenham Street, which is the top of the hill. Wenham Street runs between Walk Hill and Weld Hill Streets, and makes a steep rise and then descent. My father installed a very large picture window in the kitchen and we had a beautiful view across Hyde Park Avenue and Washington Street to the Arboretum. On the fourth of July we would sit on the top of our garage roof and watch the fireworks over Jamaica Pond.

The thing is, as a kid I never appreciated all of that green space in the middle of an urban, working class neighborhood. To my mother, who had grown up in Boston’s West End (a neighborhood that is no longer thanks to “urban renewal” in the 50’s) Forest Hills was the country. Of course lots of things have changed since the sixties — the area got worse before it got better, with families leaving for the suburbs and beyond. A new generation has since moved in, restored, rebuilt, and re-invigorated what was seen for a while to be a dying community. Not just in Forest Hills, but throughout Jamaica Plain, Roslindale and beyond.

The Church and schools I attended are now repurposed; St. Andrew’s Parish Church closed shortly after my mother’s passing; the elementary school closed a few years after. A new church now occupies the building and the elementary school is now a Charter school. My high school — St. Clare’s in neighboring Roslindale — also closed, but I can’t seem to find any more information.

I wonder if my old bedroom walls are still painted yellow and orange …