Beacon Hill is a downtown Boston residential neighborhood situated directly north of the Boston Common and the Boston Public Garden. This charming section is filled with nearly 10,000 people, is more like a village than an anonymous city. It has a rich community life, with neighbors knowing neighbors and everyone meeting on the Hill's commercial streets and at its many activities. Approximately one-half mile square, Beacon Hill is bounded by Beacon Street, Bowdoin Street, Cambridge Street and Storrow Drive. It is known for its beautiful doors and door surrounds, brass door knockers, decorative iron work, brick sidewalks, perpetually-burning gas lights, flowering pear trees, window boxes, and hidden gardens. Its architecture, mostly brick row houses, includes the Federal, Greek Revival and Victorian periods, as well as early 20th-century colonial revival homes and tenements. The architecture is protected by restrictive regulations that allow no changes to any visible part of a structure without the approval of an architectural commission. Beacon Hill contains a South Slope, a North Slope and a Flat of the Hill. Charles Street is the neighborhood's main street and is filled with antique shops and neighborhood services. The Massachusetts State House is at the top of the Hill overlooking Boston Common.

All one needs within walking distance. Charles and Cambridge Streets are Beacon Hill's commercial streets. Charles Street is known for many antique shops, home decorating shops, food shops and a plethora of good restaurants. Cambridge Street offers everything as well as two gas stations and a supermarket, now undergoing construction in Charles River Plaza. Cambridge Street is also the home of the venerable Massachusetts General Hospital.

Jeff Persons / JPersons@aol.com / RE/MAX Destiny / 125 Newbury Street / Boston MA 02116 / 617-512-3443