Date: Sunday, June 5 Time: 4:00-5:30pm Venue: Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts, 24 Eliot Street, Jamaica Plain Two dynamic composers create an afternoon combining free improvisation and compositions by each. Shaw Pong Liu (violin) engages communities in conversations through musical collaboration. Her work has addressed birdsong and healing, sunlight and warmth, healing and homicide, racism, and the police. Brian Friedland (piano), initiator of the Eliot Schoolyard Concerts, writes music that reflects his love of…

Laid out in 1836, the street played a key role in Jamaica Plain’s development, functioning as a residential, commercial, and transportation conduit in the lives of the district’s residents. Although Green Street was subdivided as early as 1851 for stores, factories and houses, it was not extensively developed until the late 1870s with construction continuing until the early 1900s. The Bowditch School was completed in 1892, and early in the 20th century the United States…

The Southwest Corridor Park was the result of protests about the creation of an eight lane highway running through Boston’s southwestern neighborhoods. Jamaica Plain’s residents played an important role in both the stopping of the I-95 project and the efforts to create a park out of the razed land. This historical walking tour will follow the path of the park and discuss changes in the landscape. It will also talk about the communities that forced…

Date: June 12 Time: 4:00-5:30pm Venue: Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts, 24 Eliot Street, Jamaica Plain Malagasy award winner and Boston-based singer-songwriter Niu Raza is known for her unique sound, a perfect blend between her traditional heritage and modern music. From Madagascar to Boston and around the globe, she has shared the stage with multi-instrumentalist Jacob Collier, saxophonist Tia Fuller, and South Africa’s Vusi Mahlasela, and as a voice for UNICEF and an ambassador…

Join the Jamaica Plain Historical Society to tour this part of the JP neighborhood which developed from 19th-century summer estates into a model suburban enclave. It contains examples representative of New England architecture with designs by local architects and builders. It also contains an unusual garden city model housing development by the Boston Dwelling House Company which was founded in 1912. All tours are free to the public and are offered on dates shown. Tours…

Date: June 19 Time: 4:00-5:30pm Venue: Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts, 24 Eliot Street, Jamaica Plain Formed in 1999 by 4-time Grammy-nominated Black Uhuru drummer 'Rangotan and 6-time steel pan champion Sista D, Dis N Dat incorporates Roots Reggae, Dance Hall, and R&B. Sounds of Jamaica and Trinidad rock the sounds of foundation reggae and steel pan. It’s 'Neo-Reggae,' taking reggae to a whole new level while maintaining the foundation sound that so many…

Travel around the Pond with the Jamaica Plain Historical Society. Once a district that only included the houses of Boston’s elite, the Pond later was put to industrial use as tons of ice were harvested there each winter. Learn about the movers and shakers such as Francis Parkman and James Michael Curley who made their homes on the Pond’s shores. Discover how the Pond was transformed from private estates and warehouses into the parkland we…

Date: June 26 Time: 4:00-5:30pm Venue: Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts, 24 Eliot Street, Jamaica Plain The debut concert from long-time musical friends Lihi Haruvi (sax), Keala Kaumeheiwa (bass), Brian Friedland (keyboard) and Jorge Perez-Albela (drums). Expect globally inspired jazz with lots of joyful spontaneity. This is part of the Eliot Schoolyard Concert Series, 15 live events, Sundays at 4pm, June through September at the Eliot Schoolyard.

Tour a residential area that includes a National Historic District. View architecture that spans three centuries; the oldest community theater company in the United States; and an elegant 18th-century mansion that once served as the country’s first military hospital. Learn about the monument that commemorates fallen Civil War soldiers from West Roxbury and about Pauline Agassiz Shaw who established the class that became the model for free, public kindergarten education. We will visit a house…

Developed as a suburb by General William Hyslop Sumner in the mid-nineteenth century, this National Historic District includes one of the finest collections of Victorian houses in the area. The tour includes the ancestral home of the Dole Pineapple Company founder as well as the homes of progressives who were active as abolitionists and women suffragists. Leaves from Loring-Greenough House, 12 South St.  Click here to see photographs for the Sumner Hill tour. Please join…