Fire! (and how to help stop it)

Big fire in Beacon Hill earlier this week. The Red Cross has sent $10,000 to help those displace and damage is estimated at $1,000,000 – oh, wait. Sorry. That was in Nebraska.

In Beacon Hill, Massachusetts, the cost average cost per bedroom (dividing the average asking price of a Beacon Hill property by the average number of bedrooms) is just under $400,000, meaning that 32 displaced people, assuming a one person-per-bedroom, would be nearly $13 million (or 33% more than the most expensive property in the neighborhood).

Of course, the real Beacon Hill fire this week it wasn’t really in Beacon Hill, either. Back in the day, they would have called it Scollay Square, but now it’s just sort of this concrete mishmash that Wikipedia refers to as “the Government Center neighborhood”. Whatever.

Truth of the matter is, though, it was a good thing this fire wasn’t in Beacon Hill. As recently as a few years ago, fire trucks have had difficulty reaching blazes in the neighborhood. On nearly every corner, the sizable tow-zones fire lanes set up to allow the large trucks to get through are routinely used by residents as short-term parking.

So, in the interests of fire prevention, here’s a selection of Beacon Hill homes with off-street parking:

108 Mount Vernon Street, #2 – 1,035,000
2 Beds, 2 Baths, 1,077 sq. ft.
I realize that a million-dollar-plus condo is a strange place to start this list, but the sad truth is, parking doesn’t come cheap on The Hill. Despite the $460 condo dues, you’re still going to have to pay extra to rent mere garage parking at this place.

107 Chestnut Street #3 – $1,975,000
2 Beds, 2.5 Baths, 2,180 sq. ft.
Though you’ll be saddled with the indignity of having merely a “unit” instead of a full house of your own, the right-outside-the-door parking is a nice plus. Add to it the isolated environment, tucked away into the Flat of the Hill, and you’ve got major country convenience in the heart of the city.

40 Chestnut Street – $6,950,000
4 Beds, 2.5 Baths, 5,305 sq. ft.
Why are you even looking at this? You saw the price tag and you know you can’t afford it. At any rate, you’re probably saying “seven million dollars and I only get two parking spaces?” You’ve clearly overlooked the fact that three or four more vehicles would easily fit in the living room.

Moral of the story: if you move to Beacon Hill, bring a large checkbook, buy a fireproof house, or leave the car at home.