There ARE Some Real Dumps in Brookline
A few days ago, I had an enlightening discussion with a new resident, fresh from San Francisco, and searching for a home in Brookline. After visiting a number of houses on the market, she says she’s concluded many houses in Brookline are appalling (her word, not mine.)
For me, a West Coast native acclimated to East Coast dilapidation, it was a new and refreshing perspective.
I’m used to seeing some real dumps in Brighton. A lot of condos and houses in Allston and Brighton are rented to students, who aren’t exactly lavishing love on the 100-year-old buildings. But this was the first time I thought of the word “dump” in a Brookline context. Didn’t Money Magazine just name Brookline one of the top 100 places to live in the U.S.? Could one of America’s best towns be filled with dumpy houses?
I started thinking. On house-hunting trips to the South End, I saw condo after condo, fabulously updated. In Jamaica Plain, I noticed numerous triple-deckers tenderly restored. Even in Somerville, not the first town to come to mind for jaw-dropping homes, I had witnessed renovation fever with stunning results.
Then there’s Brookline. Out of the cobwebs of my mind, I began experiencing flashbacks….the condo on Westbourne Terrace with the poorly-installed sound-insulation covering the ceiling like a crazy quilt…. the Park Vale condo with the bad windows and the 70’s bathroom…. the expensive condo on Rawson Road that would have been perfect except for the crumbling kitchen floors.
Like an abuse victim, I wiped these horrors from my mind. Somehow, Brookline’s top-notch school system relieved homeowners of the need to pick up a hammer. Of course, homeowners in the South End or Jamaica Plain have never had the luxury of resting on the laurels of the schools.
Here’s my “Thank you” to the new Brookline resident who helped me recover those memories. Now that the slipcover is off the couch, maybe a few residents will open their toolboxes and start maintaining their homes.
