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, Massachusetts was originally part of the town of Roxbury and was mainly used as farmland. West Roxbury seceded from Roxbury in 1851, and was annexed by Boston in 1874. The town included the neighborhoods of Jamaica Plain and Roslindale.
Bordered by Roslindale, Dedham, Brookline, Newton. West Roxbury's main thoroughfare is Centre Street, lined with local restaurants and commercial establishments. Today, the neighborhood's tree-lined streets and mostly single family homes give it a suburban feel in an urban setting. Life in the neighborhood centers on political and civic activism as well as local parishes and youth athletic leagues. West Roxbury is home to many of Boston's civil servants. The community boasts a significant proportion of persons of Irish descent as well as a smaller number of more recent Irish immigrants.
The Roxbury Latin School, founded in 1645 is located on Saint Theresa Avenue in West Roxbury since 1927. The school's endowment is estimated at $143.8 million, the largest boys school in the United States.
The neighborhood was home to an experimental transcendentalist Utopia community called Brook Farm, which attracted notable figures like Margaret Fuller and Nathaniel Hawthorne whose 1852 novel
is based on his stay there. .
Like its neighboring communities, West Roxburys residential development grew with the construction of the West Roxbury branch of the Boston and Providence Rail Road; the area grew further with the development of electric streetcars.