July 16 - July 22nd

 

July 20, 1988

July 16, 1879 - Storm destroys church steeple and damages Town Hall
July 19, 1964 - JFK birthplace approved as National Historic Site
July 20, 1988 - Michael Dukakis nominated for president
July 22, 2016 - Opening of Fisher Hill Reservoir Park

July 16, 1879
Storm destroys church steeple and damages Town Hall
A ferocious gale carrying high winds and hail tore through Brookline and other cities and town causing widespread damage. The steeple of the Baptist Church in Brookline Village was destroyed and stained glass windows in the nearby Town Hall were shattered.

Brookline Chronicle, July 17, 1879

Windows were broken in hundreds of other buildings as well. Trees were uprooted, greenhouses were destroyed, and crops were wiped out, according to the local paper. (The Chronicle's reporter, unlike latter-day TV storm chasers, waited till the worst was over before assessing the damage. "Like many other people we knew," reported the paper, "he prefers to be a live coward rather than a dead hero, for 'dead men tell no tales.'")

The Baptist Church would build a new steeple the following year. It was destroyed, along with the rest of the building, in a middle-of-the-night fire on New Year's Eve 1960-61.

July 19, 1964
JFK birthplace approved as National Historic Site
The Beals Street home where John F. Kennedy was born in 1917 was one of 96 places adding to the National Register of Historic Places, reported U.S. Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall. 

83 Beals Street before its conversion to the John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site
(Photo credit: Series VI. Photographs, in the Robert Luddington Papers, John Fitzgerald Kennedy NHS)

The house, which the Kennedy family sold in 1920 when they moved to a larger house nearby, had had a marker placed on the site by the Town of Brookline in 1961, after Kennedy became president. 

Kennedy's mother, Rose, repurchased the house in 1966 and had it restored to the way it was when JFK was born. It was designated a National Historic Site in 1967 and officially turned over to the National Park Service on what would have been Kennedy's 52nd birthday, May 29, 1969.

July 20, 1988
Michael Dukakis nominated for president
Massachusetts governor and Brookline native Michael Dukakis officially secured the Democratic nomination for President of the United States at the party convention in Atlanta. Like his Brookline-born predecessor John F. Kennedy, he named a Texas senator -- Lyndon B. Johnson for Kennedy; Lloyd Bentsen for Dukakis -- as his running mate.

Local coverage of Michael Dukakis' nomination in the Brookline Chronicle

A Brookline Chronicle cartoon before the convention, shown at the top of this post, portrayed Dukakis, who famously rode the T work on Beacon Hill, riding a "D" line train to Atlanta and the nomination. 

The local paper's coverage noted that all five members of the Board of Selectmen had sent a telegram congratulating the governor on his nomination, although the one registered Republican member of the board said his signature did not constitute an endorsement. 

July 22, 2016
Opening of Fisher Hill Reservoir Park

Brookline's newest park, built on the former site of the state-owned Fisher Hill Reservoir, was officially dedicated and opened to public use. 

The reservoir, built in 1886-87 as part of the City of Boston’s water system, had been taken out of commission in 1978. Acquired by Brookline in 2011, it was the first acquisition of new park land by the town in 50 years. 

The Fisher Hill Reservoir and its gatehouse, top, and the same site after it conversion to the Fisher Hill Reservoir Park

The park combines an open lawn in the former basin of the reservoir with a variety of plantings and wildlife habitat, including woodlands and a wet meadow traversed by walking paths and a boardwalk.