Welcome to Roxbury, a relatively large residential neighborhood just outside of Downtown Boston. One of the first towns founded in the Massachusetts Bay Colony by the English in 1630, Roxbury became a city in 1846. Originally named “Rocksberry,” due to its rocky soil, which made farming difficult, this township was annexed to the City of Boston in 1868 and is now 1 of 23 neighborhoods in this densely populated area of Massachusetts. Roxbury is bounded by the neighborhoods of Dorchester to the east, Mattapan to the south, Jamaica Plain to the west, and Fenway-Kenmore and South End to the north.

While there’s been a significant spillover of college students from Mission Hill and the Fenway in recent years, Roxbury has become increasingly popular with young professionals and families who are attracted to the neighborhood’s diversity, an exquisite array of architectural history, and price tags slightly less painful than in other areas of the city. Roxbury is filled with lush community gardens, bustling green spaces like Malcolm X Park, where summer basketball tournaments are veritable family reunions, and Highland Park, with its landmark Fort Hill Tower, surrounded by weeping willow trees.

​​​​​​​Roxbury celebrates community culture through visual and performance arts at the Roxbury Center. Nubian Square is a dynamic intersection of public art, retail shops, bookstores, eclectic cafes, and restaurants.  The creative economy is alive in Roxbury, and the neighborhood itself is both a canvas for artistic expression and an incubator of those energies.