Date: April 26, 2017
Contact: Jim Roberts, 617-566-7937
Brookline, Mass. – John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site (NHS) opens for its 50th anniversary year on Friday, May 19, 2017. Visitor hours in 2017 are from 9:30 AM until 5:00 PM daily through the summer months. Guided tours of JFK’s birthplace will be available on the hour and the half hour. On Monday, May 29, 2017, the actual centennial of JFK’s birth, the site is offering special programs, commemorations and self-guided tours of the president’s birthplace.
In commemoration of the centennial of John F. Kennedy’s birth, the site is featuring a new exhibit on JFK’s political legacy. John Fitzgerald Kennedy: The First One Hundred Years highlights his administration’s achievements in human rights, conservation and preservation, foreign affairs, humanitarian aid, and space exploration. Also debuting this May is a brand new orientation film to celebrate the site’s 50th anniversary year and JFK«100 in Brookline. For further information, please call 617-566-7937 or visit www.nps.gov/jofi.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy NHS preserves the birthplace and early boyhood home of the 35th President of the United States. The modest house was the first home shared by the president’s parents, Joseph P. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. John F. Kennedy, the second of nine children, spent his formative years in Brookline as his family began its rise to national prominence. In 1967, Mrs. Kennedy returned to 83 Beals Street to commemorate her son’s life, recreating his birthplace to her recollection of its 1917 appearance.
Today, National Park Rangers provide tours of the nine-room house where Kennedy family furnishings, photographs, and mementos personally collected and arranged by the president’s mother are on exhibit. In addition to ranger-guided tours, John Fitzgerald Kennedy NHS invites visitors to step back in time and share Mrs. Kennedy’s memories of her family’s early home via cell phone; normal usage rates apply. One can also take a virtual range-led tour of the site and another of the North Brookline neighborhood. To access these tours, dial 617-992-9172. The tours can also be accessed via the web at https://jofi.oncell.com.
During the May to October visitor season, park rangers offer guided tours of the house and JFK’s boyhood neighborhood. Children ages 5 –12 can participate in the site’s Junior Ranger program. Printed materials, including brochures and tour books, are available in Chinese, English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Russian, Hungarian, Spanish and Vietnamese.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy NHS is located just outside Coolidge Corner at 83 Beals Street in Brookline, Massachusetts. The site is a ½ mile-walk from the Coolidge Corner T-Stop (Green Line, C-Cleveland Circle). Free on-street parking is available on Beals Street for up to two (2) hours. For more information please call (617) 566-7937, or visit www.nps.gov/jofi.
In addition, across town at 99 Warren Street, John Fitzgerald Kennedy NHS’s sister national park site, Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site (Olmsted NHS), is now open to visitors on Fridays and Saturdays from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM. Ranger-led tours are available those days at 10:00 and 11:00 AM and at 1:00, 2:00, and 3:00 PM. On June 21, Olmsted NHS will expand its visitor hours for the summer, opening Wednesday through Sunday from 9:30 am to 4:00 pm.
Olmsted NHS presents the home and office of renowned landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of New York’s Central Park and Boston’s “Emerald Necklace” park system. That site is located at the corner of Warren and Dudley Streets, off Route 9, and is a 15-minute walk from the Brookline Hills T-Stop (Green Line, D-Riverside branch). For further information on tours and programs offered by Olmsted NHS, please call 617-566-1689 Monday through Saturday or visit www.nps.gov/frla.
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