This point sits near Copp's Hill Terrace, a landscaped public park and National Register site above Commercial Street in Boston's North End.
Last reviewed 16 October 2026 · A two-minute read · 1625–1990
The short answer
Copp's Hill Terrace, a granite-and-iron park above Commercial Street in Boston's North End, was built in 1893 after the city took the hillside by eminent domain, clearing old tenements to give a crowded, mostly poor neighborhood a rare patch of open ground designed by landscape architect Charles Eliot.
The remaining stub of the Atlantic Avenue Elevated above Commercial Street, seen in March 1948. This portion was left in place to handle extra trains for Boston Garden events after the rest of the Atlantic Avenue Elevated was demolished in — 1948 · Boston City Archives from West Roxbury, United Sta
1893 to 1890s
A park replaced crowded tenements above the harbor
Copp's Hill Terrace is a small park of granite steps and iron railings, now a quiet overlook above the harbor. It is still used as a public park today.
The ground beneath it was once crowded with tenement houses, owned mostly by a gas company. A small community of free Black Bostonians had lived on this steep slope since the 1600s. Many were buried close by in Copp's Hill Burying Ground, including Prince Hall, who founded Prince Hall Freemasonry.
In the early 1890s, the city councilman John F. Fitzgerald secured money to turn the hillside into a park. Boston took the land by eminent domain in 1893. The city hired Charles Eliot (landscape architect), a well-known landscape designer, to lay it out. Eliot wanted something informal and open. City leaders pushed back and insisted on a formal design instead, with stone stairs and a planned plaza. Eliot's own letters showed some discomfort with the project. He wrote to his wife that the park was meant to give "the slum people" a patch of air and grass.
Workers cleared old houses off the hill to make room, including a mid-1700s home called the Johnson-Singleton House. By the mid-1890s, the terrace was finished. It had lawns, trees, and wiring laid in for electric streetlights, a modern touch for a neighborhood that had been packed and poor for a century.
January 15, 1919
Crowds on the terrace watched a molasses wave kill 21
On a warm January afternoon, a steel tank on Commercial Street below the terrace split open without warning. It had held 2.3 million gallons of molasses. A wave of it, 25 feet high, tore through the streets at an estimated 35 miles an hour. It crushed buildings, knocked a train off its tracks, and killed 21 people. People standing on the terrace had one of the best views of the wreck as it happened. They watched the dark flood spread across Commercial Street and swallow the waterfront below.
1990
The terrace joined the National Register of Historic Places
Copp's Hill Terrace was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 19, 1990. The listing recognized both its design and its role in city planning. It remains one of the few large public spaces built into the tight, old streets of the North End.
1990s to now
Granite steps still climb past Copp's Hill's old graves
The terrace today looks much as it did when Eliot finished it. Granite steps and iron railings still climb the hillside to the plaza above Commercial Street. The lawns and trees he planted still soften a neighborhood of brick rowhouses and narrow lanes. Copp's Hill Burying Ground sits just beside it, holding the graves of the Black Bostonians who once lived on this hill, including Prince Hall.
The neighborhood has had its share of modern trouble too. In April 2024, a hit-and-run crash happened nearby at Commercial and Hanover streets. A driver fled the scene after hitting another car. A restaurant worker chased him down, and police found him hiding in a bush minutes later.
The North End's history holds a darker chapter from decades before the terrace existed. In 1849, a cholera epidemic swept through Boston, and the North End suffered worse than almost anywhere else in the city. Most of the roughly 700 people who died that year lived in these crowded streets, in the tenements that once stood where the park's lawns now spread.
Granite steps and a quiet plaza still look out over Commercial Street and Boston Harbor, exactly where the crowd once watched the molasses flood below.
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Early modern
Island of North Boston
Before landfill joined it to the mainland, this part of Boston was recorded as the Island of North Boston, a distinct piece of ground within the Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1625.
Prince Hall, who founded Prince Hall Freemasonry, is buried in Copp's Hill Burying Ground, near a community of free African Americans who lived on this hillside from the 1600s to the 1800s.
Copp's Hill Terrace, between Commercial and Charter Streets
Boston took this hillside by eminent domain in 1893 and had landscape architect Charles Eliot design Copp's Hill Terrace, with granite steps and cast-iron parapets, as a rare patch of open space for the crowded North End.
Building the terrace in the 1890s meant demolishing older structures on the hillside, including the Johnson-Singleton House, which had stood since the mid-1700s.
On January 15, 1919, a 50-foot tank at Commercial Street burst, sending 2.3 million gallons of molasses down the street at 35 mph and killing 21 people.
What was here before Copp's Hill Terrace was built?
The ground was crowded with tenement houses, owned mostly by a gas company, where a community of free Black Bostonians had lived since the 1600s. Among the buildings cleared to make the park was the mid-1700s Johnson-Singleton House.
What happened at Commercial Street in 1919?
A steel tank holding 2.3 million gallons of molasses burst on Commercial Street below the terrace, sending a 25-foot wave through the streets at an estimated 35 miles an hour, killing 21 people. People on Copp's Hill Terrace watched the flood spread across the street below.
Who designed Copp's Hill Terrace?
Charles Eliot, a well-known landscape architect, designed the terrace after the city took the land by eminent domain in 1893, though city leaders overruled his preference for an informal layout in favour of stone stairs and a formal plaza.
Who is buried near Copp's Hill Terrace?
Copp's Hill Burying Ground beside the terrace holds the graves of free Black Bostonians who lived on the hillside, including Prince Hall, founder of Prince Hall Freemasonry.
When was Copp's Hill Terrace listed on the National Register of Historic Places?
It was added on April 19, 1990, recognised for both its design and its role in city planning.
