The largest Victorian brick row house neighborhood in the United States, Boston’s South End is bordered by Massachusetts Avenue on the west, Berkeley Avenue on the east, Columbus Avenue on the north and Harrison Avenue on the south. It is a residential and commercial district that sits south of the Back Bay, northwest of South Boston, northeast of Roxbury, north of Dorchester, and southwest of Bay Village with the main commercial establishments found on Washington Street, Tremont Street, and Columbus Avenue.

A trendy community built upon a former tidal marsh, the South End, composed of appealingly uniform rows of five-story townhouses, is constructed mostly of mid-nineteenth century bowfronts or bay windows decorated with iron railings and tiny gardens enclosed by iron fences, and handful of small green parks, mostly with a fountain in the middle, throughout the area. The structures, primarily made of red bricks, are commonly designed with Renaissance Revival, Italianate and French Second Empire style. Greek Revival, Egyptian Revival, Gothic Revival, and Queen Anne style houses are also distinguishable around the district. In spite of the various styles, a common combination of red brick, slate, limestone or granite trim, and cast iron railings present an interesting unified look in the surrounding.

Eleven residential parks, mostly elliptical in form, are positioned across the South End fused with inactively used small greenery set in the middle. Inspired by English residential squares, these parks differ in size and mostly consist of a central fountain and enclosed with cast iron fencing.

The charming community of the South End attracted well-off young families including business owners, two mayors, bankers, and industrialists and started a ‘wealthy neighborhood’ but was somewhat short-lived. However, due to the development of new residential housing in Back Bay and Roxbury and a series of financial crisis, by the close of the nineteenth century, most of the original residents had moved out South End and their private homes were converted into tenements and lodging-houses. This event first lure new immigrants and, in the 1940s, single gay men who thought of the possibility of living discreetly in the various male or female only lodging houses. The South End also became a center of African-American middle class Boston life and culture that made the area famous for its jazz clubs. Other residents of the South End are a large number of Pullman Porters who dwelled mostly between Columbus Avenue and the railroad bed. These residents make for diverse characteristics of the South End today.