It's a busy place! Dances, recitals, improv, craft fairs ~ one-time events like wedding receptions ~ Nehar Shalom and KidsArts headquarters.
Gays for Patsy has been line-dancing, two-stepping, and west coast swinging here for more than 30 years!
There's always drama as well as terrific music in a Boston Lyric Opera event! Soprano Ann-Marie Iacoviello, tenor Michael Gonzalez, and pianist Maria Rabbia delighted the crowd
Curious children at Chinese New Year celebration
The Holiday Fair features dozens of fabulous vendors, homemade food, and live music and always draws hundreds of visitors
A warm concert in the middle of a cold snap
Nehar Shalom, which worships in the building, celebrates a long-term board member
Contra Dances have used the church since the late 1980's. They have live music and a caller at each dance!
A videographer records the Tom Megan & friends recital
We posted signage about the meetinghouse's history in October 2025 ~ check it out!
Bouncy house sits empty as children crowd the birthday cake
Woman peruses fiction section of annual pop-up book store (next: June 6, 2026!)
Tom Megan and friends performing to a packed house
Hanging lights make a dance party festive
Gender-Free English Country Dance is one of the founding gender-free English dances, part of an international growing tradition. This group has enjoyed our space for since the 1980s (!)
Annual Fellowship Dinner shows how big the dining area is: see bar at the top and, by the kitchen door, a coffee station, serving tables, and a welcome/name tag table
The stage is a great place to sing and do skits!
A glimpse of the beautiful windows behind the stage during the Holiday Fair
65 people enjoying a concert by classical guitarist John Muratore and collages by Lucy Harackiewicz
Classical guitarist John Muratore chatting with audience members after a concert
The tower reaches high into the summer sky
Soprano Nicola Santoro and baritone Raphael Laden-Guindon of the Boston Opera Collaborative sing in to a rapt audience
Parish hall shimmers on a spring evening
First Church celebrates a member's 90th birthday
Ross Dekle of the Massachusetts Historical Commission in front of the tower's newly restored clock in April 2024 (credit: Nancy Ahmadifar)
New slate covers the strengthened and waterproofed roof, part of a $1.86m restoration that also fixed the crumbling tower and added solar panels. (credit: Nancy Ahmadifar)
Touring the new roof in April 2024 (credit: Nancy Ahmadifar)
The 170 year old slate really needed to be replaced... (Feb 2024)
The 1850's E. and G.G. Hook pipe organ produces a sound that resonates in your bones
Colorful magnolia blossoms liven up the historic Jamaica Plain Burying Ground
About the Foundation
MeetinghouseJP - the Monument Square Meetinghouse Foundation - is a non-profit dedicated to the building and grounds of First Church of Jamaica Plain and their use by the community. We are located at 6 Eliot Street, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130.
Find out about rentals at https://firstchurchjp.org/about-us/rental/. Come take a walk through the only burying ground in JP.
About the Square
The area now known as Jamaica Plain was inhabited by indigenous populations for millennia. Archaeological evidence shows that indigenous people had long travelled along what are now known as South and Centre Streets.
The founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, persecuted religious reformers who rejected hierarchy and wanted self-governing parishes, required all new settlements to have a tax-supported meetinghouse and teacher. The first meetinghouse was built in 1769.
As the colonial population of Boston grew, municipal lines were drawn and redrawn. Jamaica Plain was first claimed by the Town of Roxbury, then by the breakaway Town of West Roxbury (1851), and finally by the City of Boston (1874). To establish itself, West Roxbury built a significant municipal building, Curtis Hall, now the community center at 20 South St. The congregation simultaneously decided to replace its wooden meetinghouse with a handsome granite English Gothic Revival building completed in 1854.
During the Civil War, 23 local soldiers were killed. Residents erected a monument to commemorate those soldiers and further establish civic identity. (Later, a Roxbury puddingstone boulder commemorating local Minutemen who fought in the American Revolution was added.)
Monument Square is the historic, cultural, and civic center of JP. The 43-acre Monument Square Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.