High Life

A hilltop refuge for a picnic, a workout, and the view

ust off busy Beacon Street, is a park high atop Corey Hill with extraordinary city views that make it perfect for a picnic. You can also watch the runners and cyclists who use the hill for interval training, or take the kids to play on the playground at the summit. You'll likely have it mostly to yourself, so no one will see you when you give into the temptation to roll down the grassy hill, which is fringed with oaks and maples. Traffic picks up at dusk during the warmer months with couples (and the occasional hormone-driven high-school kids) enjoying the romance of the place at sunset and beneath the stars.

Shhhh! It's 260 feet above sea level.

Shhhh! Named for Timothy Corey, who ran a dairy farm there in the 1700s, Corey Hill (it was also called Great Hill) became a fashionable address in the 1880s, when Eben Jordan, founder of the Jordan Marsh department store, built an estate there he called Stonehurst.

Shhh who knew

Corey Hill became nationally famous in the 1880s when the Boston Bicycling Club, the first in the country, competed to become the first to the top, a challenge that attracted riders from all over the country. Bicycle manufacturer even advertised their bikes as having conquered Corey Hill.