Ken Liss

Mention “the reservoir” to people in Brookline today and they will probably think of one of two bodies of water: the Chestnut Hill Reservoir or the Brookline Reservoir. But there were once three reservoirs on Fisher Hill. Read about them at bit.ly/bk-reservoirs

Free walking tour, this Sunday.

The triangle formed by Washington, Harvard, and School Streets in Brookline Village could be called the Municipal Triangle. I tell the first part of its story in Part 1 of an illustrated and narrated presentation at bit.ly/pierceschool...

DOGE: Department of Government Efficiency? More like Department of Gratuitous Elimination

Black names on DOD site.docx Top Science, Technology Official Highlights Importance of DOD Outreach to Minority Academic STEM Programs 7/25/2024 404 Page Not Found Internet Archive A Journey of Inspiration, Leadership (Profile o...

The Defense Department removed the Black History category & 20+ news items from its website, putting "dei" at the front of the former URLs, which brings up a Page Not Found message. I've put together links to the removed items as captured by the Internet Archive. bit.ly/DOD-DEI-Remo...

This is just a very small sample of the online resources made available through public libraries in Brookline and elsewhere with help from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, one of the Federal agencies that Trump plans to abolish.

Brookline's oldest restaurant. (Or is it?) brooklinehistory.blogspot.com/2025/03/broo...

I was surprised to learn via the New York Times today that some Jews in the second century BC lived a half-hour train ride outside Rome. But, sure enough, there is ancient photo evidence.

The 1956 opening of Twin Donuts was advertised in the Brookline Citizen.

Happy to be resuming my North End tour guide gig -- through a tour company -- today. A broken foot kept me off the trail last fall.

Just back from the audiologist, so I thought I would share this list I created three years ago after seeing an ad for Styletto hearing aids. Enjoy these other possible hearing aids named after shoes.

19th Century Tobogganing on Corey Hill A winter storm in Brookline today brings sledders to local hills, carrying all manner of conveyance for children and adults alike: classic F...

Brookline's Corey Hill was a center tobogganing in the Boston area in the 1880s and 1890s. brooklinehistory.blogspot.com/2022/02/19th...

I took this picture around the corner from my house eight years ago today, two weeks into the first Trump presidency. If it seemed prophetic then, it seems even more so now.

Stephen Miller Is an Immigration Hypocrite. I Know Because I’m His Uncle. If my nephew’s ideas on immigration had been in force a century ago, our family would have been wiped out.

Listening to "Stephen Miller's Return to Power" on the NYT Daily podcast, I was reminded of this 2018 piece written by his uncle. Miller's ancestors came to the US from the same Belarus shtetl that my grandfather and his parents and siblings came from. Shame on him. www.politico.com/magazine/sto...

Uptown Squirrel - 99% Invisible This past fall, hundreds of people gathered at The Explorer’s Club in New York City. The building was once a clubhouse for famed naturalists and explorers. Now it’s an archive of ephemera and rarities...

The 99% Invisible podcast did a great episode on how squirrels became so ubiquitous in American cities. 99percentinvisible.org/episode/upto...

Sunset over the Stop & Shop parking lot last night.

I've been taking many pictures of the demolition of my daughters' old school, and also had this letter about it published in response to an article in the Brookline News. brookline.news/re-what-to-k...

A 19th Century Brookline Landscape and the Meandering Tale of a Cape Cod Shipwreck - Hunneman Hall In 2023, the Brookline Historical Society received a request for help identifying a landscape sketch marked Brookline and dated 1872. That simple query led to an incredible story...

A 19th century Cape Cod shipwreck, an Italian sea captain, and a Brookline house built in 1843 and still standing today. Learn the connection between them in this presentation at the Brookline library this Wednesday, 7:00-8:30 pm. brooklinelibrary.libcal.com/event/13577588

I could watch this over and over again. What a delight!

The plastic sheet covering Cypress Field only looks like ice, but once upon a time there actually was ice skating on the field. (Public Library photo)

Not just bad planning, but bad history. The gas station that was on that site was built in 1947. The house that was there before that was converted to a gas station in 1937. The Kennedy family left Brookline in 1927.

An April 5, 1877 article in the Nebraska Herald proposed village life as a middle ground between the life of a farmer and that of an "urbanist.

I don't think I've ever had a fortune that fits me so well.