Beth Jones wants to know what place in Brookline makes you cry.
Jones, a journalist, author, and educator who lives in town, is building Entering Brookline, a multimedia digital archive that maps personal stories to specific locations and objects across the community. The project, sponsored by the Brookline Commission for the Arts and the Mass Cultural Council, is accepting submissions through early November 2026 and will publish online in fall 2026.
Participation starts with a simple prompt: name a place in Brookline, or an object that connects you to it, whether or not it still exists. Jones records participants narrating their memories on video, then pins each story to its location on an interactive digital map.
She's already collecting material that shows the concept in action. Joe Davis, captain of the 1963 Northeastern University football team, shared his memories of Parsons Field as a nine-year-old, climbing locked fences on Sundays to play tackle football with friends and sneaking past police at the gates on Saturdays to watch games. While narrating the moment he walked back through those same gates years later with a college football offer, Davis paused and began to tear up.
"I think storytellers are often surprised by their own emotions," Jones told Brookline.News.
Another early submission connected two women who independently chose to talk about Irving's Toy & Card Shop, the Harvard Street landmark that operated from 1939 until 2016. Jones brought both participants to the spot where the shop once stood. The building is an apartment now. While Jones recorded them pointing out where the popsicles were, where Ethel Weiss used to sit, the current resident happened to find them outside and invited them in.
Jones modeled Entering Brookline on her 2024 project New Bedford In The Palm of Your Hands, which she created as artist-in-residence at the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park. That project collected more than 50 personal stories from current and former New Bedford residents, each geolocated on an interactive StoryMap. WBUR's Radio Boston featured the work in December 2024.
The Brookline project isn't limited to people who live here now. Jones invites former residents, visitors, and anyone who commutes to work or study in town. The archive will close with a community celebration where participants' images, videos, and stories will be available for public viewing.
Jones keeps her own Brookline object: a note her son, who now lives in New York, wrote to Santa as a child in their Brookline home. It reads: "DEAR SANTA HAVE YOU HAD A NICE WINTER."
Residents interested in sharing a story can contact Jones at [email protected] or visit beth-jones.site for more information about the project.
Upcoming community dates:
- Entering Brookline submissions open through early November 2026
- Digital archive launches online, fall 2026
- Community celebration to follow launch (date to be announced)
