Brookline, MA -John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site (NHS) will close for the season on Sunday, October 28. The site will participate in the annual Beals Street Halloween event on Wednesday, October 31. From November 2018 to May 2019, the site will be closed; with tours offered Monday-Friday by appointment only.
For the Beals St. Halloween Event on Oct. 31, John Fitzgerald Kennedy NHS Park Rangers will greet trick-or-treaters at the front of the house 5:00 - 8:00 PM. Special exhibits “Kennedy Halloweens" and “Kennedys in Service" will be on display and trick-or-treaters will receive a Halloween packet with trading cards and a special treat commemorating the Kennedy family legacy of public service. The house will not be open for tours during the Halloween event.
The regular visitor season for the site ends on Sunday, Oct. 28, 2018. During the winter months, the site is open Monday-Friday, by appointment only. We request that tour requests be made two weeks in advance. For more information, please call (617) 566-7937 or visit us online at www.nps.gov/jofi, or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jfkennedynhs.
During the visitor season from May to October, guided house tours at John Fitzgerald Kennedy NHS are offered Wednesday through Sunday, beginning at 10:00 AM with the final tour at 3:30 PM. From 12:00-1:00 PM and 4:00-5:00PM, visitors are welcome to follow a self-guided audio tour through the house. Hand-held audio-players are available in English, French, German, Spanish, and Japanese. Supplemental printed material about the house is available in English, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Vietnamese. Admission is free to all.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy NHS preserves the birthplace (1917) and early boyhood home of the 35th president of the United States. The modest house was the first home shared by the president’s parents, Joseph P. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. John, the second of nine children, spent his formative years in Brookline as his family began its rise to national prominence. In 1966, Mrs. Kennedy returned to 83 Beals Street to commemorate her son’s life, restoring the birthplace to her recollection of its 1917 appearance.
Today, National Park Rangers provide tours of the nine-room house where Kennedy family furnishings, photographs, and mementos personally collected and arranged by the president’s mother are on exhibit. A taped narrative, featuring Mrs. Kennedy in her own words, is a unique and evocative addition to both the ranger-led and self-guided tours. John Fitzgerald Kennedy NHS also invites visitors to step back into 1917 and share Mrs. Kennedy’s memories of her family’s early home via cell phone. The cell phone tour is available in English, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish. The cell phone tour is free. Normal usage rates apply. To access the tour, dial (617) 992-9172. The tour can also be accessed via the web at https://jofi.oncell.com.
A small visitor center offers exhibits, a film, bookstore, and restroom. A self-guided tour of the neighborhood is also included in the site brochure and identifies nearby Brookline sites associated with the Kennedy family.
Source: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service
