The Hill is divided into 3 areas: Kimberly Square, Upper Hill, and City Point. Before the neighborhood was called The Hill in the 19th Century, it was named Little Sodomy because the Oak Street area was considered wild and unruly. It soon became Sodom Hill, which was then shortened to the Hill. From the start, the Hill was always a neighborhood of immigrants and newcomers; it was where many European immigrants arrived in the 1800s. In the 1900’s, the population was mostly African American, but today it is mostly Hispanic.

Due to the riots of 1967, the Upper Hill began filling with abandoned houses and trashy areas. In 1978 The Upper Hill Project Area Committee, the UHPAC, planned to stop knocking down buildings and start renewing them instead.

Another part of the hill, Kimberly Square, is a middle class neighborhood. People began settling in this area in the 19th century. Nathaniel and Simeon Jocelyn, abolitionists and philanthropists, bought an abundant amount of land near Columbus Ave to start a community for runaway slaves and people facing poverty. In the 1920s, Kimberly Square was filled with Italian, German, Irish and Jewish cultures. At one time, there was also a large Portuguese population..

City Point, also known as Oyster Point, is a group of streets between Howard Ave and the Harbor. City Point got its nickname “Oyster Capitol of the Northeast,” because there were once ten oyster processing plants in the area. Around WWII, pollution and starfish infestation aided in the fast decline of the oyster industry, though the harbor has recovered somewhat since then.

- Ashly Abraham