[1] Situated 7.9 miles south of downtown Boston, it is home to a diverse range of people, housing types and social groups.

The Readville section of Hyde Park contained a large manufacturing base housing the massive operations of the B. F. Sturtevant Company and the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Locomotive and Car Shops.

[2] In 1845, retired businessman Henry Grew took his family on vacation to an area south of the City of Boston, in what was then the western section of Dorchester, and came to a spot in the Neponset River valley with an unexpectedly pleasant view of the nearby Blue Hills.

He purchased several hundred acres of land there (which later became known as "Grew's Woods", partially preserved today as the Stony Brook Reservation and the George Wright Golf Course) and moved to the area in 1847.

)[3] During the next few years, a group called the Hyde Park Land Company bought about 200 acres of land in the area and began building houses around a small and unofficial passenger stop on the Boston and Providence Railroad that had developed at Kenny's Bridge, located on the road from Dedham to Milton Lower Mills (the road was River Street, and the station today is Hyde Park Station).

In the 1960s, Hyde Park threatened to secede from Boston over plans to build a Southwest Expressway (Interstate 95) through the town along the route of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, which would bifurcate the neighborhood and displace many residents, as had happened in Roxbury and Jamaica Plain.

[10] Hyde Park is also the original home of the Boston Crusaders, a world class drum and bugle corps founded in 1940 at the Most Precious Blood Parish.

The issue united Hyde Park with surrounding areas in an attempt to form a new school district for the purpose of avoiding desegregation.

As a result of a Federal lawsuit by parents from Hyde Park and other areas of the city, Boston Public Schools were mandated to provide a comprehensive literacy program.

Though, there is currently a proposal by non Hyde Park residents to create an urban farm that is receiving public resistance.

[16][self-published source] In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the Massachusetts Department of Public Works attempted to implement two separate interstate highway expansion projects.

Residents from Hyde Park and other surrounding communities affected by the proposed project banded together and held a large protest on Boston Common, during what was called "People Before Highways Day".

[17] Because of the presence of the Stony Brook Reservation, a large part of Hyde Park's interior is effectively off-limits to any new development.

[18] In April 2008, the Boston Redevelopment Authority Board, along with Mayor Menino, voted to remap and rezone Hyde Park.

Mayor Menino appointed an advisory group of 13 residents to assist the BRA in creating a comprehensive rezoning plan.

After two years, with input from city agencies and the community at large, BRA adopted the Hyde Park Neighborhood Strategic Plan.

BRA then went on to hire a team of consultants from the urban architecture and design firm of Crosby Schlessinger Smallridge.

Hyde Park's elderly population has remained relatively unchanged over the last 20 years, with the count hovering around 4,000, or 6.5% of the total.

[21] The Roman Catholic Most Precious Blood Church, built in the English Gothic style, was completed in 1885 (its spire was removed in 1954).

The Parish of Christ Church, designed by the firm of Cram Wentworth & Goodhue in the late Gothic Revival style, was completed in 1895.

[22] An opera house, built by Leroy J. French in 1897, stands on Fairmount Avenue and currently serves as the home of Hyde Park's Riverside Theatre Works.

[23] Hyde Park has a large number of warehouses and factory buildings from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the Readville neighborhood, along the Neponset River and Mother Brook.

The Fairmount Hill neighborhood has many houses built in a variety of late 19th and early 20th Century architectural styles, including Italianate, Gothic Revival and Victorian.

The Community Center provides diverse activities including adult education classes, senior citizen computer training and youth sports.

The Stony Brook Reservation is the largest, containing over 400 acres of managed land and 10 miles of hiking paths.

They were created by Gregg Lefevre and installed in 2000 as part of an effort to provide glimpses of Hyde Park's history and culture.

[30] Riverside Theater Works was originally created by Hyde Park resident and music teacher, Marietta Phinney.

[39] The complex was shut down in 2011; both the Engineering School and the Social Justice Academy closed, and CASH was relocated to Dorchester.

Groundbreaking for the Hyde Park Town Library occurred in December 1898; construction was completed and the building opened in September 1899.

The privately owned Sumner Heights and Hazelwood Valley Railroad was operated experimentally around 1875 with a gauge of only 10 in (254 mm).