Brighton is a
dissolved municipality and current
neighborhood of
Boston,
Massachusetts, United States, and is located in the northwest corner of the city. It is named after the town of
Brighton in the English city of
Brighton and Hove. For its first 160 years Brighton was part of
Cambridge and was known as “Little Cambridge." Throughout much of its early history it was a rural town with a significant commercial center at its eastern end. Brighton separated from Cambridge in 1807 after a bridge dispute and was annexed to
Boston, in 1874. The neighborhood of
Allston was also formerly part of the Town of Brighton but is now often considered separately, leading to the moniker
Allston-Brighton for the combined area.