Brown (Harold) is born in Boston.

The son of Russian immigrants Morris and Dora (Greenberg) Brown, Harold Brown grows up in Brighton-Allston and Brookline, graduates from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and serves in World War II and the Korean War. After working in New York City, Brown returns to Boston and forms the Hamilton Company when he buys a small apartment building at 1292 Commonwealth Avenue for $20,000 on August 4, 1954. Subsequently the largest residential landlord in the city with more than 5,000 residential units, he accused by critics of being a “slumlord.” After surviving the largest individual bankruptcy case in state history in 1991, Brown improves his image as a landlord, establishes a charitable foundation in 2011, and retires in 2018. Brown dies in Brookline on February 24, 2019.