ROXBURY IN THE 20TH c 1910 -1950
ECONOMY AND INDUSTRY
CIRCA 1910 - Mc Carthy Quarry on Tremont-Pontiac and Calumet Streets closed. In operation for 50 years, it was 7-acre ledge of Roxbury conglomerate bought by the Irish stonemason Timothy McCarthy in 1864. He bought the huge ledge-best seen today from South Whitney Street- to provide stone for the construction of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. The quarry closed because of the increased construction of housing around the rim of the quarry ( Pontiac Street was built as a city street in 1905). It was more than likely used for the last time to provide stone for the double towers of Mission Church completed in June 1910. The northeast slope of Parker Hill along Tremont Street was the largest ledge of exposed Roxbury Conglomerate in Boston and the only quarry used for conglomerate as a building stone. ( The Massachusett would have called the quarry quassukquanehtu , or “among the rocks.”)
The black and tan stone was first used in foundations but with the advent of steam powered machinery in the early 1860’s it became a popular stone for the construction - no less than 20 churches in Boston were built of conglomerate and all the stone came from McCarthy’s Quarry.
(The black and tan color seemed appropriate to the prevailing Gothic style in ecclesiastic architecture. The first church built of Roxbury conglomerate was the Tremont Street Methodist Church - 740 Tremont Street - designed by Hammett Billings completed in 1862.)
Parker Hill is a drumlin 225 feet above sea level; the city is dotted with them and its unique to the Boston basin (Beacon hill is one). Parker Hill was one of the tallest.
Drumlins were created by two vast ice sheets that moved north south more than a million years ago. The sheets gathered up soil, rocks and rolled boulders in its train and when the glaciers melted the enormous glacial drifts formed round hills known as drumlins. The enormous weight of the mass of rocks and gravel hardened the material and the natural cement deposited by water and sedimentary layers held the mix together. The huge clash of hot and cold created enormous strains called earthquakes and these caused the rocks to crack and shatter – the cracks across the face of the ledge is called a fault. During this upheaval, some plates of conglomerate sheared off and fell into the earth leaving a flat face above ground.
Although Roxbury abounded in generous deposits of conglomerate, it was long ignored as a building material. The huge tract of rock was originally owned by John Ruggles ( 1679 1718) who owned 17 acres of the northside of Great –or Parker – Hill. About 1850, Irish stonecutters took notice of the distinguished characteristics of the Roxbury conglomerate ledges along Tremont Street. The massive looming ledge of conglomerate facing the Madison Park High School on New Dudley Street, called Dudley Cliffs in 1977. is a good example of what these Irish masons saw on Tremont Street. Earthquakes sheared off enormous chunks of ledge dropping half into the molten earth and leaving a flat smooth face exposed to air and water, which over 200 million years gave it the black and tan color. Parker Hill and Dudley Cliffs are both on the same natural fault line where the earth’s plates literally moved. The long vertical gashes at Parker Hill (seen from the end of South Whitney) are earthquake faults that were natural starting points for the mason’s hammer; these were also smooth and formed an evenly textured building stone. Conglomerate is softer than granite and is easier to cut and the ease of extraction and molding contributed to its first use as a building stone about 1853 when 682- 688 Parker Street was built as attached row houses fro tannery workers by David Connery, who began his stone cutting business at his home on Fayette Street in 1846. These earliest stone houses in Roxbury used hand cut stone, transported by horse and wagon and placed by hand. The ledge Connery used became the hole from which the foundation for the Mission Church. Four years later Connery built the fine double mansard stone house at 1472 -1474 Tremont Street near Sewal Place, to which he moved in 1860. He also built 2, 3, 4 + 5 Sewall Place in 1859- 1860. Also built of hand cut and hand strung stone.
Timothy McCarthy made the Parker Hill ledges the building blocks for Boston’s churches .McCarthy arrived in Boston in 1854 and after a few years as an apprentice ( presumably for Connery) he bought two tracts of ledge land on Tremont Street and present day Pontiac Street in 1864 for the construction of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. The massive cathedral, took 8 years to build during which time McCarthy also cut stone for Richardson’s First Baptist Church ( 1872) and Old South Church for Cummings & Sears in 1874. It was literally a day and night operation and to meet demand he hired German stonecutters and machinery operators.
The city was rapidly growing up the sides of Parker Hill. Pontiac Street was built through the quarry edge in 1905. Concrete was replacing cut stone for foundations and the Classical Revival preferred the lighter limestone and marble rather than the gloomier conglomerate, which was now used more as crushed stone for automobile roads and street car beds, such as the Rowe Quarry on Center Street in West Roxbury near the Faulkner Hospital. The Parker Hill quarry was backfilled in 1960; the open pit with smooth slab walls and discarded cut stone blocks strewn about the rocky floor was still visible behind a drug store until One Brigham Circle was built in 2003,
May 5. Eliot Five Cent Savings Bank completed. 165 Dudley Street. Thomas M. James, architect. Acquired by Zion Holiness Fire church in 1977.
Ferdinand’s Department Store Annex – 7- 10 Warren Street. 8 story concrete, brick and cast stone building with display window on the elevated platform. . Harold Field Kellogg architect. Cornerstone laying ceremony with Frank Ferdinand May 28, 1922. (Frank Ferdinand died Sept 11, 1952). Annex razed in July 1992.
1932. Feb 6. Grove Hall Savings Bank completed. 547- 455 Blue Hill Avenue. Krokyn + Brown architects. A rare Roxbury Art Deco style building. First opened in the Silva Building on April 28, 1914, Founder and first president Albert Ginzberg. Moved to 35 Washington St Brighton on Aug 25, 1969. Acquired by Buelah Pilgrimage Holiness Church on Dec. 13, 1977.
1938. May 24, New plant for Kasanofs Bakery. 227- 235 Blue Hill Avenue. Built on site of the original Roxbury bakery opened ca 1903 by David Kasonof. Son of Michael Kasanof, a Russian Jew who escaped from the Czarist pogrom to Boston in 1890 where he set up a bakery on Salem Street a few years later. A national institution, Kasanoffs closed in 1977 and was razed ca 1983.
1942- January. National Shawmut Bank. Dudley St and Harrison Ave. First drive -thru bank opened; one of three in the neighborhoods outside the downtown.
INSTITUTIONS
Boston Baptist Hospital acquired the Francis A Bond house at 91 – 101 Parker hill Avenue and renovated into a hospital. Boston Baptist Hospital began as a free dispensary in 1886 as a program of the Ruggles St Baptist church in a vacant building next to it. It changed its name to New England Baptist Hospital in 1897. - 1924. First building of New England Baptist Hospital built at 101 Parker Street Edward Sears Read architect. Brick Georgian Revival building. -1936. Five story addition /Kendall & Taylor architects. Permit May 18, 1936.
1909. Nov 16. New Museum of Fine Arts Opening night. 465 Huntington Ave. Guy Lowell architect. 3000 people at invitation- only reception including sculptors Bela Pratt and Cyrus Dallin. First of three wings: - 1915 Robert Dawson Evans Wing for Paintings. Fenway Entrance. Guy Lowell architect. - 1928 Decorative Arts wing Guy Lowell architect. Included fountain and sculpture garden designed by Arthur Shurcliff. Razed 2007. _ 1912-. “Appeal to the Great Spirit.” Cyrus Dallin. Cast in 1909. Placed at the Huntington Ave Entrance to the MFA in Dec. 1912.
1912- 1914. Robert B.Brigham Hospital for chronic diseases built at 125 Parker Hill Avenue. 3-acre site. Complex of four tan brick Georgian Revival buildings in an “E” shape plan. Designed by Shepley Rutan & Coolidge. Capacity for 15 patients. Robert B Brigham, nephew of Peter Bent Brigham, bequeathed $# million for a hospital for infectious disease in 1900.
1912- Peter Bent Brigham Hospital begun for the care of indigent persons. 75 Francis Street 10 1/2 acres of the old Francis estate acquired at Huntington Avenue and Tremont Street. Two of proposed fifteen buildings completed in October 1912. Codman & Despradelle architects.
1913. Hibernian Hall. 184 Dudley Street. Edward TP Graham, architect. Cornerstone laid on June 1, 1913. Reopened as Roxbury Center for the Arts on April 11, 2005.
1914. Roxbury Boys & Girls Club. 80 Dudley street. Harold Filed Kellogg architect. Completed spring of 1915.Conceived and financed by Roxbury District Court Chief Justice Nathan A. Williams; site chosen behind the courthouse. After his death in 1913 the project was seen to completion and supported by his widow for the next 12 years. Included library, gymnasium and swimming pool. Removed to new clubhouse on Warren Street in 1967. Building gutted by suspicious fire on Jan 29, 1989. Developed into offices with a new addition by Fred Fairfield. Luna Design Group, architects. Opened Jan 20, 2001.
1914 – Ward 17 Municipal Building. 339 Dudley Street corner of Vine Street. Edward TP Graham architect. On site of the old Vine Street church. Converted into the Vine Street Community Center. Icon Architects with Hezakiah Pratt, architects. Open June 2002.
1915. Feb 25. Angel Memorial Animal Hospital Opening day. 170 – 180 Longwood Ave. Putnam & Cox architects.
1916. Oct 22, BethIsrael Hospital opened at the old Henry C Dennison House at 59 -Townsend Street and Harrishof Street. The first patient was admitted on Feb. 4, 1917. Removed to large new hospital on Brookline Avenue in Sept. 1928. The 42-bed hospital was acquired the next month by the Roxbury Ladies Bikur Cholum Association as a hospital for indigent, incurable and elderly immigrant Jews that began in 1913 as a free dispensary at 105 Chambers Street in the West End. - - 1936 a 3-story addition was completed that included a full operating suite and a kosher kitchen. In 1937 it changed its name to the Jewish Memorial Hospital. A third wing was added in 1947 and in 1988 the Dennison house was razed for a large modern wing specializing in rehabilitation.
Jan 17.Young Mens Hebrew Association opened its clubhouse in the Simon Goldsmith House at 108 Seaver Street. Included a ballroom that was converted into an auditorium. Removed from 39 East Concord Street, which it had occupied since 1904. – 1925. Sept. Doors opened on new gymnasium building facing Humboldt Avenue. Krokyn & Brown architects. Building permit April 29, 1922. Cornerstone laid by Dr Charles W Eliot president emeritus of Harvard University on June 3, 1925. (Odd choice given Harvard’s notoriously strict quota system for Jewish admissions at the time). Bought by the Berea Seventh Day Adventists as a school on May 19, 1960 and then as the Berea SDA church after 1982.
1927. Feb 11. Beth Hamadrath Aperion Plaza completed. 575 Warren Street. Eisenberg & Feer (James M Tuck) architect. Owned and managed by Rabbi Joseph M Jacobson. Synagogue, temple center and kosher caterer, it was widely used for funerals, weddings, holidays and social functions. It closed in 1968 and became soon after the Skycap Plaza. Sold to the Charles Street AME Church in March 2001 and has been converted into a family life center. Chisholm Washington, architects. $1.5 million.
1940 - Jan 6. Lucy Wheelock Kindergarden Child Care and School completed. 14 Lambert Ave. Alanson H Sturgis architect. Changed to union hall in 1955. The Holy Temple Church since 1988.
1953. Jan 9. City of Boston Overseers of Public Welfare building 515-517 Blue Hill Avenue. Thomas M McDonough architect. Acquired by Mother Caroline Academy on Oct 3, 1997. Removed from classrooms at St Kevin’s convent on Bird Street at Uphams Corner. Renovations and 4 story rear addition 1997 & 2002. Thomas McGrath architect of both the conversion and new wing.
HOUSING
1911- Oct 23. “The Scollay” completed. 543- 545 Blue Hill Avenue; 1- 3 Nazing Street. CA and FN Russell. Architects. Developed for and by the Parker estate. Rhythmic bays turn the corner of Nazing Street. Full city block long between Nazing and Wayne Streets.
1911- 2696- 2975 Washington Street. North of Egleston Square. Courtyard apartment comprised of 4 attached brick buildings. CA & FN Russell, permit July 26, 1911. Apartment complex by significant architects of multi family houses built after the Egleston Sq elevated station opened in Nov 1909.
1912. Aug 30. Meyer Dana house completed. 250 Seaver Street James S. Ball architect (who lived in a house he built for himself at 39 Rosedale street in Codman Square). High style Colonial Revival home that cost over $20,000 to build; the second largest house on Seaver Street after the Goldsmith house at #108. Meyer Dana was one of the founders of Congregation Adath Jeshurun.
1913. July 13. “The Brookledge” and “The Franklin “ completed. 278- 280 Humboldt Avenue. WS Silverman / Silverman Engineering architects. First apartment house built opposite the Humboldt Avenue entrance to Franklin Park. Earliest example of the bold entrances that usually characterized Silverman-designed apartment buildings.
1914, Jan. Castlegate Apartments completed. 486- 490 Blue Hill Avenue. Four attached four story brick apartment buildings. 47 families. Fred A Norcross architect for Abraham Issacs. The largest and most prominent apartment building in Grove Hall. It was designed for the upper middle class renter. Between 1903 and 1913,Isaacs developed a dozen apartment buildings in Grove Hall that capitalized on the five streetcar lines that began operating out of the Grove Hall carbarn in 1903.
1914. June 24. 21-23/ 27-25/ 29- 31/ 33- 35 Townsend Street. Completed. Anthony Varnerin developer, architect builder. Distinct h two family homes with high porches with Doric and Corinthian columns placed on a high ridge above the road as it turns up Washington Street. Wood and stucco.
1916. Jan 1. 280- 296 Seaver Street apartment block completed. CA & FN Russell architects built for the Augustus Parker estate.
April 18 - Hugh P Nawn House completed. 70 Brookledge Street. Julius Schweinfurth architect. Saltbox style Colonial Revival house.
1928. Oct 16. 132- 148 Seaver Street completed. Apartment block of five attached buildings for 14 families each. Saul Moffie architect. Distinctive white pillars on high balconies. Saul Moffie was one of group of nine Boston architects who specialized in the design of the apartment house in its Golden Age 1910- 1930.
1928. Sept, 7. “ Lincoln Apartments” completed. 154-162 Seaver Street. Saul Moffie architect. A double brick building of five stories. A Park Avenue style high-end elevator apartment building facing Franklin Park. The two Moffie-designed apartment buildings at 132- 162 Seaver Street were built on 2.5 acres originally acquired before WWI by the Roxbury Latin School, which planned to move its campus from Kearsarge Ave to Seaver Street; it chose West Roxbury instead,
1929. Dec 23. Nazing Court completed. 1-19 Nazing Court on Maple Street. Saul Moffie architect. Backs up against the grounds of Congr. Mishkan Tefila. Three Regency style buildings facing a landscaped interior courtyard. The first courtyard style apartment housing in Elm Hill. 151 families.
1939. Dec 18, Mission Hill Public Housing development. Work begun. Parker St-Ward – Saint Alphonsus and Smith Streets. 1,039 families, 39 buildings. George Ernest Robinson architect. Completed in 1940.One of the first four housing developments in Boston authorized by the 1937 Wagner Steagal Housing Act.
Razed in stages from 1997- 2000 to make way for new housing development. Completed in 2002. Chia Ming Sze architect.
1940. Dec 15. Lenox Street Public Housing development. Completed. Lenox St., Kendall St., Shawmut Ave and Tremont Street. Twelve buildings on a 7,5 acre triangular lot for 306 families. Maginnis & Walsh architects. Landscaped by Olmsted brothers. The smallest of the first four public housing development authorized the 1937 Wagner Steagal Housing Act. 476 buildings were destroyed and three streets discontinued to create the site. The Boston Globe of Oct 18, 1938 wrote that “the area is said to be principally colored” and that that has made the development a “de facto colored housing project”.
In 1941 the three private ways in the interior of the development were named by the BHA for three prominent black men who lived in the neighborhood.
Trotter Court - William Monroe Trotter.
Lattimore Court- Black physician Andrew B Lattimore.
Ditmus Court- Last black Civil War veteran who died about 1938. ( No first name given).
1942. January 30. Heath Street Public Housing development completed. Heath St- Waldren St +Bickford St. 17 3-story apartment blocks and administration building and social hall. 420 apartments. Michael A Dyer architect. Hallam Movius, landscape architect. 115 buildings (including outhouses) razed and six interior streets discontinued. Leasing begun in Jan 1942 largely for defense workers and active duty naval personnel; after WWII it was offered as housing for returning veterans.
1942. December. Orchard Park Public Housing development completed. Harrison Avenue- Ziegler St-Eustis St. Albany St. Dearborn and Hampden Street. 15. 7 acres. 773 apartments. Begun March of 1941. John M McPherson and John M Gray architects. First families moved in were defense workers, some from distant states. Nineteen buildings razed in 1997 – 1998 for new attached woodframe row houses for 331 families. Designed by Domenich Hicks & Krockmalnic. Dedicated Nov. 13 1998.
1948- Lenox Camden Apartments 48 Camden Street begun. Three apartment buildings. 24 families each. John M Gray architect. Building permit May 30, 1948.Smallest of the Commonwealth Veterans Housing Developments authorized in 1948. Targeted to low income returning veterans; only black servicemen were shown apartments
Site of the St Vincent Orphanage operated by the Archdiocese razed in May 1932.
1951- Whittier Street Public Housing development plans approved by President Truman. 1580 Tremont Street. Abbott Associates architects. Authorized by the Housing Act of 1949.
RELIGIOUS
1913. Nov 16. St Hugh’s Church dedicated. 617- 525 Blue Hill Avenue. Attributed to Keely & Houghton architects.
Sept 24. 2nd Church of Christ Scientist. 33 Elm Hill Avenue Work begun. Shepley Rutan & Coolidge architects. Estimated cost $115, 000.
1914. Congregation Beth Hamidrash Hagodol. 105 Crawford Street. J Frederick Krokyn, architect. Congregation organized in the West End as the North Russell St shul in Aug 1903. Acquired by the BRA on Aug 13, 1964 as a relocation and site office for Washington Park Urban Renewal Program. Razed in 1965; unbuilt on. Congregation removed back to the West End to a synagogue built on Martha Road in 1971.
Dec 16. Shaarei Tefilo the Otisfield st shul completed. 15 Otisfield Street. AJ Carpenter architect. 1922 Hebrew school added; designed by AJ Carpenter. Organized by Simon Cabelinsky as a breakaway congregation from Congr Adath Jeshurun; Cabelinsky wanted to observe a more strict Orthodox tradition.
1918- March. St Josephs Church convent completed. 93 Regent Street. Charles R. Greco architect. Last remaining fragment of St Josephs Church. Greco had just completed designs fro Blessed Sacrament Church in Hyde Square Jamaica Plain when he received this commission.
1925. Sept 13. Congregation Mishkan Tefila dedicated. J Frederick Krokyn ( Krokyn Brown & Rosenstein ) architect. Built on the site of the Augustus Parker home and estate of 80,000 sf. Home was moved to the back of the lot and used as a school and offices. Congregation Mishkan Tefila was the consolidation of two small Russian congregations in 1895 - Mishkan Israel and Shaarei Tefila. The congregation moved to a new synagogue in Newton in 1958; on April 17, 1968 it was sold to the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts. On April 7, 2001 it was rededicated after a $14 million renovation as the United House of Prayer.
1925. Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Church. 94 Warren St. Carl Enebruske and Channing Porter architects. Building permit May 19, 1923.
1929, May 21. Mishkan Tefila Hebrew School completed. 122 Elm Hill Avenue. Charles R. Greco architect.
1935 May 23. St Francis de Sales Church completed. Edward M Bridge architect. Originally the Ruggles Street Baptist Church . it replaced the original wood and brick building on the opposite side of Ruggles Street at Hampshire Street.
1941. Dec 14. Pleasant Hill Baptist Church. Cornerstone laid. 155 Humboldt Avenue. Saul Moffie. Architect. Enlarged by Moffie in 1947. Saul Moffie was Jewish architect largely of apartment buildings who designed what may be the first black church in Roxbury built on its own land. The Boston Chronicle implied as much when it wrote on Dec 13, 1941 that it was the “ First Negro church to be founded and built by the same pastor and congregation.” The pastor was Samuel Bullock, 39 Waumbeck Street. ( It replaced a home built in 1893 designed by Lord & Fuller that was razed in 1938)
1947 - Bethel Pentacostal Church. 112-114 Humboldt Avenue at Deckard St. Henry Archibald architect. A modest church even today. Bishop David Chandler, founding pastor. The second black church built on its own land?
EDUCATION
1911- Charles Bulfinch School/ 892 Parker St. Charles R Greco architect. Unique W –shaped schoolhouse on a square lot. On Sept. 1, 1910 City of Boston took 39,000 sf of land originally owned by Peter Parker to build a school.
George Lewis School, 131 Walnut Avenue, Harrison A Atwood architect. Lewis was the last mayor of Roxbury. The first Lewis School was located on dale Street opposite Sherman St.
-High School of Practical Arts (Dearborn Middle School). 35 Greenville St. Julius Schweinfurth architect.
1917- Boys Trade School. 578 Parker Street near Ward Street. James E McLaughlin architect.
1919 – William Lloyd Garrison School. 20 Hutchins St. Newhall & Blevins architects. Courtyard plan in three phases. 1919, 1922 (assembly hall) and 1929.
March 21. Hebrew Teachers College 14 Crawford Street. Bureau of Jewish Education bought the former Elm Hill Baptist Church as a school for Hebrew teachers. In 1923 Clarence Blackhall designed a 2 1/2-story addition to the church for classrooms and auditorium. In 1952 the College moved to Brookline. In June of 1952 it was acquired by Freedom House. The church burned and was razed in March 1960 and a new 2-story building was built on its foundation and attached to the 1923 wing. Associated Architects & Engineers. Ca 1961.
1922- Henry Lee Higginson School. 60 Harrishof Street James H Ritchie architect. Built three years father the death of its namesake Henry Lee Higginson, Civil War officer, financier, philanthropist and founder of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
1923- City of Boston acquires Abbottswood and renovates it into a boys school; subsequently used as an annex to the Ellis School; given to the Museum of Afro American Artists in 1976.
1924 – Ralph Waldo Emerson School. 6 Shirley Street at Dudley Street.Mulhall & Holmes architects.
1924.May 27 May 27. Dedication of the Menorah Institute. 22 Elm Hill Avenue. Attributed to J Frederick Krokyn, architect. First Hebrew School in Roxbury formed at Congregation Adath Jeshurun in 1906. Acquired by the Mamoinides School on May 27, 1956,which removed from its first school at 98 Washington Street. Acquired by the Roxbury North Dorchester Headstart Program ABCD in May 1992.
1928. Roxbury Memorial High School. 205 Townsend St. Harrison Atwood, architect.
1929- Horace Mann School for the Deaf ( Phyllis Wheatley Middle School).20 Kearsarge Ave. John M Gray architect.
1933. David A Ellis School. 302 Walnut Avenue. Fay Spofford & Thorndike architects. Art Deco building in tapestry brick. Building permit Dec 12, 1932
David Ellis ( 1873- 1929) was the first Jewish member of the Boston School Committee first elected in 1901. He was chair of the building committee that authorized construction of the New Lewis School.
1937. Aug. Timility School completed. Michael A. Dyer architect. Art Deco style school house built on the site of the Metropolitan Street railway carbarn.
TRANSPORTATION
- Street car turnaround cut into Franklin Park at Humboldt Avenue for Dudley terminal cars, Street car reservation made on the park side of Seaver Street for Egleston Sq – Mattapan cars; reservation made down center of Blue Hill Avenue for Mattapan - Dudley cars. The streetcar (and then bus) turnaround was discontinued in 1982 and returned to the Parks Dept. Made over into a small parking lot and new park entrance in 1989.
1913. Nov. Egleston Square Garage Company completed. 3033 Washington Street. Harrison A Atwood, architect. Public garage and filling station developed by the builder Anthony Varnarin to serve the apartment dwellers in the new flats on Westminster Ave and Wardman Road. Earliest documented public garage. Razed in June 2003 for four-story apartment building with ground floor commercial space.
Walnut Park Garage. 3050 Washington Street. AJ Carpenter architect. Adjacent to the Egleston Square elevated station. It had retail space on the Washington Street side and garage entrance on Walnut Park. In 1928 it was a Ford-Packard showroom for Samuel Kalvin auto sales. It is a furniture rental store, a laundromat and dance school in 2009.
Grove Hall Motor Mart. 4- 8 Cheney Street. Arnold Chandler architect. Public parking repair and filling station. One of the largest public garages in Roxbury at 36,000 sf. Building is just off Blue Hill Avenue, on site of the Seaver farmhouse.
1927.Jan – Public garage completed 3012 Washington Street. Saul Moffie architect. The third garage built near Egleston Station. A very large almost one acre building with back lot. It was for many years Westminster Motors Dodge dealership.
RECREATION
1901 Golf introduced in Franklin Park. Schoolmaster Hill shelter fitted out as a clubhouse with the first tee below the Schoolmaster Hill terrace. In 1915 a 9-hole course was completed and in 1923 a full 18-hole course was landscaped. In 1924 the basement of the Refectory was renovated into a clubhouse with lockers and showers until a separate golf clubhouse was built in 1948 on site of the current building.
1910. Oct. Arthur Shurcliff completed his master plan for the Franklin Park Zoo.
Opened by mayor John Fitzgerald in October. 1914 the exhibits were built in three stages. 1912. Winter bird house in Chinese pagoda style William D. Austin architect
Adjacent flying cage and Long Crouch Woods bear dens opened in 1913 Arthur Shurcliff architect. Its first residents were gifts of the National Park Service of bears fro Yellowstone Park.
Elephant house with is famous cast stone elephant head over the doorway was begun of 1914, unattributed architect.
John M Gray designed the 1932 Antelope House.
The great entrance gate was set up in Dec 1917 using marble columns from the interior of the Custom House. ( Built in 1837-1847. The architects Peabody & Stearns added the tower in 1916; Peabody was park commissioner and no doubt recommended the adaptive reuse; member of his firm designed the gate with the four columns. Destroyed by the Zoo in Feb 2007.
1926 the Rose Garden was opened designed by Arthur Shurcliff. Destroyed in 1978 for the Tropical Forest Pavilion.
In Sept 1930 the DC French statues “Science” and “Industry” were unveiled at the west end of the Zoo promenade for Boston’s 300th anniversary celebrations. Removed in 1928 from the old Post office Building.
1922 Peabody Circle- named in honor of Robert S Peabody architect and park commissioner, was created by Arthur Shurcliff altering the original Olmsted design so as to create parking lot for the zoo and widening the park drives to accommodate through non park motor vehicle traffic from Forest Hills to Columbia Road.
1949. June 7, White Stadium completed. Desmond & Lord architects. Walnut Avenue entrance opposite School was widened for automobile traffic and parking.