Located across the street from each other in Brookline, the Pastan Houses are an excellent example of how architectural tastes can change from one generation to another. The William Pastan House was constructed in 1936, and is Tudor Revival in style. The home has a projecting square entry tower with castellated roofline and interesting mixture of materials and textures. The first owner, William Pastan raised his family in the home, attending the synagogue a couple blocks away. By 1963, Pastan’s son, Harvey became a successful engineer and built a home near his parents for his own family, though in a very different aesthetic. The Modern home features boxy forms, prominent covered parking spaces, and expanses of glass.
Which house would you prefer, William’s (1936) or Harvey’s (1963)?
Tucked away on an un-assuming side street in South Brookline, you will find this oddly fascinating home. Without architectural history knowledge, you may think it is just a normal 1940s house, but it’s actually a Lustron House! Between 1948 and 1950, the Lustron Corp. built prefabricated metal homes across the U.S. as part of an effort to combat the housing shortage for returning soldiers post–World War II. Despite these futuristic homes being considered low-maintenance and highly durable, only about 2,500 were constructed, as the structures were seen as too costly and complex to manufacture and assemble. The homes came in just three models and came in four available colors: “Surf Blue,” “Dove Gray,” “Maize Yellow,” and “Desert Tan”. The home is covered in porcelain enamel metal panels set into a steel frame which can be replaced when damaged. At the interior, the homes had metal-paneled interior walls with mostly pocket-doors for space saving. This home in Brookline was built for Edmond and Helen Jennings, in the Westchester model in the Desert Tan color. The only major alteration is the enclosure of the porch, but it retains a high degree of integrity from when it was assembled in 1949.
What do you think of this iconic 1940s home and style?
Residential architecture of the early decades of the 20th century is among my favorites as the Tudor Revival movement took off and was sometimes mixed with other revival styles at the time, creating really unique homes. The Glacy House in South Brookline, MA was built in 1930 as one of the earlier homes in the Walnut Hill development. It was likely designed and built by Walter L. Fernandez, a contractor who appears to have design-built a handful of spec homes to help get the neighborhood’s development going in the early stages. This home was originally occupied by George and Mary Glacy. George later worked as Vice President of the Boston & Maine Railroad, though he later got into legal trouble for hiring companies for railroad projects where he had financial interests, becoming indicted in an antitrust case by a Federal grand jury. The home features a first floor constructed of stone and brick with half-timbering on the floor above. The building is topped by a terracotta red tile roof, which is fairly uncommon for the region.
At a time when many public school buildings around Boston were designed in the Art Deco or early Modern styles, the Edith C. Baker School in South Brookline went back to basics and represents a nod back to Colonial era design. The whitewashed red brick building was designed and built in phases as the neighborhood surged in population, tied in with the re-emergence of the economy after the Great Depression. The opening of the West Roxbury Parkway in 1919 and the Hammond Pond Parkway in 1932, both precipitated subdivision of the farms in South Brookline for residential development. The first section was completed in 1937 (what is shown in the photo) by plans from the local architecture firm of Kilham, Hopkins and Greeley, who also designed an addition just a year later for the un-forecasted growth in the neighborhood. More additions were added in the decades following WWII, thankfully just as additions and not a scraping of the site which seems to be all the rage now. The school was named as a tribute to Edith C. Baker, a longtime member of the Brookline School Committee from 1900 to her death in 1942.
Located in South Brookline, a neighborhood of mostly early-mid 20th century architecture, you can find amazing residential designs for middle-class suburban families in the Boston area. This home was built in 1935 for Max and Rebeccah Webber in the Garrison Colonial Revival style. The home, designed by architect Harry Morton Ramsay, is characterized by a second-story shingled overhang with decorative pendants reminiscent of 17th century American homes. Adding some extra flair, an eyebrow dormer can be found at the roof, as well as a glazed projecting entry porch with a broad pediment and corner pilasters.
Built in 1935 (the same year as the Webber House in the last post), the Melnick House in South Brookline shows how the historically oriented designs of colonial New England converged with the Modern principles brought over from the Bauhaus movement from Germany. The 1930s were an interesting time for residential design around Boston as the two diverging styles were often located in the same neighborhoods. The Melnick House was designed by architect Samuel Glaser for Edward S. T. Melnick and his wife, Ethyle Melnick. Edward worked in Downtown Boston as the assistant division manager at Filene’s department store. Architect Samuel Glaser (1902-1983) was born in Riga, Latvia and at the age of four came to the United States with his family, settling in Brookline. He studied architecture at MIT and started his own practice in Boston a niche as a designer of moderately priced homes, particularly in the expanding suburbs where young Jewish families had begun living. The Melnick home combines the austere stucco walls and lack of applied ornament typical of late 1930s Modern architecture in the Boston area with a hipped-roof main block and flanking wings more commonly associated with traditional style houses of the same period. The home features a vertical glass block window which illuminates the interior stair hall.
Ca. 1910 image courtesy of Boston Public Archives.
Located at the corner of Summer and Devonshire Streets in Downtown Boston, the Commonwealth Trust Company’s two-story marble banking house commanded the corner, despite its short stature. The building, completed in 1908, was constructed with Lee marble and decorated with ornate wrought and cast-iron grilles over windows. The building was designed by the architectural firm of Parker, Thomas & Rice in the Classical mode with large, fluted Corinthian columns and boxed corner pilasters framing the recessed center entrance, Corinthian pilasters ran along the side facade. At the inside, the building was coated with Cararra and Blanco marble with paneled oak offices. At the ground floor, offices and banking stations framed the outer walls, with the safety deposit boxes located on the second floor. The building was demolished by the 1970s and replaced with a one-story minimalist Modern building (I could not figure out why the former building was razed). The new building was demolished after a few decades with a larger building, better fitting the commercial district.
A lasting remnant of the grand homes which once dominated 5th Avenue in Manhattan in the Upper East Side, the Mary King House remains an architecturally and historically significant townhome in New York. Mary Augusta King was the granddaughter of late New York Governor John A. King, and widow of Edward King who had died in September 1875 leaving an estate of around $5 million–in the neighborhood of $113 million today. At the tail end of the Gilded Age of old New York, developers hired architectural firm Turner and Killian to design a new home across from the Met Museum at Central Park, away from the large hotels and towers being built in Midtown. Just before the home was completed, it was purchased by Ms. King for her new residence. She resided there a couple years before her death in 1905. The home was sold a couple more times and was eventually acquired by the American Irish Historical Society in 1939. The AIHS was founded in 1897 to ‘inform the world of the achievements of the Irish in America’, and is today a national center of scholarship and culture holding events and allowing researchers.
Grand architecture in New York is not just limited to commercial buildings, churches and offices, even civic buildings here can go toe-to-toe architecturally with any in the world! On the border of the SoHo neighborhood, the former New York City Police Headquarters showcases the unity of the five boroughs into the City of New York in 1898, a city in need of a large and centrally located Police HQ. The firm of Hoppin & Koen was hired to design a large structure, fitting to represent the largest police force in the country and the five boroughs it represents. The grand Beaux-Arts building makes a statement with its perfect proportions, expanses of rusticated limestone and granite, and the massive central dome at the roof. The New York City Police Department relocated in 1973 to the larger One Police Plaza building, and the former headquarters was vacant for a decade until the early 1980s when the property was purchased by developers and converted to condominiums.
One of the unsung heroes of Modernist architecture in New York City is one of my personal favorites, the Socony-Mobil Building at 150 E 42nd Street in Manhattan. Completed in 1956 from plans by Wallace Harrison of the iconic firm of Harrison & Abramowitz, the development stands out amongst the competing masonry buildings and glass skyscrapers in the area. At the time of its completion, the Socony–Mobil Building was the first skyscraper to have its exterior wall entirely clad with stainless steel, as well as being the largest air-conditioned building in the world! The base is clad with opaque blue glass panels framed with stainless steel moldings; above, the tower and wings are clad in over 7,000 embossed stainless steel panels. The firm reviewed over 100 different designs until they settled upon the four raised relief panels: a rosette-like motif for above and below the windows; a large and small rosette to flank the windows, and two variants displaying a design of interlocking pyramids. The panels were likely designed by or inspired by Oskar Nitzchke (1900-91), a German-born designer who worked at the firm and worked on the similar style Alcoa Building (1953) in Pittsburgh. The building was developed as a speculative project, but the largest tenant, the Socony-Mobil Oil Company, later renamed Mobil, helped to give way to the naming rights. The building was landmarked by the City of New York in 2003.
Thanksgiving in the days of Covid-19 will be different in more ways than one. A notable loss will be the absence of the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York, which has been a national pastime broadcast on televisions for millions of Americans every year. The six-mile route through the city, giant balloons and all, would end at Macy’s Herald Square, the flagship store of the department store chain. The building (one of the largest stores in the world) was completed in 1902 and its 2.5 million square feet of space, occupy an entire city block. The building was designed by Interestingly, in 1900, a small five-story building on the corner of 35th and Seventh was purchased by Robert H. Smith in 1900 for $375,000 ($11.5 million today). The idea had been to obstruct Macy’s from becoming the largest store in the world. It is largely supposed that Smith, was acting on behalf of Siegel-Cooper, which had built what they thought was the world’s largest store nearby in 1896. Macy’s ignored the tactic and built around the building, which now carries Macy’s “shopping bag” sign by lease arrangement! Oh, and Macy’s even hired the same architect for their department store that Siegel-Cooper used for their building, Theodore de Lemos, adding insult to injury. A great example of a spite building!
1908 image of Macy’s Herald Square courtesy of LOC.
Distinguished for its classic beauty, this small marble courthouse expresses the best of Classical tradition, in its columned portico and fine sculptures adorning it. Located at the edge of Madison Square Park, the building was constructed between 1896 and 1899 to serve as a courthouse for the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court. The marble Classically inspired Beaux-Arts courthouse, was designed by James Brown Lord and is considered to be an excellent example of the City Beautiful movement, which sought to introduce monuments and beautification to American cities. Of the nearly $650,000 spent on the building, 25 percent was spent on sculpture, a huge sum at the time. Sixteen sculptors – sponsored by the National Sculpture Society and among of the most esteemed of the day – worked on the thirty 12-foot marble statues on the facade, the most ever to work on a single building in the United States. Sculptures by Daniel Chester French, Charles Henry Niehaus, Karl Bitter, and more adorn the balustrade and entrance steps. Additionally, four caryatids sculpted by Thomas Shields Clarke on the Madison Avenue front, showcase a rare feature not typically seen in American architecture, representing the four seasons.
In 1953 a $1.2 million restoration of the facade was undertaken by the Department of Public Works during which the huge marble statues were removed and cleaned. It was at this time that the general public first realized one of the lawgivers was Mohammed. Representatives from Pakistan, Egypt and Indonesia petitioned the State Department to destroy the statue rather than restore it, citing Islamic canon that forbids the depiction of human beings in painting or sculpture.When the statues were replaced in 1955, each was moved over one spot to fill in the void where Mohammed had stood. Today one empty pedestal remains.
In the early 19th century, firefighting in New York was done by an assortment of volunteer groups with no centralized director. This hall was built as a headquarters for two of these groups—a move toward cooperation amongst competitors. Each company split the ground floor, divided into three rooms. The front room for the apparatus, the centre room for their meetings and the room in the rear for sitting and reading. The upper stories held meeting rooms and a library. The building was occupied as a fire headquarters until it relocated in 1887. The City of New York closed the station in the 1970s and it was rented as a mosque and theater company, losing much of its architectural detailing over the years. The Italianate style building, faced with Connecticut brownstone was restored close to the original design based on historic photos and converted to retail use, now housing Dolce & Gabbana.
The Flatiron Building in New York is an excellent example of how New Yorkers maximize any piece of land, no matter how small or what shape, to generate an amazing architectural statement. This skinny lot was previously home to a one-story car wash, serving as an unacceptable entry into the SoHo neighborhood. The tight wedge-shaped lot was envisioned for a higher use and Tamarkin Co. Architects developed one of my favorite recent projects in the city, 10 Sullivan. The innovative design gives me serious Art Moderne vibes with the curving forms and strong horizontal lines. The use of brick creates a feeling of warmth and blends the modern building in with the surrounding historic structures nearby.
The 22-story Flatiron Building in New York is easily one of the most recognizable and iconic buildings in the world. Built in 1902, the building replaced a collection of smaller commercial buildings on one of the most visible lots in this section of the city, thanks to the convergence of 5th Avenue and Broadway at Madison Square Park. The lot was developed by Harry S. Black, President of the Fuller Company, a general contracting company whose specialty was the construction of skyscrapers for their own offices. The company hired Chicago architect Daniel Burnham, who was known throughout the world for his skyscraper designs. Upon completion after just 9 months of construction, the building was called the “Fuller Building”, which was quickly overtaken by the public who named the building the “Flatiron” thanks to its footprint resembling an old flat iron. The building was recently vacant and has been undergoing a complete update inside with sprinkler systems, new floorplans and HVAC.
