Boston Brickwork

South Main Street Engine House, Providence // 1892

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Built as a neighborhood fire station by the City of Providence in 1892, this handsome brick structure on South Main Street showcases how infrastructure and civic buildings can (and should) still contribute to the streetscape. Constructed along a streetscape of early 19th century brick buildings, the local architectural firm of Stone, Carpenter & Willson, sought to take cues of the materiality and massing of nearby structures, but employ new detailing and vocabulary for the fire station here. The result is a Romanesque style fire station with a pair of round-arched engine portals surrounded by stone facing, with the showstopping second floor and roofline with ornate brickwork around the arched windows and multi-staged corbeled cornice. The building with its smaller engine doors became obsolete with newer, larger fire trucks, and the building has since held a variety of commercial uses, today as a up-scale Italian restaurant.

Charlesgate Stables // 1892

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Buildings not built for people, but for horses! This handsome masonry building sits at the heavily trafficked corner of Newbury Street at Massachusetts Avenue in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston. It may get overlooked by some, but when you are not attempting to avoid shoppers on Newbury and cars and bicycles speeding along Mass. Ave., you’ll notice the amazing brickwork and details found on the former Charlesgate Stables. The building was constructed in 1892 as a five-story plus basement brick livery stable for owners Charles Kenney and Eugene L. Clark. Their permit called for storage of over 200 horses and other goods. The architectural firm of Peabody and Stearns designed the building to fit well within the surrounding area which is dominated by large, ornate townhouses and institutions. Inside the building horses were led up ramps to second floor stables leaving the first floor for carriage storage. This layout made it very difficult to save horses when fires occurred. The Renaissance Revival style building with contrasting brick was purchased by the Maxwell-Briscoe Trust after owners Eugene Clark died in 1907 and Charles Kenney died in 1909. The trustees were manufacturers of the Maxwell automobile, and they converted the former stable into an auto salesroom and garage, to keep up with the shift from horses to automobile. The building today has been converted to commercial use with retail on the ground floor and offices above.