The Boston & Maine Railroad opened in 1845, and over the years, became the dominant railroad in northern New England with many of its lines terminating at this station for a half-century until the original Union/North Station was built in 1893 consolidating many of these northbound lines under one roof. The Boston & Maine Station was located in Haymarket Square, southeast of the present North Station and the building was a landmark in the Greek Revival style. The brick building with monumental pilasters and pediment at the facade commanded the heavily trafficked site until it was demolished in 1893 when the lines relocated to the newly built Union Station on Causeway Street. The architect for the station was Richard Bond.
The Bulfinch Triangle area just south of the TD Garden in Boston is a cohesive and historically preserved district of similar commercial and industrial buildings of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Somehow, the area has been preserved largely intact besides some sites serving as surface parking lots and some incompatible infill developments. Historically, the area was a tidal flat, before the land here was filled beginning in 1807, with Causeway Street as the northern boundary. The area’s namesake, architect Charles Bulfinch, designed the street layout for the landowners, and the area was filled with material taken by lowering Beacon Hill and Copp’s Hill. Development was fairly slow until railroad companies built depots in the area around present-day North Station, many of which connected the area to cities north of Boston. These new train lines boosted the value of the surrounding land, with manufacturers and developers building factories and hotels in the area. This handsome structure on Causeway Street was built in 1870 by William G. Means, a manufacturer who also invested in real estate in Boston. He commissioned architect Samuel J. F. Thayer to furnish plans for the apartment hotel in the Second Empire style with a mansard roof and window lintels of diminishing detail as the floors increase. In later years, the Arlington House Hotel changed hands and names, later known as the Eastern Hotel and Hotel Haymarket. Stay tuned for more Boston history in this series highlighting the North Station and Bulfinch Triangle district!
The Frederick & Arabella Holden House sits on Aspinwall Avenue in the Brookline Village neighborhood of Brookline, Massachusetts. Built in 1893, the excellently designed Shingle style dwelling was actually built on speculation by developers, and sold upon completion to the couple. Fred G. Holden (1858-1927) was a marble dealer who managed the Boston Marble Company and had connections in his home state, Vermont for the highest quality marble to sell around Boston, largely for building products and grave memorials. Arabella Proctor Holden (1859-1905) was born in Cavendish, Vermont, as the eldest daughter of Redfield Proctor, 37th Governor of Vermont and the founder of the Vermont Marble Company, the largest such company in the world. I could not find the architect of the house, so any more information, let me know. I’d love to solve the mystery!
Dr. Thomas Joseph Shanahan (1873-1929) was born in Lawrence and graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1896. He practiced medicine in Brookline and Boston and was engaged in local organizations. He purchased this 1892 house on Aspinwall Avenue in Brookline in 1911, which had previously been rented to families. Two generations of Shanahans would own the house until the 1970s. After Dr. Shanahan’s death in 1929, the widowed Margaret Shanahan remained in this house with their daughter, Mary Margaret Shanahan, who was employed in 1940 as a medical secretary for a hospital. Mrs. Shanahan transferred title to the property in 1947 to her daughter, who converted the house to a two-family dwelling in 1953 for supplemental income. Architecturally, the house is Queen Anne and Shingle styles with continuous shingle siding, complex form with bays and oriels, and a unique arched opening in the gable over the entrance filled with a spindle screen. Architects were William Langley Morrison and Peter J. McEwen.
Located next door to the St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Brookline, Massachusetts, the church’s rectory is equally stunning and compliments the 1850s Gothic church. The Rectory was built in 1886 from plans by Boston architects, Peabody & Stearns, in harmony with the architecture of the Church, with masonry walls of Brighton puddingstone with Nova Scotia freestone trimmings. The Rectory’s architectural style, is somewhat Jacobethan/Tudor due to the pitch of the roof, elbows on the parapet wall, diamond panes in the sashes of the windows, and projecting bay window on the second floor.
When Brookline Village filled in with multi-family housing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many speculative real estate developments sprouted up from larger residential estates. As so many were built on speculation, high-quality designs and construction were a necessity to bring in picky buyers. This two-family house was built on the corner of Brook and Toxeth streets by Levi T. Lyon, a builder and developer, who lived on Brook Street. This house was designed by F. Manton Wakefield, a relatively unknown architect who apprenticed under Shingle-style maestro William Ralph Emerson, before opening his own firm. Buildings like this are great as they provide much-needed housing, while being built of a good scale that allows residents to know their neighbors, not as easy in a high-rise.
Located in the heart of Brookline Village, the old Pierce School sits tucked away behind the Brookline Town Hall and other municipal and institutional buildings. The school was built in 1855 at a cost of $15,000 and later expanded in 1904 from plans by Julius Adolphe Schweinfurth, a prominent local architect. Julius had two brothers who also were architects: A. C. Schweinfurth, who worked out of California and Charles F. Schweinfurth, out of Ohio. The Pierce School was named after Reverend John Pierce, noted pastor of the Walnut Street church during the mid 19th century. He and his wife, Lucy Tappan Pierce, were active leaders in the abolition movement in Brookline. The school was expanded a number of times until the 1970s, when the present Pierce Elementary School was built, in an unsympathetic Modern design that does little to enhance the busy street. As expected, the 1970s school will soon be demolished and replaced by a new, $212 million school. The old Pierce School will be incorporated into the new development.
Tucked away in Highland Cemetery, a typical looking cemetery in Norwood, Massachusetts, you will find a masterpiece chapel designed by one of the great architects of the Arts & Crafts movement. The Highland Cemetery was established in 1880 becoming the town’s second and primary burial ground. The town’s first burial ground was the Old Parish Cemetery which is located in the center of town on a 3/4-acre hill and because of its limited size and the difficult terrain; there was no room for growth. The rapidly developing town required a second cemetery and laid out Highland View on the outskirts of the village. In 1903, the Chapel of St. Gabriel the Archangel, also known as the Day Memorial Chapel, was erected at the center of the cemetery. The Chapel, which also acts as a mausoleum, was donated to the town by Lewis and Anna Smith Day in memory of their parents. Their only stipulation was that the chapel be available for use free of charge for any resident who desired to do so, no matter their religion or race. Esteemed architect Ralph Adams Cram designed the chapel in the Neo Gothic Revival style. Fred Holland Day, a renowned photographer and publisher, was the only child born to Lewis and Anna and he was a close friend of Ralph Adams Cram and Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, likely leading to their commission here in Norwood. F. Holland Day lived in a Tudor mansion in town, modified from his childhood home. The Cemetery Chapel remains a seminal building for its genre and time.
The Day House is a significant landmark in Norwood, Massachusetts. Originally built in 1861 for Lewis Day (1835-1910), a wealthy Boston leather dealer who was born in town. The house was a two-story Second Empire style mansion with mansard roof and detached stable. During 1890-92 the Day House was rebuilt at the direction of the Lewis’ son, F. Holland Day, who hired Boston architect J. Williams Beal to remodel the house in the Tudor Revival style. Fred Holland Day (1864 – 1933) was a prominent photographer and publisher and was an early and vocal advocate for accepting photography as a fine art. Day’s life and works were controversial because he took an unconventional approach to religious subjects and often photographed males nude sometimes the photos being homoerotic, leading many to speculate he was gay, though he never “came out”. Fred Holland Day died in 1933 and the house is today owned and managed by the Norwood Historical Society as a historic house museum.
One of the best parts about New England is the diversity of the architecture and history of local public libraries. The Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts, was erected by George H. Morrill in memory of his daughter Sarah Bond Morrill, who apparently died in 1895 of Typhoid Fever at the age of 22. George Morrill made his fortune as one of the largest producers of printing inks in America. The business was founded by Samuel Morrill, father of George H. Morrill in 1845 in Andover, but in 1856, he moved the works to South Dedham (present-day Norwood). The company grew rapidly and factories were built in Norwood and expanded to meet increasing operations. Mr. Morrill built a massive estate in Norwood (no longer extant) and also houses for his family members nearby to create a small enclave for the family. One of the lots on Walpole Street was utilized for a memorial library in honor of his late daughter. Architect Joseph Neal, who originally worked for Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge in Boston, designed the Richardsonian Romanesque library constructed of rough-faced granite blocks with a red terracotta tile roof above. The main entrance was deeply recessed within a great Assyrian arch typical of an arch-type that was a hallmark of the public and ecclesiastical buildings of Boston architect Henry Hobson Richardson during the 1870’s and 1880’s, but has since been enclosed by a vestibule, somewhat diminishing the original entry. The library was originally cruciform in plan but one-story additions constructed in the 1960s, on either side of the original facade have altered its original volume, but at least they are of a similar material. The library is one of the more unique in the Boston area and a testament to a father’s love to their children.
Buildings of New England 
