
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!