From Dave Brigham:
Seems like all I do these days is write about the changing face of Boston. The only constant is change. Who said that? Jesus? David Bowie? Foghorn Leghorn? Somebody important. Anyway, I stand before you today with a short story about two restaurants in Boston's Fenway neighborhood, one recently out of business, the other a mostly forgotten memory that will soon be torn down.
Built as a post office during World War I, this building at 258 Huntington Avenue began selling French food, rather than stamps, by the mid-1920's, according to a Fenway News article that has disappeared from the Internet since I found it a while ago. The restaurant, Child's Old France (you can see "OLD FRANCE" chiseled over the doorway), was in business at least through the 1940's. Although I've found little information online about this restaurant, it was apparently part of one of the earliest chain restaurants in the U.S. At some point the building became the production/scenery/prop shop for the Huntington Theatre next door. The location is right across from Symphony Hall.
For more about former post offices in other parts of the country that have been turned into restaurants, see this Natural Trust for Historic Preservation article, as well as this one.
If you're like me, you take a bit of a shine to the Old France building. As regular blog readers know, I love a good named building. And at just a little older than 100 years, it's in my preferred age range. I love the arched windows and the architectural details. This place deserves more than its fate, which is...surprise, surprise...to be torn down.
A developer called The Matteson Companies owns the Old France and other buildings along Huntington Avenue, and has proposed knocking a few of them down (including the Old France, but not the adjacent Huntington Theatre) and constructing a 32-story apartment building. This will be way out of scale with the neighborhood, but nobody in power cares about that.
More recently, the Uno Pizzeria on the other side of the Huntington Theatre from the Old France building, closed its doors.
What will go here? Whatever it is, the rent will surely be higher with the prospect of a gigantic apartment tower rising two doors down.
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