Rhymes With Radio Snack*

From Dave Brigham:

This is the back of a rather nondescript building on the campus of Boston University. In the foreground is the Massachusetts Turnpike. The building, located at 730 Commonwealth Avenue, is often referred to as the Radio Shack building, as it was, until last year, the location of a store in that storied electronics chain that held special significance. The company opened its first store in 1921 on Brattle Street in Boston, according to this article. As the company grew, it opened its first headquarters in this location. Now, all that is left of that legacy is the very faint ghost sign you can see here.

*The headline for this post references a joke I heard many years ago. I don't recall who gets the credit, but the set-up was something along the lines of, I can't say the name of the store, and the punch line was, "But it rhymes with Radio Snack."

Modern-Day Monastery, No Celibacy Required

From Dave Brigham:

Sometimes I think I should subtitle this blog "Serendipitous Travels Through History." I keep two running lists of places to explore, one each on my phone and laptop. I may never get to everything on those lists, but that's OK. Often when I check out one place on a list, I find at least one additional site to dig around in. That's what happened on a recent visit to Boston's Brighton neighborhood.

I put the Our Lady of Fatima Shrine on my list a while back because a) I have an atheist's curiosity about religious icons and b) I'd read that there was development planned in the area and I wanted to take some pictures before that happened. I will write about the shrine in a future post. On that excursion, I also knocked off a few other places I'd put on my list: the apartment on Commonwealth Avenue where the members of Aerosmith once lived (see July 17, 2018, "Livin' On the Edge"); a former military post being converted to veteran housing (see August 3, 2018, "Marine Barracks to Be Saved"); and Brighton Center (see July 23, 2018, "Shining a Light On Brighton Center"). After snapping pictures of the first two spots, I took an unplanned detour on Warren Street, which is around the corner from the military site.

I didn't see anything I wanted to shoot as I approached Brighton High School. That's when I noticed a sign for Monastery Path. I knew this would lead me to the shrine site, and decided "What the heck?" and up I climbed the gently rising sidewalk.

Here's what awaited me at the top of the hill:

This is the former St. Gabriel's Monastery. Opened in 1911, this Mission Revival complex is impressive.

I had no idea this old monk residence, with its cemetery for residents and massive church, was here. I also had no idea it has been abandoned for quite some time (since 2006). What I figured out quickly enough was that the redevelopment I'd read about that I thought related to the shrine, was actually about the old monastery, which was designated a Boston landmark nearly 30 years ago. The shrine, as you'll see in a future post, is on the grounds. According to a Boston Herald article, the shrine would be moved to a new building when the monastery project commences.

Now, about that construction. The Boston Planning & Development Agency last November approved plans from developer Cabot Cabot & Forbes to redevelop this almost 12-acre site. CC&F will build four new buildings with 660 apartments and condos on the site. The developer will also restore the monastery for housing, and the church for a community center, according to this article, which includes artist renderings of the future development. Many of the stained glass windows will be kept.

Here's a video showing the current state of the property, as well as the planned development:

On the hill sloping south of the monastery, near the shrine, sits a small cemetery, which holds the remains of the priests who lived there over the course of decades.

While CC&F mentions in the above video that it plans to "spruce up" the park in front of the monastery. I can't imagine that would entail moving the gravestones. The cross? Maybe.

I will return here at some point to document the new neighborhood that will spring up in the coming months and years.

Living Behind a Ghost Sign

From Dave Brigham:

I see you, ghost sign!

On a recent walkabout in Porter Square in Cambridge, Mass., I spotted this old painted advertisement. As you know, this kind of thing makes me happy. I continued along Upland Road, hung a right on Richdale Avenue, and saw even more.

Built in the 1890's, the former University Storage building is part of a condo complex that was developed in the 1980's. That is all.

A Boneyard Within a Cemetery

From the Crypt Keeper:

I should set up a tip line for the blog. And build an army of drones and cyborgs to venture into the field to take pictures and go online to do research. And hire a team of monkeys to write it all up. This is brilliant.

Until I do that, however, I will rely on my own digging and snooping and the occasional suggestion from friends and family. Such as my buddy Jeff, who mentioned to me quite some time ago that I should check out a "cemetery within a cemetery" in Medford, Mass. I finally did, along with my son, Owen, and we found a pretty cool place.

The Cross Street Cemetery was established in 1816 and all was going well, or as well as things go in a large plot of land filled with the dead, until the 1950's. That's when the State of Massachusetts, or perhaps it was the federal government, began ripping the area apart in order to build Interstate 93. Fortunately, according to this article, space was found in the nearby Oak Grove Cemetery, and the gravestones (not sure whether it was all of them) were moved behind their own stone walls within the larger graveyard.

Pretty cool, eh? If you've got a lead on an interesting site on the backside of America, let us know. Send an email to this here address.

With Kenmore Square Development, Citgo Sign Will Stay

From Dave Brigham:

I've lived in the Boston area for nearly 30 years and have seen a lot of changes in the cityscape, especially in the past decade. There's the Hub's Seaport district, which went from an artist district with loads of muddy parking lots, to a glitzy neighborhood filled with high-tech companies, museums, law firms and high-end condos and restaurants (see February 1, 2017, "Bon Voyage, Lady"). And Kendall Square in Cambridge, which went from a bit of a sleepy tech outpost to being lousy with bio-tech firms, funky eateries and high-end condos and restaurants. And Kenmore Square, former home of punk hangout The Rat, dance club Narcissus and mom and pop restaurants, and now increasingly a place for the well-to-do, with the Hotel Commonwealth, Eastern Standard restaurant and, soon, a major office development underneath and abutting the building where the famed Citgo sign shines.

"Developer Related Beal has filed detailed plans with the Boston Planning & Development Agency that would add two new buildings to Kenmore Square - one of which Boston’s most famous sign would bestride," according to a Curbed Boston article. "The plans include incorporating 660 Beacon Street, which has been holding up the famed 60-foot-by-60-foot Citgo sign since 1965, into one of the new buildings.

"The prolific Related Beal bought 660 Beacon and several other buildings in the area in 2016, touching off speculation that the sign was doomed. Organized opposition to its demolition arose even before the sale, when former owner Boston University announced it was putting the buildings on the block. Related Beal and the oil concern behind the sign struck a deal in March 2017 intended to keep the clarion beaming for decades. And it will likely do so from atop a major office development, as the recently filed details make plain," according to Curbed Boston.

So I strolled by these buildings recently to see what will be torn down and/or changed drastically.

The building at the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Deerfield Street -- known as West Gate -- was most recently home to City Convenience and, presumably, several apartments. Just look at those gorgeous projecting window bays on this building, which dates to the late 19th century. There are lots of buildings that look like this in Boston, so in some sense it's a dime-a-dozen situation. But with each one that gets torn down, which this one eventually will, Boston loses a bit of its history.

West Gate was evidently in declining health for some time. A Boston Globe article from November 2015 about the death of a homeless guy named Melvin who was a fixture in Kenmore Square, refers to the West Gate as "derelict." To see great old photos and learn the history of Kenmore Square, check this out.

The Citgo sign -- erected in 1965, replacing a similar sign from 1940 -- is a landmark unlike any other in Boston. You see it looming in the distance during Red Sox broadcasts, and people use it to orient themselves toward Kenmore Square. There's no way the good people of Boston would have allowed the sign to be torn down. In the above photo it looks down on the former site of a Bertucci's restaurant, which is also where the infamous Narcissus club was located.

(The side of the former Bertucci's/Narcissus building, which is slated to be torn down.)

While the building that houses Kenmore institution Cornwall's will be torn down, the restaurant owners maintain that they will reopen in the new building after construction is completed, according to this article. Other buildings in this block will also be torn down; it's unclear whether Bruegger's Bagels, the Barnes & Noble book store and other businesses will return to the new development.

Amid the changes in Kenmore Square, there is at least one holdout, albeit a mysterious one (see February 8, 2018, "Casual Abandonment").