From Holy to Housing

From Dave Brigham:

I think it would be pretty cool to live in a converted church, with the soaring ceilings, amazing windows and sense of religious history. Below is The Lucas in Boston's South End/Chinatown neighborhood. Located in the former German Holy Trinity Catholic Church (which dates to 1874), the condo development features 33 luxury units ranging in price from $525,000 to $4 million. Wow....

On a recent stroll through this area, I also saw the 100 Shawmut project two doors down. This one is slated to open in the fall of 2020.

The development team includes the Davis Companies, the Boston Chinese Evangelical Church and the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association. When completed, the building will feature 138 luxury units. The plan calls for going up 13 stories and maintaining the facade of the six-story former office building that dates to the 1920s.

Between 100 Shawmut and The Lucas sits the Boston Chinese Evangelical Church at 120 Shawmut Avenue. This redevelopment calls for the expansion of the house of worship in order to consolidate BCEC’s services onto one site, per this article. A third building, 50 Herald Street, currently owned by the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association of New England, will contain 313 residential units with ground floor retail, commercial, cultural, and/or community space along Washington Street, per the article.

The redevelopment drum beat continues....

A Little Boston Street With Big History

From That Same Old Guy:

As I've mentioned elsewhere on the blog, I had jobs in the 1990s for which I spent a fair amount of time walking through Boston's Financial District and other downtown areas (and man do I wish I had a camera and the backside inspiration then....). So I've been familiar with a lot of the main roads and side streets of the city for nearly three decades. But every once in a while I stumble across a nook or a cranny that I don't recall ever treading upon before.

Spring Lane is just such a hidden gem.

(Looking west from the Devonshire end of Spring Lane. On the right is the Winthrop Building, which was the first skyscraper in Boston erected with a steel frame.)

Little more than an alley connecting Devonshire Street in the Financial District with Washington Street in Downtown Crossing, Spring Lane has an unmatched pedigree in the annals of Boston history.

"HERE WAS THE GREAT SPRING," reads the plaque above, which hangs on the side of the Winthrop Building. For more than two centuries, the sign continues, the spring provided water to the growing city of Boston. Eventually, as the city grew and other water sources were created or discovered, the Great Spring was covered up and paved over (I wonder if this area of the city has weird water issues once in a while). The lower plaque is for the Winthrop Building.

Two plaques of notable locations in one somewhat claustrophobic alleyway -- the oldest street in Boston -- is remarkable enough, but there is a third marker along this little lane that most people pass on by.

Located on the opposite side of Spring Lane, tacked on to the side of 111 Devonshire Street (which dates to 1911), the Mary Chilton marker memorializes the "only Mayflower passenger who removed from Plymouth to Boston." Chilton -- who may or may not be related to power pop icon Alex Chilton of Box Tops fame -- married John Winslow in Plymouth about 1624 and the pair "came to Boston about 1657 and bought a house on this site in 1671," per the plaque. "John Winslow died here in 1674. As a passenger on the Mayflower in 1620 Mary Chilton came to America before any other white woman who settled in Boston."

As if all that Colonial and architecture history isn't enough to inspire you to seek out Spring Lane, there is also a very cool book and old prints store called, strangely enough, Books & Old Prints (actually it's called Commonwealth Books).

"We have extensive holdings in art monographs, decorative arts, poetry, history, and literature, among others," says the store's web site. "Our antiquarian selection is quite strong. We also offer bins of old prints and engravings spanning from the 1600's to 1940's." I'm not sure how long the store has been in business, but it feels like it's been there forever. Even if musty old books and maps aren't your thing, it's worth springing in for a quick visit.

Just a Typical Day Wandering in Boston

From Dave Brigham:

Today I offer a collection of photos that represent fairly well a typical stroll I take when I ride the subway into Boston with my son. Usually I have at least one destination in mind, but typically I keep wandering after I've satisfied my curiosity. On a recent trek into the Hub of the Universe I checked out a corner of the Government Center area I'd never seen before, and then traipsed along through back alleys and a funky passageway in Downtown Crossing.

I first checked out Court Square, a small block in Government Center next to One Boston Place and across the street from the New England Shelter for Homeless Veterans. Previously, I'd strolled past the former Boston School Department building at 26 Court Street and snapped a picture of a plaque (see July 3, 2019, "The Good Kind of Plaque"), and wanted to return.

I walked down the narrow, one-way street adjacent to the building -- built in 1912, 26 Court Street replaced a courthouse erected in 1836 by the City of Boston -- and found the Hungry Traveler restaurant.

I was there on a weekend, but I just had a feeling the place was out of business. And indeed, in July 2018 the Hungry Traveler shut its doors for good after many, many years. I don't know whether anything has replaced the eatery since I took this picture earlier this year. This place was a no-frills joint serving those who worked in the area, from what I've read online.

I walked around the corner and was somewhat taken aback by this building.

This is the former Edward Kirstein Memorial Library, which was designed by the architectural firm Putnam and Cox, and opened in 1930. The firm also designed the American Unitarian Association headquarters on Beacon Street, Angell Memorial Animal Hospital, and a number of fraternity buildings at Amherst College and Mt. Holyoke College, per this blog post. "The first floor housed statistical data, city directories and atlases from all over the United States, and trade magazines," per this post from the Boston Public Library web site. On the third floor was general reading. The library was largely financed by Louis Kirstein, who was both the vice president of Filene's Department store and a member of the Boston Public Library board at the time. He named the library for his father Edward.

The Kirstein library was consolidated into the Boston Public Library's main building in Copley Square in 2009. The old library, which is sandwiched between the One Boston Place skyscraper, the Pi Alley Parking Garage, Boston's Old City Hall and other buildings, is still owned by the City of Boston, but I'm not sure what's located there.

After shooting this cool little corner of Boston, I strolled through nearby Downtown Crossing. I've walked through this shopping district countless times over the last few decades, but not always with my head on a swivel looking for cool details. I saw not one, but two new things.

FOUNDED BY

OLIVER DITSON

1840

Well, that steered me to the Internet right quick. Oliver Ditson founded an eponymous music and publishing company in 1840, after buying out a partner. The company "gained national prominence under his personal direction in the middle years of the 19th century, and had a great deal of success well into the 20th century," per this New England Conservatory web page. The company expanded into Cincinnati, Philadelphia and New York. Ditson's son Charles took over the New York business, which was named Chas. H. Ditson & Co. Here's a blog post from the Daytonian in Manhattan about the NYC building.

Oliver Ditson & Co. was purchased by Theodore Presser Co. of Philadelphia in 1931.

Now, back to the building.

This building does not date to 1840, as you probably guessed. According to a Waymarking post I found, it was built in 1900 by Charles Henry Ditson, relation to Oliver Ditson unknown but I would assume a son. The building replaced a five-story edifice that the company's founder erected at this location, per the Waymarking post, date unknown. Oliver Ditson & Co. was only at this location until 1904, when the music publisher moved to Tremont Street.

So what's here now? At least part of the building, perhaps all of it, is the Dexter Ditson Lofts. Check out the detail at the roofline!

Around the corner, on Temple Place, I stumbled across a cozy passageway, just past Stoddard's Fine Food & Ale.

Cutting from Temple Place to Winter Place, where it deposits you at the Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education building, this cool tunnel was covered in amazing murals from end to end. The works were done by the Mayor’s Mural Crew in January 2017 and depict literary figures who have lived and worked in Boston, per this Boston Magazine post about similar murals around Boston.

I say "was covered" because I read online recently that these beautiful works of art have been painted over. The new artwork is a series of bold, colorful lines, but have approximately 0% of the personality of the literary works.

Just across the street from the Temple Place entrance to the passageway is Wig World.

From Temple Place, I scooted over to parallel West Street, and then down Mason Street, which runs behind the Opera House, subject of a deep dive post from September 20, 2019, "A Peek Behind the Curtain of Boston's Vaudeville History."

There, on the side of Empire Beauty School I found this great mural.

Turns out this building is also home to a branch of the Service Employees International Union. This artwork is one of many along this wall advocating for the union.

Having a Bear of a Time at the Zoo

From Dave Brigham:

What's the smartest animal in the zoo? An elephant, with its great memory? A bear, which is considered as smart as some higher primates? Apes, with their tool manipulation skills and sharp sense of fashion?

(Stolen from the Casual Debris web site.)

I don't know, but the answer to "Who is the most dumbest?" is: me.

There was a time several years ago when my kids, who are five years apart, were at the right age for zoo visits. I took them once to the Stone Zoo in Stoneham, and a handful of times to the Franklin Park Zoo, which straddles Boston's Jamaica Plain and Roxbury neighborhoods. After one of our visits, which included checking out an amazing playground, as well as lots of cool animals ranging from lions and zebras, to kangaroos, baboons and camels, I dragged the kids along outside the zoo proper to look for something I'd heard about for years: the bear dens.

I first became aware of the bear dens after seeing the 2003 movie "Mystic River." You can catch a glimpse of them at the 43-second mark in the trailer below:

After launching this blog in March 2010, I began following similarly minded web sites and, eventually, Instagram accounts, and I saw photos and write-ups of the bear dens. So what are/were the dens? Here's what Wikipedia says....

Once the focus of the zoo, the Bear Dens were designed and built in 1912, and were planned to have a small collection of domestic animals. The original grounds featured a grand staircase leading to a large courtyard, framed by several large iron bear cages. One of these cages featured a detailed stone sculpture of bears and the crest of the City of Boston. Plans of expanding the Long Crouch Woods section of the zoo never came to fruition. As the grounds deteriorated, and as the Parks Department neglected many of the landscape's most basic management needs, the Bear Dens became too expensive to maintain. The exhibit area was officially closed in 1954. It was later lopped off of the zoo property permanently in 1958, when the Metropolitan District Commission took over management of the zoo.

So during that visit to the zoo with my kids -- which I believe was the last time we were there -- I decided that they should be part of what was sure to be a magnificent occasion: my exploration of the bear dens after dreaming of this mission for years! So, having really no idea of where to look, or precisely what we were looking for, we headed out the exit to Pierpont Road, and then curved eastward along a path between the zoo and Seaver Street. Below is some of what we saw.

(Some benches and tables in the woods.)

(A small building that I know nothing about.)

We saw a few other things behind the fences, but nothing that I took to be bear dens. After 10-15 minutes, we headed back to the car. I was dejected and really wishing I'd done a bit more research ahead of time, but I stuck the idea of returning to the zoo into the back of my mind. Any time I would ask my kids about going to the zoo, they poo-poohed it. I put "Franklin Park bear dens" on both of my "some day I'll explore" lists for this blog.

And years went by.

Then, this past summer, on a day when my son and I were hanging around with nothing to do, I told him we were going on an adventure.

"Where?" he asked. At age 17, he's more willing to jump in the car with me for random explorations than he was when he was 14 or 15.

"I'll tell you when we get there," I said. In the intervening years, after seeing more Instagram posts about the bear dens and Long Crouch Woods, and actually looking at Google Maps, I knew exactly where to go in Franklin Park.

We parked near the zoo, walked past a cricket match in a nearby field and then strolled down Playstead Road, past a baseball field and a few dozen picnickers. I noticed a wide gravel path leading up a short hill into the woods, heading toward Seaver Street. I sensed this was the route.

After about two minutes, I was vindicated.

After so many years, I'd finally made it to the old bear dens. Look at that relief work. The sculptor portrays a real sense of majesty and fear in those bears, don'tcha think? And they still look strong and dangerous after more than 100 years!

The funny thing about exploring the backside of America is that when I stumble across a dusty, old, small-town factory or a rusted car in the woods or a ghost sign in the middle of the city, I have the sense that I've discovered it, that nobody has ever seen it before. And so it was with the bear dens. I felt a great sense of accomplishment that I'd found this place that has such great history to it, even though countless folks had been there before me.

I looked at the walls and thought, "Hmm. Couldn't a bear climb out of that enclosure?" Well, then I walked up closer to those walls.

Ouch.

More ouch.

I have no idea what this little structure was for.

That little doorway led to the bears' sleeping quarters, I reckon.

This is the back of the sleeping quarters.

The last three pictures show the same part of the complex, possibly another sleeping area for the bears. Or perhaps where they ate or were trained or tended to medically. I'm not sure.

So what's to become of these ruins, which have sat in the woods decaying for well more than half a century?

"The Parks Department issued 'General Plans' for Franklin Park in 1980 and 1990 that included ideas for an interpretive area, a stop on a nature trail, a playground or a snack bar for the Bear Dens," per this 2014 Jamaica Plain Gazette article. "But, according to City Parks and Recreation spokesperson Jacquelyn Goddard, the City has never had an active plan to renovate or maintain the Bear Dens."

I'm not sure whether that's still the case five years later.

Of Rugged Sports and Moorish Samaritans

From Dave "Snooty" Brigham:

As I've said before, I love stumbling across memorials and plaques in my wanderings across Boston. On a walk through Boston Common and the adjacent Public Garden recently (OK, it was over the summer....), I was pleasantly surprised by two such markers, a rather plain one dedicated to the early, blue-blood origins of a classic American sport, and another quite elaborate honor for something that causes "insensibility to pain."

In all caps, this monument on the Common states: "On this field the Oneida Football Club of Boston, the first organized football club in the United States, played against all comers from 1862 to 1865. The Oneida goal was never crossed." Erected in 1925, the stone references a squad of well-to-do young men who organized themselves into what was evidently the perfect football team. How did the team do so well? Because Oneida's leaders, Gat Miller and Cliff Watson, "sat up nights working out the formations and stratagems of play on the field," according to "an historical sketch" written in 1926 by one of the players. "They were pioneers in the art which has now become so complicated and so popular."

Bill Belichick fans, take note. Your man didn't invent maniacal preparation.

With players including Edward Bowditch, John Malcolm Forbes, Robert Means Lawrence, Francis Greenwood Peabody, Winthrop Saltonstall Scudder and Huntington Frothingham Wolcott (!), the Oneida Football Club was made up of the toughest Brahmins money could buy, apparently.

There are some legendary New England surnames among these prep-school grads:

• The Bowditch clan includes Nathaniel (1773-1838), who is considered the father of modern maritime navigation, and his son, Henry, who was president of the American Medical Association in the 1870s. I'm not sure how Edward fits into the family tree.
• "The Forbes family is a wealthy extended American family long prominent in Boston, Massachusetts. The family's fortune originates from trading opium and tea between North America and China in the 19th century plus other investments in the same period," per Wikipedia. The Forbes who played football for Oneida eventually became "a prominent yachtsman and breeder of Standardbred horses," per Wikipedia.
• Robert Means Lawrence was a surgeon whose family lineage includes well-known abolitionists, merchants, philanthropists, educators, politicians and soldiers.
• Francis Greenwood Peabody became a Unitarian minister and was a founder of the Social Museum at Harvard University.
• The Saltonstall clan is as blue-blooded as you find in New England. The family is "notable for having had a family member attend Harvard University from every generation since Nathaniel Saltonstall — later one of the more principled judges at the Salem Witch Trials — graduated in 1659," per Wikipedia.
• Finally, the guy who wins the "What name is better than Thurston Howell III?" award: Huntington Frothingham Wolcott. Unfortunately for old Hunt, he's also the most tragic of the old Oneida squad. Born in 1846 to Cornelia and J.H., the latter who was a textile merchant and mill owner, HFW was a 2nd lieutenant in the 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry during the Civil War. He died of fever in 1865 after returning from battle, per this Wolcott family history. The Frothingham family includes politicians, artists, ministers and merchants.

Speaking of prominent Bostonians....

The oldest monument in the Public Garden, erected in 1868, the Ether Monument stands 40 feet tall and features a "medical doctor in medieval Moorish-Spanish robe and turban —representing a Good Samaritan — who holds the drooping body of an almost naked man on his left knee," per Wikipedia. The inscription on this side of the statue reads, in all caps, "To commemorate the discovery that the inhaling of ether causes insensibility to pain. First proved to the world at the Mass. General Hospital in Boston, October A.D. MDCCCXLVI."

The event that is memorialized here is the first public demonstration of ether anesthesia, which was conducted at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1846 by Boston dentist William Thomas Green Morton and Doctor John Collins Warren, according to the Friends of the Public Garden web site. "Morton administered the ether, and Warren then removed a tumor from an unconscious patient," per the web site.

To read about another monument on Boston Common, see March 12, 2019, "Step On Up (or Down)."

Walking Overground In the Underground

From Dave Brigham:

I'd been eager for quite some time to get to Boston's Underground at Ink Block, a public park carved out of a formerly dingy area under several highway underpasses. I knew that the 8-acre area at the point under Interstate 93 where South Boston and the South End meet was a hipster paradise, with food truck and DJ events and super-cool street art. But I had no idea just how much the murals would blow me away.

I love spaces like this, ones that celebrate the urban world, places like New York City's High Line and Chicago's Millennium Park, which carved beauty from industrial grit.

Underground at Ink Block took five years to plan, permit, design and build, per the park's web site. The park is a collaboration between local residents, the Mass. Department of Transportation, the City of Boston, the Boston Planning & Development Agency and the Federal Highway Administration. National Development, developer of the adjacent residential area known as Ink Block, has a long-term lease to operate the park.

I'm hoping to stop by again in warmer weather to check out an event of some sort. For more about Boston's South End, check out June 29, 2019, "Back Streets, Oh Boy."

Union Square, Somerville, Part III: Retail and Hangouts

From Dave Brigham:

A preface to this series: most of my explorations of Union Square took place several months ago, and some things may have changed in the interim. Also, as much as I've researched Union Square and the changes that have already taken place and those that are coming, I realize that a few walks through the neighborhood and some poking around online can't match the breadth of knowledge earned by folks who live and work in Union Square. I'm just sharing what I saw and what I think.

In the first installment of this series, I covered auto body shops, murals, repurposed buildings, an egregious architectural gaffe and more; in the second, I wrote about repurposed factories and large and beautiful old apartment/hotel buildings (see August 25, 2019, "Union Square, Somerville, Part I: New Purposes & Grease Monkeys," and November 7, 2019 "Union Square, Somerville, Part II: Factories and Housing").

In this post, I'll discuss bars, restaurants, social clubs, ghost signs, abandoned storefronts, retail outlets and more. Let's get to it!

I'll start with social clubs:

The Demosthenes Democratic Club is named for a Greek statesman and orator who lived from 384 to 322 BCE. A contemporary of Plato and Aristotle, Demosthenes "roused Athens to oppose Philip of Macedon and, later, his son Alexander the Great," per Britannica.com. "His speeches provide valuable information on the political, social, and economic life of 4th-century Athens."

I'm sure the Democratic Club members have plenty of debates, and maybe even some of them center on politics and culture. But they may also discuss which brand of ouzo is best, and where to get the best spanakopita.

Across Somerville Avenue from the Demosthenes club sits the Somerville Sports Club.

A Yelp post about the club from late 2016 says, in part, this: "This is a Portuguese social club in Somerville. It is a cozy place to enjoy an excellent meal with friends. The food is superb with large portions. You can enjoy a good bottle of Portuguese wine or beer." The club's web site isn't active anymore. With so much change coming to Union Square in the form of a new station of the Green Line train extension and related development, it's possible that this place has closed or moved. See the first post in this series for an explanation of how Union Square is changing, and will change once the subway station opens.

On the other end of the square, on Bow Street, is the Greek American Social Club.

The club, assuming it's still in business, is open to the public seven days a week, and available for private functions.

On the eastern edge of the square, hard by the elevated McGrath Highway, sits Nucleo SCP Sportinguista, which translates roughly as "sportsmen's center."

This is another Portuguese club, which isn't surprising. Somerville's Portuguese population grew significantly in the 1950's and '60s after many natives of the Azores were allowed into the U.S. following earthquakes and volcano eruptions, and after President Johnson signed an immigration bill that boosted quotas for immigrants from Southern Europe, per this Somerville News article.

Built in 1910, the building housing the club is known as the Florentine Gardens Building. It was the home of Somerville's first pizzeria, which opened in 1934.

I really like the fact that somebody put that historic marker up there.

It seems logical at this juncture to talk about bars.

Located next to the Greek American Social Club, Thunder Road features local bands and lesser-known (at least to me) touring bands. How much longer the club will do so remains up in the air. Founded in 2015 after the closure of Radio Bar, which itself replaced Club Choices, a dance club that was in business for nearly 30 years, Thunder Road was named after both a Bruce Springsteen song, and an infamous bootlegging route from Tennessee to Georgia by the same name.

This past September, a developer presented plans to replace Thunder Road with a five-story, mixed-use building that would include a dozen apartments and a bar or restaurant on the ground floor. I can't stress enough in this five-part series how Union Square will continue to change with the arrival of the Green Line extension.

A hop, skip and a jump away from Thunder Road is Bull McCabe's.

For 10 years McCabe's has offered live, local music, trivia nights and pub food in a small space. I recall going to its predecessor, Tir na nOg, once or twice back in the '90s. It's a cozy joint, for sure. Named for a character in John B. Keane's play, "The Field," the bar seems to be doing well, but last year the owners had a lease dispute that threatened to shutter the bar. Will Bull McCabe's survive encroaching development and rising rents?

As with Thunder Road and Radio Bar replacing a longstanding local hangout, Union Tavern (below) now fills the space where P.A.'s Lounge once catered to boozehounds and music fans. P.A.'s -- known at its inception in the late '60s as the Portuguese American Lounge -- rolled up the sidewalk in late 2018. The new bar, which offers beer and indie rock, has yet to publish a helpful web site.

Heading back into the square proper, I found The Independent (right, in photo below) and Union Square Beer & Wine (left, below).

Founded in 2001, The Independent is part of a restaurant family that includes the nearby Brass, River Bar in Somerville's Assembly Row, the restaurants Saloon and Foundry in Somerville's Davis Square, as well as The Rockwell theater in the same neighborhood. The eatery's building dates to at least 1900. I haven't found any related history.

Just steps from The Independent is Bronwyn, which offers the "new food and drink of Germany and Central Europe."

Just up the alleyway from Bronwyn is Backbar, which seems to be a hipster speakeasy. At the end of the alley is Field & Vine, a restaurant serving locally sourced food made from scratch. Also in this building is Warehouse XI, a wedding and event space. These latter three businesses appear to be located in a former auto body shop/warehouse space.

Tenants in this rehabbed Bow Street building (below) include Tree of Life Tai Chi Center and restaurant/coffee shop Bloc Cafe.

From the Bloc description on Yelp provided by the cafe's owners: "Before we occu­pied 11 Bow Street, it had been a bank for over 70 years. We have main­tained all the orig­i­nal vaults. We found evi­dence of it being The Somerville National Bank, Shaw­mut Bank, and East Asian Savings." Very cool!

Now to a couple of former restaurants.

On the left is doggy daycare company RiverDog; on the right is a sign for Union Square Bistro. The sign indicates the eatery is "award winning" and "around the corner." In 1994 the eatery won Best Seafood, Crab Cakes in Boston magazine's Best of Boston. Sounds good, yes? Well, unfortunately the restaurant has been out of business since at least 2003.

And across Somerville Avenue sits another long-shuttered restaurant.

For years the brightly colored building in the photo above was home to the New Asia Chinese Restaurant. When I lived in Somerville's Davis Square I made the short drive to New Asia a handful of times. I always liked this place and am sad to see it's gone. From what I've found online, looks like the place has been out of business since some time in 2011. I'm sure the building won't be vacant too much longer....

Just steps away is this pair of food industry buildings.

The small building on the left once housed Fiesta Bakery, the sign for which is still there. This Haitian bakery and restaurant was damaged by a fire in 2013 and appears to never have reopened. The building dates to the latter half of the 19th century, according to online reports, possibly even to the Civil War era.

On the right is La Internacional Food Corp., which seems to specialize in Latin American food and beverages. Or perhaps that should be past tense. I'm not sure.

Below is 31-33 1/2 Union Square, a very cool building that formerly housed Elegant Furniture.

Now home to co-working and office space provider Workbar, Third Life performing and healing arts studio and perhaps other businesses, this building went up in 1884.

A stone's throw away is the Union Building.

I only know that's what it's called because Google Maps shows a version of this building before it was evidently renovated, covering up the painted name above the second-story windows. What a shame. Anyway, the building dates to 1922 and is home to Mama Gina's Pizza and Smoke Valley vaping shop. Tenants over the past 100 years have included a men's clothing store, a confectioner, an insurance company, a lunch counter, a lawyer, a dentist, a hairdresser and a barber, per this brochure from the Somerville Historic Preservation Commission. Minor repairs were made to the building after a fire in 1942. During the 1950s, Goodwin's Furniture and Bernie's Record Shop were located in this building, per the brochure.

Right next door is Union Square's oldest extant building. The photo below was the best I could get, as there is a lot of construction going on in the square.

Home to Mid-Nite Convenience for many years, the building at 15 Union Square was built in 1845. The Greek Revival building "once had a side porch and an attic window with shutters," per the above-referenced brochure. And how's this for a random historical note? "In October 1860, Queen Victoria’s son, later to be King Edward VII, rode through the Square, passing this building on his way back to Boston from a gala reception at Harvard College."

Perhaps the good (future) king availed himself of a haircut and a pack of smokes at Recinos Barbershop and Lucky Corner?

Directly across the street from newfangled apartment complex 197 Union Square, this proud old building rose in 1895, and also features apartments.

Just up Washington Street, on the side of a mixed-use building, is this fantastic ghost sign.

I believe Mansfield Market was located in this building; among the items the store sold was Royal Crown Cola. I just love this sign.

Almost done. One more ghost sign and the building that it's on.

Now home to a Brazilian market called Mineirao One Stop Mart, this building was formerly Somerville Savings Bank, as you can see in the ghostly script above the windows. As for the building itself, it's known as Barrister's Hall.

Barrister's Hall is also home to El Potro Mexican Bar & Grill and other businesses. I haven't been able to find out anything about the building. The Somerville assessor's office lists the building's date as 1900, but I suspect it's older. For what it's worth, a "barrister" is a term for lawyer in the United Kingdom, so I'm guessing this place was once home to lawyers offices or a fraternal organization.

In the fourth, and penultimate post, I will discuss churches, former churches and statues.