Won't You Take Me to...Chinatown?

From Dave Brigham:

I once got propositioned by a hooker in Boston's Chinatown. I was walking from my office in the nearby Leather District toward the subway on Boylston Street when I was accosted by a pimp. He hooked his arm into mine and asked if I was looking for a good time. I was stunned and didn't say anything right away. "You cool, man?" he asked. I assured him I was. Then he fell back and one of his ladies linked arms with me as I walked down the street, never breaking stride. She told me that if I had a big enough John Thomas, then maybe she would give me a freebie. I told her "No thanks," and she slipped back into the crowd.

It happened right around here, along Essex Street near the Verizon building.

Or maybe it wasn't here. Anyway, let's talk about the Verizon building first, and then Chinatown in general. Built in 1919 as a New England Telephone & Telegraph central switching station, the property at the corner of Essex Street and Harrison Avenue is jammed with telecommunications equipment. The top three floors, however, are no longer needed for this purpose, so a developer has proposed converting that space to 46 apartments, and renovating the lobby to add a mailroom, trash and recycling area, bike storage and other tenant-friendly features. You know the Boston apartment/condo/hotel market is hot when developers want to stack people on top of five floors of high-tech ballyhoodles, Fitzenheimer machines, gunkle switches and other made-up spy equipment.

This development was put before the city in November 2016, and I believe it's under construction now. While not a large development, this project is one of many that are changing the face of Chinatown.

As I've documented numerous times on this blog, Boston is a city in flux, with residential and hotel skyscrapers and office/retail buildings rising throughout the city. Chinatown, which began to take shape in the 1870s in an area formerly occupied by a succession of Irish, Jewish, Italian and other immigrants, is a relatively small neighborhood, with a population at the 2010 census of fewer than 4,500 people. In the last 10 years, as more apartment and condo buildings have risen in the area, that number has surely gone up, although the percentage of Asian residents has declined, per Wikipedia.

The buildings that have been lost or radically changed in Chinatown in recent years include the Dainty Dot Hosiery building (see October 9, 2012, "Window Dressing") and the Hong Lok House (see April 6, 2019, "UPDATE: Cashing Out (And Learning About Facadism").

While there are changes afoot in Chinatown, the neighborhood still has an overwhelming Asian feel, with dozens of restaurants, small shops, community centers and other facilities.

The Verizon building also backs up to Oxford Street. On the opposite corner of Oxford and Essex I spied this ghost sign for a market that used to be here.

Here's the front of the old store, which I believe was called Cheng Kwong Market.

Another memory from the days when I regularly walked through here from work to the subway: I recall seeing delivery trucks parked outside the market, and buckets and boxes of produce and fresh fish piled up in front. How fresh? On at least one occasion I saw fish flopping around on the sidewalk, having escaped the boxes of ice they were packed in. A last gasp.

I found a thread at ArchBoston.org that discusses a proposed limited-service hotel for the Cheng Kwong Market site. Curbed Boston listed this proposed project at #4 on a 2017 posting of "Boston's Most Controversial Developments." I'm not sure the status of the proposal.

Next to the market, in a separate building, was Chau Chow City, a restaurant that closed in 2017 after 20 years at this spot, due to raised rents. The restaurant building appears not to be part of the above-mentioned project. I'm not sure what the fate of this place, at 83 Essex Street, is. Known as the Pelham Building, and dating to at least 1899, it was designed by Stephen R.H. Codman, whose firm also designed the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (now part of Brigham & Women's), a building at 134-142 Portland Street in Boston's North Station area and 7-11 Merchants Row near Quincy Market, among others.

Continuing east along Essex Street I found this ghost sign.

At the corner of Essex and Kingston streets is the former location of Bartlett, Coppinger and Maloon dry goods firm. I have found very little about this company online. The building is home to offices, furniture and kitchen showroom Studio Verticale and other businesses. It is located across Kingston Street from the former site of the aforementioned Dainty Dot Hosiery building.

Around the corner on Surface Road, barely still in Chinatown, I found this sculpture celebrating the Year of the Pig - 2019. The artist is Elliott Kayser, who seems to have a thing for sculpting animals.

Heading south on Surface Road and through the famous Chinatown Gate, I found Hot Pot Buffett, in a building that also houses a Kung Fu studio. Open since 2010, the restaurant is located in the former space of Imperial Tea House.

Across the street is Great Taste bakery and restaurant.

I'm not sure the age of the older buildings in Chinatown, but surely some of them date back to at least the mid-19th century. Before Chinese immigrants began making their homes in this area, the neighborhood was home to new Americans of Irish, Jewish and Italian descent. Certain streets in Chinatown are as narrow as those in other older neighborhoods of the city, such as the North End and Beacon Hill. It's those areas that are the most vibrant, as residents and businesspeople bump up against tourists and those seeking out good restaurants, bakeries and bars.

Below is an example of one of these older buildings I'm talking about.

You can see the ghost of a smaller building at the corner of Oxford and Beach streets, above this restaurant. A follower of The Backside of America Instagram in March said of this photo that this building and others in Chinatown may date back as far as the 1830s.

Not too far away, at the corner of Kneeland and Knapp streets I found a ghost of a different kind:

Based on my admittedly unprofessional perusal of old maps online, I believe this building, like many in Chinatown, is a former garment district facility. Garment and leather factories cropped up in this area after Boston's fire of 1872. "In 1898, sweatshops operating in tenements (mostly North and West Ends) were outlawed and work moved to loft factories," according to this Chinatown Atlas article. "The industry expanded in the late 19th century south towards Essex St. At the same time, Chinatown was establishing itself on Harrison Ave. between Essex and Beach Streets."

As Chinatown grew, the need for a community space increased. The Boylston Building, below, located at the corner of Boylston and Washington streets, was built in 1887 and originally housed the Boylston Market. At some point that I haven't been able to pin down, the building became the China Trade Center. In addition to a new, temporary branch of the Boston library, the center is "home to numerous non-profit agencies that provide essential services to Chinatown residents, including the International Institute of New England, the Urban College of Boston and Health Resources in Action," per this press release from the Boston Planning & Development Agency, which owns the building.

Just up the street from the trade center, at the outer fringe of Chinatown, is the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts Freemasons. I really like the handle on the door (below) of the building, which dates to 1898 and is the third grand lodge to stand at this site.

Cutting behind the China Trade Center is an alleyway -- Marty's Way -- that at first I thought was a dead end. But it enticed me with this giant poster, so I kept walking.

"THE GAIETY THEATRE

1000 LAUGHS

DANDY DANCES

A DOZEN SONG HITS

& A CHORUS OF GLORIOUS GIRLS"

So like any other fool looking for a good time, I followed the path, which led me to....

....a plaque. OK, so I knew the Gaiety Theatre was long gone but I was hoping for more than a window box exhibit. The theater opened in 1908 with a capacity for 1,700 patrons, and featured vaudeville and burlesque shows over the years. It was razed in 2005; I probably walked past it back in the days when I was getting propositioned. Now an apartment tower called The Kensington stands on the spot.

Along Essex Street I saw this gate keeping folks out of whatever shuttered store or restaurant was located here, in the massive Washington-Essex Building.

Built in 1905 as the Siegel's Department Store, the Washington-Essex Building (below) is currently home to several State offices, including the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind, the Department of Medical Assistance, the Department of Industrial Accidents and the Department of Transitional Assistance.

In the 1920s, the building featured a temporary version of Keith's Boston Theatre, which hosted vaudeville shows among other entertainments. For more about impresario B.F. Keith and his position as the founder of vaudeville, see ??? "In Boston, A Nod to Vaudeville's History."

As I mentioned above, Chinatown has seen its share of development in recent years. As with development anywhere, even in change-crazy Boston, things take time. Over on Beach Street, so named because in the days before this part of town was filled in, it was along the water, I found this great ghost sign.

This is 17-23 Beach Street, which dates to 1899 and until recently was home to Pho Mai Restaurant and numerous offices on its upper floors. The banner is for a place called Eat Pho, which doesn't appear to have opened. The ghost sign is for Mass. Medical Office; I'm not sure when that business closed. Back to my point above about development: two years ago developer Beach Street Trust proposed converting the building into apartments for working-class residents. I haven't been able to find any news about this proposed project since the initial announcement.

OK, let's get to some restaurants, a big reason many people visit Chinatown. There are loads of great signs for all these eateries. Here are just a few. I wish I had more to show you.

Located on Tyler Street, China Pearl specializes in dim sum carts. I don't really know what that means.

Jade Garden is also located on Tyler Street.

Guess where Peach Farm, above, is located? If you guessed Tyler Street, you win! This place is (or at least was, according to this 2014 article) a major hangout for local chefs and bartenders to chill, eat and drink after work.

New Jumbo Seafood Restaurant is located on Hudson Street.

Now, since this is the Backside of America, I need to feature old signs for long-gone places.

I haven't been able to find out much about China Pavilion. A 1978 City of Boston document I found online lists the restaurant among countless other businesses in this neighborhood. The sign above is on the back of a building on Surface Road, advertising a place on nearby Hudson Street, site of a recent archeological dig.

Below is a terrific ghost sign on Kneeland Street.

Gamsun Restaurant (translated as "Gold Mountain") operated in the 1940's and '50s from what I've found online. I love that this sign is still here and shines nearly as bright as a stack of gold bars.

Also located along Tyler Street, the purple bus below serves as mini-billboard for a bus service running between Boston and New York.

I wish the photo below was better. Located at Oxford Place Playground, it depicts a fantastic mural of a traditional Chinese scene, with beautiful trees, mountains, a river and men on horses crossing a bridge. For a better picture, click this link.

OK, my tour has come to an end. As with any town, city or neighborhood I've surveyed, I can't hit every cool feature. I'll probably swing through Chinatown again before too long. I'll leave you with this cool street light along Kneeland Street, something I can't believe I'd never noticed before.

Here's your headline explainer:

Former Oasis in Boston's South End An Abandoned Mystery

From Dave Brigham:

The answer to why this former restaurant in Boston's fashionable South End has sat empty for nearly 50 years is as elusive as an Arctic blast in the desert. Built in 1847 as a German Lutheran church, the solid brick sentry is currently used as storage space by the owners, a family that also runs a nearby Syrian grocery store, according to this Boston Globe story about long-abandoned buildings (see bottom of this post for photos of the store).

With the odd name Sahara Syrian Restaurant (for those who struggle with geography, the Sahara desert covers large parts of North Africa, but not the land of the brutal Assad regime), this eatery was once a chic restaurant catering to the many Syrians who at one time lived in the neighborhood, according to a nearly 15-year-old discussion I found on Chowhound. "The Sahara is owned by the folks that run the Syrian grocery down the street," says a contributor named Tobin. "My parents tell me that it was a swank nightclub type place that was dark and very romantic!"

Per the Global Boston web site, Syrians began immigrating into Boston around 1890. They settled in the neighborhood that today is known as Chinatown, but which at the time was known as Syriatown. Eventually the community spread south of Kneeland Street and toward Shawmut Avenue, where the Sahara Syrian building stands.

"Like other immigrant groups from the Mediterranean, Syrians aspired to own property and start small businesses," the Global Boston article states. "Many used their earnings as peddlers or factory workers to buy small stores or South End town houses that they turned into rooming houses for local workers."

OK, but why would a family that has been in Boston for several decades, and which runs an evidently successful market, sit on a property for so long in the face of millions of dollars offered by developers?

Owner Ramon Mansour told the Globe his family has no plans to sell or develop the property. “It’s a solid building. When they built churches, they built them to last." One of the participants in the Chowhound discussion referenced above claims the family is a "contentious lot" and that they disagree on how to "best exploit" the property. That conversation is several years old and I have no idea if the people involved have first-hand knowledge of the situation.

I'll keep my eyes peeled for updates on this place.

Here are photos of the grocery store owned by the family.

Trotting Through Toy Town

From Dave Brigham:

I travel from my home in Newton, Mass., to Keene, N.H., with some regularity to see my musical brother, Ken. We played in a band at Keene State College, and have formed a duo called the Slade Wiggins Band to continue our musical journey. My trip takes me through Winchendon, Mass., where for years I've noticed this beauty at the intersection of Routes 12 and 202 in the center of town.

On a recent drive through here, I finally pulled over to see just what this horse, and the town's nickname, Toy Town, are all about.

According to this plaque:

"This is a reproduction of the original Toy Town horse that stood for so long in Winchendon....The original...was constructed in 1914 as a float for the town's 150th anniversary. Winchendon was the home of the Converse [Toy & Woodware] Company and the world's largest toy factory. Workers from the Converse Company....spent five months constructing the horse....The horse rested at the town's railroad station for twenty years....In 1934 the horse was moved to the Toy Town Tavern property for thirty years at that location...."

After a few more appearances, by 1976 it had fallen into disrepair. Eventually the Winchendon Chamber of Commerce and the Winchendon Historical Society put together an effort to construct a reproduction. The new horse made its debut in 1988.

Keep your eyes peeled for a future post about another stop I made in Winchendon. And hold me to a promise I'm making now: I will explore more of this old mill town in the near future.

UPDATE: Misfit Garage

From Dave Brigham:

When last I visited this location in downtown Boston, the Winthrop Square Garage was here. Owned by the City of Boston, it had been closed for a while when I snapped my photo (see August 19, 2015, "Misfit Garage"). Last fall, the developer's construction partner, Suffolk Construction, began work on the massive project that will replace what was a fairly modest structure. The first step was to tear down the old garage.

So what's replacing the sad old garage? Winthrop Center, a massive building with perhaps even larger hopes and aspirations. The building will rise 53 stories, 691 feet, and house more than 400 luxury condos on its top 26 floors. Winthrop Center will cost around $1.4 Billion to build and will also have 750,000 square feet of commercial office space on 20 floors below the luxury residences. There will also be a "grand hall," three floors containing 12,000 square feet of public space, connecting Winthrop Square and Federal Street. The connection will be lined with 31,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space as well as 21,000 square feet of shared meeting space, according to both the Elevated Boston and the North End Waterfront web sites.

The developer, Millennium Partners, is well known in Boston, having developed Millennium Tower, Millennium Place, the Ritz-Carlton Towers, 10 St. James Avenue and many other properties in the Hub. Millennium paid the city $163 million, which will be spread across budgets for the nearby Boston Common, as well as Franklin Park in Jamaica Plain, Dorchester and Roxbury; completing the Emerald Necklace series of parks; and public housing in South Boston, Chinatown and East Boston, according to this BisNow article.

As for the building itself, Millennium claims it will be the largest passive house office project in the world, using 65% less energy than the average office building in Boston, according to the developer. Watch the video at this link to learn about all the wonderful things Winthrop Center will bring to its residents, office mates, ordinary Bostonians and the world at large. Seriously.

Directly across Devonshire Street from the construction site is 1 Winthrop Square, which was built in 1873 as either a J.M. Beebe & Co. store or the headquarters of the New England Press, depending on which account online you believe.

The building's entryway has "NEW ENGLAND PRESS" chiseled into the stone, so my money's on that. Subsequent to New England Press, the building was home to the Record American, according to this history of the building on the web site of a marketing agency called Brafton, which I don't believe is at this location anymore. The building is home to several businesses, but appears to be undergoing renovation.

Boring Plaque to America the Beautiful

From Dave Brigham:

Located in Boston's Back Bay Fens, just off Agassiz Road, is this somewhat boring memorial to Katharine Lee Bates, a writer, professor, scholar and activist known best for writing "America the Beautiful." "Bates originally wrote the words as a poem, 'Pikes Peak', first published in the Fourth of July edition of the church periodical The Congregationalist in 1895," according to Wikipedia. "At that time, the poem was titled 'America' for publication. [Church organist and choirmaster Samuel A.] Ward had originally written the music, 'Materna', for the hymn 'O Mother dear, Jerusalem' in 1882, though it was not first published until 1892. Ward's music combined with the Bates poem was first published in 1910 and titled 'America the Beautiful'. The song is one of the most popular of the many U.S. patriotic songs."

While Bates was born in Falmouth, Mass., in 1859 and lived and worked in Wellesley, Natick, Needham and Newton during her life, I haven't found any information about her living in Boston. So I'm not sure why this plaque was placed here. She died in Wellesley in 1929.

The plaque reads:

"Scholar patriot poet who gave enduring speech to the love of Americans for America."

O beautiful for spacious skies

For amber waves of grain

For purple mountain majesties

Above the fruited plain

America America

God shed his grace on thee

And crown they good

With brotherhood

From sea to shining sea

This memorial is located directly across the street from the Agassiz Road Duck House, which I wrote about a few years ago (see January 14, 2017, "Beautiful Duckling").

A Shrine Lost as Development Looms

From That Same Old Guy:

This is one of the saddest sights I've seen in Boston. Not because anything tragic happened here, but because I can tell that there used to be something beautiful here, something peaceful. Picture in your mind: firefighters and police officers from the stations in the background, on a lovely spring day, walking over here, mixing with area residents. They take a moment to remember loved ones, and perhaps fellow first responders, in what I imagine was a splendid garden. The site, hemmed in by Cambria, Scotia and St. Cecilia streets near the Berklee Performance Center, was owned by St. Cecilia Parish, whose church is steps away. So surely parishioners tarried here as well.

The church sold this property more than a decade ago to an outfit called ADG Scotia LLC for $13.85 million. ADG Scotia is a joint venture between Suffolk Ventures, an affiliate of local heavyweight Suffolk Construction, and Weiner Ventures, another well-known real estate developer in Boston. I'll come back to that part of the story.

I wrote my above imagined scene before even looking for photos of what used to be on this site. I gotta tell you, I was spot on.

I found this postcard of the Shrine of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, St. Cecilia's Church, Boston, on Digital Commonwealth, a great resource for history buffs. I mean, just look at how wonderful that shrine was! The flowers, the statue, the bench, the green grass and shrubs -- all designed to bring comfort and serenity. I really wish it was still there. I have no idea how long ago the shrine was desecrated by way of being torn down and ripped apart.

The patroness of musicians, St. Cecilia is one of seven women commemorated by name in the Canon of the Mass, per Wikipedia.

Now, back to the developers who acquired this land many years ago.

I'm not sure whether Suffolk is still involved, but Weiner Ventures has published a web site for the development it plans to build on a property that includes the former shrine site. Called 1000 Boylston, the complex will include a residential tower featuring upwards of 108 condominiums, seated on top of two floors of retail and parking, resting on new decking over the Mass Pike.

Obviously I'm not happy that the shrine was wiped off the face of the earth. But I can get over it, because I never saw it in person and it's been gone for quite a while. Plus, Boston has some pretty great green spaces. And I don't have a problem with Weiner covering up a hole where you can currently see the eastbound lanes of the Pike, as well as commuter/Amtrak train tracks. Boston would be a much less interesting city if developers weren't allowed to build on air rights over the highway.

Where I do have a problem is with the look, feel and height of 1000 Boylston. Is this proposed skyscraper the only one like it in this part of Boston? No. A few blocks away, One Dalton, which recently debuted with a Four Seasons hotel and a restaurant (condos to follow), is taller. The Prudential Tower and neighboring 111 Huntington Avenue are like skyscraper power forwards. But 1000 Boylston will loom over the Berklee College of Music campus next door, and Newbury Street across the Pike, like Shaquille O'Neal towers over Peter Dinklage.

And there is a shadow problem.

“While we support the goals of eliminating a hole in the urban fabric caused by the turnpike, linking neighborhoods, and activating Boylston Street, we have a number of concerns about the shadows from 1000 Boylston,” said Liz Vizza, executive director of Friends of the Public Garden, in this March 2018 Beacon Hill Times article. “Shadows cast by the proposed project will impact Commonwealth Avenue Mall, public parkland which is enjoyed by many throughout the year. We hope that the project can provide value for the community while being well integrated into its surroundings and causing no adverse impact to the Commonwealth Avenue Mall.”

I'm not sure whether the project has received all approvals from the City and State. Even once Weiner gets the "go" sign, this development will take quite a while to reach completion, what with construction of decking over the Pike and a building that will rise nearly 500 feet.

The new building will abut an edifice that currently houses Bukowski Tavern -- named for the late postal worker turned writer Charles Bukowski, chronicler of the everyday man, the alcoholic, the wretch, whose fictionalized life can be seen in the movie "Barfly" -- and Kings, a bowling, eating and drinking destination.

The Good Kind of Plaque

From Dave Brigham:

Downtown Boston offers a treasure trove of plaques marking historic events, people and locations. Here are two I recently spotted....

Located on the outer wall of 26 Court Street, a plot of land near Boston City Hall with a rich history that I'll get to in a moment, this plaque recognizes John Augustus, considered the "Father of Probation." It reads, in part:

"Moved by the plight of the unfortunate in the jails and prisons of his day, a humbled Boston shoemaker began a great movement in the reformation of offenders when in 1841 he took from the court for a period of probation one who under his care and with his friendship became a man again."

To read more about Augustus, who was born in Woburn, Mass., in 1785, read this article about the history of probation.

Now, back to 26 Court Street. The City of Boston has owned that plot longer than any other in the Hub, according to this WBUR article. In the 1600's, it was the site of Boston's first jail. "It was there that the pirate Captain Kidd was held before being sent back to London where he was tried and hanged in 1701," according to the WBUR article.

In 1836, the City built a courthouse on this location. "That courthouse is where the federal government encroached upon Massachusetts," said Beverly Morgan-Welch, executive director of the Museum of African American History and the African Meeting House, in the article. "In 1851, abolitionists stormed the courthouse and came to the rescue of fugitive slave Shadrach Minkins. But it was a different story for Thomas Sims, when an attempt to rescue him from the courthouse failed," the article continues.

The courthouse was torn down in 1909, replaced in 1912 by the building that now stands there. That structure was originally the City Hall Annex, and it featured columns from the original courthouse. In 1969, 26 Court Street became home to the Boston School Department. That group vacated the building four or five years ago. The City has been looking to sell it since that time.

Just a musket shot away on State Street I found this memorial:

It reads: "Near this site was the first house in Boston of John Winthrop. Born 1588 - died 1649. Governor of Massachusetts for twelve years. First elected October 20, 1629. Brought the charter from England, June 12, 1630. This tablet placed by the City of Boston 1930."

The plaque doesn't make it clear, but Winthrop was the first governor of Massachusetts. The nearby town of Winthrop was named after him. I poked around that town a lot a few years ago when my son was really into checking out planes flying into Logan Airport. For a little flavor of that town, see "Working Our Way Around Winthrop" from March 14, 2017.

This plaque is located on the outer wall of Exchange Place, a building that I recently featured (see June 17, 2019, "Stairs Exchanging Places").