Beacon Hill Randoms, Part II

From Dave "Fancy Boy" Brigham:

Welcome to the second installment in my three-part series about Boston's historic, elegant, expensive and fascinating Beacon Hill neighborhood. In the first post, I covered funky houses, offices and retail spaces, as well as cool architectural and neighborhood details, a converted fire station and more (see December 2, 2019, "Beacon Hill Randoms, Part I"). In this post, I will review some historic plaques, government buildings, a named building, a ghost building, some rather small doors and other features of note.

To learn about the Hill's background -- from the first white settlers in 1630 to the establishment of an African-American community to the opening of Cheers and more -- read the first part of the series, linked above.

OK, lovey, let's dive right in!

Let's start with two plaques that are, if we stretch the boundary, at the northeastern edge of Beacon Hill.

In my years of wandering through Boston's neighborhoods I've seen plaques memorializing, among other things, well-known men (and a few women), historic homes and battle locations. Until wandering near the Bowdoin subway station entrance along Cambridge Street, however, I'd never seen a plaque marking a site where a sport was played during the Colonial era.

"SITE OF THE BOWLING GREEN 1700" this monument says. A bowling green is exactly what it sounds like. The sport of bowls (related to and perhaps the same thing as bocce, the Italian game that I've covered on the blog before) has been around since at least the 13th century, per Wikipedia. I'm not sure if there was just one bowling green in Boston; I'm guessing there were some rogue courts back in the day.

Not far from the bowling green plaque is another historic marker, this one memorializing an important architect without whom we might not have ever had the TV show "Cheers" and the commercial realm it spawned.

"SITE OF BIRTHPLACE OF CHARLES BULFINCH

"AN ILLUSTRIOUS ARCHITECT AND CITIZEN"

Bulfinch, considered the first native-born American to practice architecture as a profession (per Wikipedia), designed the Massachusetts State House, University Hall at Harvard University, the Old State House in Hartford, Connecticut, and many other buildings. In 1969, Thomas Kershaw established the Bull & Finch Pub on Beacon Street in Beacon Hill, naming it in honor of the well-known architect. Long story, short: the exterior of the pub was used as the outside of the bar in NBC's hit sitcom "Cheers," and in 2002 the Bull & Finch officially changed its name to Cheers Beacon Hill, nine years after the end of the comedy. I was a huge "Cheers" fan for many years, but I've never set foot in the pub. I know this much: it looks nothing like the interior of the bar from the show.

Here's a favorite bit of mine from the show:

Up the hill, on the North Slope right across from the State House, I found this plaque:

Temple Street was the original site of the Suffolk University Law School, which was dedicated in 1921. Per the plaque, ten houses were demolished to make way for the school, which also eventually included an annex, on which this plaque hangs. The law school isn't at this site anymore. This won't surprise you: the buildings are currently being turned into high-end condos, known as The Archer Residences.

Below is a plaque commemorating the original site of the English High School of Boston, the first public high school in America. It's located on the grounds of the State House, along Derne Street.

The school, which is currently located in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood, was modeled after the Royal High School in Edinburgh, Scotland, per Wikipedia.

Steps away from the English High School plaque is a marker that tells the world why the short street behind the State House was named for a city in Libya.

Derne Street was named to "honor William Eaton and the heroic battle of Derna," the plaque says. In 1805, Eaton led "a handful of U.S. Marines and a small army of Egyptians across 500 miles of Libyan Desert" to attack Derna, a city on the northeast coast of Libya that was besieged by Barbary Pirates, per the plaque. Two years after the victory, Eaton represented the town of Brimfield in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

Also near the State House, the plaque below tells us that 16 Beacon Street is known as the Chester Harding House.

Now home to the Boston Bar Foundation and the Massachusetts Association of Hispanic Attorneys, the Harding House was built in 1808. Harding -- a portrait painter known for his works of prominent American and British subjects, per Wikipedia -- lived in the house only from 1826 to 1830. From that time until 1962, when the bar association moved in, the building was home to various private individuals and religious organizations.

Right next to the Harding House is the Congregational House.

A plaque on the front of the house, which has several amazing bas-reliefs, tells us that "the primary purpose of this building...is to provide housing for congregational societies and other religious and charitable organizations." Dedicated at the end of 1898, the building is the fifth home of the Congregational library. "After 1957 when many Congregational churches joined the United Church of Christ, the library was designated as the records repository for the General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches, the central denominational board of the Congregational church," per the fantastic The Next Phase Blog.

In late 2016, the American Congregational Association announced a plan to sell the building, with the hope of negotiating with the new owner a long-term lease allowing the library to remain. I'm not sure of the status of a sale or lease agreement.

What I am sure of is that the Congregational House has some cool architectural details.

I rely, once again, on the excellent The Next Phase Blog to tell the story of the amazing sculptures adorning the front of the imposing Congregational House.

The four bas-relief sculptures "were carved by Domingo Mora, a sculptor and immigrant from Catalonia who has left his artistic mark in various places around Boston," per the blog. "Mr. Mora also carved the 16 allegorical statues in the John Adams Courthouse and worked on the facade of the Boston Public Library’s McKim Building. The sculpture themes are: Rule Under Law by Consent of the Governed – The Pilgrims signing the Mayflower Compact; Worship According to Conscience – The Pilgrims’ observance of the Sabbath on Clark’s Island, December 20, 1620; Education for Leadership – The founding of Harvard College in 1636; and Community Witness or Philanthropy – John Eliot preaching to the Native Americans in the Nonantum settlement in 1642.

The photo above depicts this last sculpture, and honestly makes me feel a whole lot of white man's guilt.

OK, that's enough plaques for now. There will be more in the third installment of this series.

Let's check out some sorta old-school retail fronts, as well as some empty retail spaces.

Sited behind the State House and directly across Derne Street from the English High School plaque, A-Plus Cleaners is the kind of hole-in-the-wall joint that you used to see all over the city. I have no idea how long the place has been in business; Yelp reviews are mixed.

Located on Myrtle Street, Beacon Hill Plumbing & Heating also gets mixed reviews on Yelp. Listed on Angie's List for 17 years, the business has probably been around quite a bit longer than that.

Before I ventured deep into Beacon Hill, I assumed the tony neighborhood was just town houses, brownstones, condos, apartment buildings and maybe some social clubs (you KNOW I love social clubs; didn't find any here....). I was happy to see that, like any neighborhood, Beacon Hill has small stores, laundromats and other providers of daily necessities. You'd think with so much money flowing through this area, though, that there wouldn't be any vacant storefronts.

You'd be wrong.

This is 18 Grove Street, which is listed in various places online as a single-family home built in 1899. I'm guessing the entrance on the right goes to residences, and that the one on the left was at some point, if perhaps not anymore, for a business of some sort. After quite a bit of research online, I've come up empty.

This is 35 Myrtle Street, most recently the home of computer repair company Geek Choice, on the ground floor. That space was vacant when I snapped this picture over the summer. Built in 1899, the building sold in 2018 for $7.025 million; it features 7 one-bedroom units and 3 two-bedroom units, per this listing.

OK, I'm gonna shift gears now. As I mentioned in the first post of this series, the North Slope of Beacon Hill was home to a substantial African-American population before, during and after the Civil War. Massachusetts abolished slavery in 1783. Many prominent African-American abolitionists lived on the North Slope and in Boston's West End in the 19th century, including John P. Coburn, Lewis Hayden, David Walker, and Eliza Ann Gardner, per Wikipedia. These folks and others held gatherings in the African Meeting House on Beacon Hill.

(The African Meeting House.)

Built in 1806, the meeting house hosted "giants in the Abolitionist Movement," including William Lloyd Garrison, the white founder of the New England Anti-Slavery Society and publisher of The Liberator newspaper; national leader and former slave Frederick Douglass; and Maria Stewart, a free-born African-American journalist, teacher, abolitionist and women's rights activist. The African Meeting House is part of the Museum of African American History, along with the Abiel Smith School (below), which dates to 1835 and is "the oldest public school still standing in the United States that was built for the sole purpose of educating African American children," per the museum's web site.

(The Abiel Smith School.)

Just a few steps away from the Abiel Smith School is the building below, which I assume is a former stable.

Built in 1850, it is currently condos, of course.

Across Joy Street from the museum I spied this super-cool joint.

The ivy is amazing, if somewhat unwilling to let in the sunshine. There is a name above the door: AETNA. According to Wikipedia, "Aetna was in Greek and Roman mythology a Sicilian nymph." Funny that there's a managed health care company with that name. The Boston assessing department dates the townhouse to 1899, but the numbers 18 and 97 are carved on either side of "AETNA," so I'm going with 1897 as the built date.

The North Slope is home to many sites important to African-American history. The National Park Service operates the Black Heritage Trail, which features stops at sites including the Robert Gould Shaw and 54th Regiment Memorial on Boston Common; the houses of the aforementioned Lewis Hayden and John Coburn; and the Phillips School, among others.

Heading down the slope on Joy Street toward Cambridge Street, I was pleasantly surprised by this beautiful building.

From 1827-29 this was the home of David Walker, "one of the most radical black abolitionists of his time," per the African American Trail Project web site. Walker published “Appeal” as a rallying cry for enslaved resistance, free black community organization, and an immediate end to slavery, per the web site. "Maria Stewart (1803 - 1879).... the first woman in the United States to deliver a public speech on a political subject - resided here after Walker’s death, during the early 1830s," per the web site.

OK, I'm gonna move along to other stuff, starting with the super-cool building below.

Located on the corner of Phillips and Anderson streets, this beautiful building is a mixed residential-commercial site. It was built in 1899 and I can't find out anything more than that.

On the opposite corner sits the former Hotel Anderson.

Built in 1899 as, duh, a hotel, this place is now apartments. I haven't been able to find out any history.

Just across Phillips Street is this lovely trio of buildings.

A few blocks away, at 19 Myrtle Street, I spied a little hidden history under this building's fancy awning.

Not sure if you can see it, but above the #19 reads: BEACON CHAMBERS. When it was built in the late 19th century, Beacon Chambers was a residential hotel, I believe. Until 1980, the building provided subsidized housing to 200-300 elderly men, according to various online accounts. Since a 1982 renovation following a fire, 19 Myrtle Street has been known as Beacon House, which features "85 rent-subsidized and 32 rent-moderated apartments for persons age 55 and over," per the community's web site. Nice that the tradition of helping the less-fortunate has continued, although there was pushback from some well-heeled residents.

Now for some random Beacon Hill porn photos.

As I said in the first post in this short series, I found it easy at just about every turn on Beacon Hill to believe that I was on a movie set, what with the quaint homes, well-preserved alleys and cobblestone paths. It's so easy to forget that you're never more than a few hundred feet from the rest of the bustling city.

I absolutely love all the little doors on Beacon Hill, yet another architectural feature that made me think I was on a Hollywood sound stage.

There a few theories floating around online about the one-time purpose of these diminutive entryways. Some folks claim that people were shorter in the 19th century (this is true; just ask this band) and that these doors into basements were built to fit these folks. The more likely supposition is that these doors were entry points for coal deliveries into residents' basements.

Whatever the reason, these small doors are just another charming element of Beacon Hill.

I also noticed one set of doors that is just a little too small.

Located at the basement level of the aforementioned Abiel Smith School at the Museum of African American History, this little feature seems to be a former coal chute entry that was bricked over and turned into some cute windows.

OK, I'm gonna get a bit random for the rest of this post. Below is the entryway to the former Bowdoin School on Myrtle Street.

Dedicated in May 1848, the school was converted to apartments at some point.

Beacon Hill is filled with so many quirky and quaint architectural touches -- statues and fountains and doorbells and plaques. The detail below is quite lovely, don'tcha think?

Located on a tastefully boarded-up window, this icon appears to depict a woman from Ancient Greece or Rome. Anybody got any better guess than that?

Below is another affordable housing community, Peter Faneuil House, this one set up in the former Faneuil School on Joy Street.

Faneuil is the namesake of Faneuil Hall near Boston City Hall, and was an 18th century merchant, philanthropist and, ahem, slave trader. The school dates to 1910. Below is the entrance to a garden at the back of the complex, which was donated by the Beacon Hill Garden Club. Quite fetching, isn't it?

How about a pair of religious buildings, one no longer offering sermons and the other recently renovated to continue life as a cultural center?

First up is the former Church of St. John the Evangelist on Bowdoin Street.

Beautiful, right? It would look at home in the medieval British countryside. Built in 1831, the church and its slightly younger rectory, which is also being renovated, were sold more than four years ago to a developer, real estate investment firm Ad Meliora. The firm announced plans at the time to convert the church to commercial office space and luxury residences. When I snapped this photo in the summer of 2019 it appeared that work had only recently begun. I'm unsure whether the property was sold again or whether Ad Meliora faced delays.

(The former rectory of the Church of St. John the Evangelist.)

One thing that complicated the project was the existence of a garden at the back of the church where the cremated remains of numerous parishioners -- including some who died of AIDS -- had been spread. Parishioners decided that the best solution in advance of redevelopment would be to "scoop up dirt from various sections in the garden, sometimes by the spoonful, and place the dirt containing ashes in an urn," according to this excellent article.

St. John merged with the Cathedral Church of St. Paul on Tremont Street, which underwent a renovation. "As part of the work, a chapel would be built commemorating the Church of St. John the Evangelist. The chapel was constructed so the urn could be placed in a wooden box, made by St. John’s facilities manager, Jim Woodworth, and that box would be placed in the floor," per the article.

When I took pictures, there was an older gentleman playing guitar, just for himself and whoever happened to be passing by, in the small garden, which faces Temple Street.

If you look closely, you can see construction scaffolding through the window.

(Nice detail on the former church.)

Now on to the Vilna Shul.

Located on Phillips Street, the shul (a Yiddish word meaning "school") dates to 1919, when the cornerstone was laid. Formed in the late 19th century by a group of immigrants from what is now Vilnius, Lithuania, the synagogue was active until 1985, when the last Rosh Hashanah service was held. In 1994, the building was reenergized after being vacant for too long and is now known as the Vilna Shul/Boston's Center for Jewish Culture. When I took the above photo several months ago the shul was undergoing renovations, but was open for select programs. It expects to fully reopen this year. I found it very cool to stumble across what is, per the shul's web site, the last immigrant-era synagogue building that exists in downtown Boston.

The photo below shows small slices of buildings from two different centuries, the kind of view that is common all over Boston.

The building on the left that was covered up for redevelopment when I shot the photo is the former Donahue Building, built by Suffolk University in 1966 at 41 Temple Street. The Donahue structure, which replaced a First Methodist Church, is being converted by a private developer into condos, along with the adjacent Archer Building.

The other buildings in the photo above date to 1899 and are filled with apartments and represent the look of Boston that I love.

Moving on...to a sign that isn't fancy or old like so many other elements of Beacon Hill, but which I love nonetheless.

Since 1971, the High Spot Deli has kept the fat cats from the nearby State House filled with omelettes, sandwiches, quiches, salads and much more. Some day I need to actually stop into places like the High Spot and grab a bite....

I walked past this place a few months later and the sign had changed.

I still like it.

As I said, the deli is just down the street from the Massachusetts State House (below).

This is the backside of the State House, natch, facing Derne Street. While the main, Beacon Street-facing section of the State House dates to 1798, the addition in the photo above was built between 1889 and 1899. It was designed by, ahem, Charles Brigham. He's not a direct ancestor of mine, but I'm sure our branches intersect somewhere on the family tree.

Below are some cool details on a much newer building, the Suffolk County Superior Court, located on Somerset Street.

Left to right, the friezes show two guys holding hands (I'm not sure what this signifies. Brotherhood?), what I believe is a bull, and a ram. Again, no idea what the significance is of those two animals on the circa-1937 courthouse. Anybody know?

To wrap up this installment, I will finish with a Boston institution and a remnant of days gone by.

The Red Hat Cafe at the base of the North Slope, on Bowdoin Street, is one of only four businesses left from the city's old Scollay Square, per the restaurant's Facebook page. I'm not sure what the other three holdovers are from the wild days of burlesque shows and speakeasies in Boston's old West End and the area that is now Government Center. I believe the Sears Crescent (and the famous steaming kettle) is one of them.

The Red Hat has been around since 1907 (albeit in two locations) and yet I've never been there. "The Red Hat is a rare reminder of Boston's yesteryear, bringing an earthy spice to the more refined palate of Beacon Hill -- an unpretentious watering hole to gain some courage for the climb," per the FB page.

Facing Cambridge Street, above the Dunkin', you can see in the photo below a sign for the Red Hat. You will probably also notice the outline of a building that once stood where the donut-slinging shop now stands. A ghost building, at it were (I will kick off the third and final installment of this series with another one of these....). That spectral roof line is evidence of the old West End that was torn down in the interest of "urban renewal" in the '50s and '60s.

For more about Boston's old West End, see January 25, 2014, "Last Building Standing," about the sole survivor from the once-densely packed neighborhood that was bulldozed to make way for low- and middle-income high rises. Those tall, ugly, spread-out buildings make up Charles River Park, and are now home mostly to luxury dwellers.

In the third and final installment in my Beacon Hill series I will take a look at another ghost building, more plaques, cool architectural details, funky buildings, solemn memorials and much more.