From Dave Brigham:
I've seen lots of photos of the very photogenic Cochituate Standpipe on Instagram and elsewhere, and it just looked so cool and I had high hopes to make the most incredible images of the Boston icon when I finally visited. As you'll see, however, my photos are just mid, as the kids say. But I'll tell you what, I'll put my photos of Black Jesus and O'Aces Barber Shop up against anybody else's. That's just one of the beautiful things about this blog: I get average shots of the places that everybody shoots, and cool shots of places that most people ignore.
The standpipe was the main draw for me to the Fort Hill area of Boston's Roxbury neighborhood, a small district located east of Mission Hill. Before and after seeing the landmark, I found so many great things, from a gorgeous mural to a touching tribute to murder victims, beautiful historic homes to a Cadillac junkyard, a storefront church and the former home of a Boston music industry legend. And that's not all. Let's check it out.
I had barely begun my journey when, at the intersection of Centre and Highland streets, I spied a jaw-dropping work of art.
Called "Pa*Lante" ("pa’lante" is a rallying cry of "onward" in Spanish slang), the mural was painted by Rixy, a Latinx artist who grew up nearby. The work "depicts a Latinx woman and her canine sidekick working their way toward the fictional land of Cúcala," according to this Bay State Banner article. "Cúcala is a fictional promised land that represents emotional healing. Rixy’s heroine must combat Latin machismo, generational trauma and other challenges to get to the end goal: a sense of peace, stability and healing. This is the journey that Rixy herself and many other women of color navigate on a daily basis."
It really is quite stunning.
I headed north on Centre Street and was stopped in my tracks at an obviously abandoned home that looked like it had been quite grand in its day.
Built circa 1825, the David Dudley House provides a link back to the earliest days of Colonial Massachusetts. The Dudley family vas one of the first to settle in Roxbury. David's ancestor, Thomas Dudley, served several non-consecutive terms as governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony between 1634 and 1651, per Wikipedia. In addition, he was one of the founders of Newtowne (now Cambridge), provided funds and land for the Roxbury Latin School and is the namesake of the Roxbury neighborhood formerly known as Dudley Square (now Nubian Square).
As for David, he served as president of Trader's National Bank of Boston for 10 years, according to this Historic Boston, Inc. (HBI), article. His father, Lieutenant Thomas Dudley, served in the Revolutionary War. His mother was Abigail Weld Dudley. David's wife, Hannah Davis Dudley, was also a Roxbury native. The couple had 10 children before David died in 1841 at age 54. Hannah died in 1886 at age 94.
"After Hannah’s death in 1886, the Dudley family continued to occupy the house until the house was sold to Bishop John J. Williams, 4th Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese in Boston, in 1897 as the rectory for All Saints Church, which stood next to the house," per the HBI article linked above. "The parish added a third story and a two story columned portico. The house was a rectory until the church closed in 1973 and the historic house taken by the State in 1968 for the Inner Belt Highway."
Ah, the Inner Belt Highway. As I wrote in this April 2023 post about Somerville, the proposed highway involved connecting the Massachusetts Turnpike and the Southeast Expressway "by way of a six-lane, circumferential route running from what is now the Mass. Avenue connector in the South End, through parts of Boston, Brookline, Cambridge and Somerville to Inner Belt Road in Somerville....First proposed in the late 1940s, the auxiliary highway...was finally scotched in the early 1970s, after vociferous opposition by everyone from a handful of city planners with the Boston Redevelopment Agency (now the Boston Planning & Development Agency) and the Cambridge City Council, to the Black United Front and countless residents in each of the affected cities."
In more recent years, the Dudley House was used as a substance-abuse residential rehabilitation center. In February 2020, HBI submitted a proposal to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Division of Capital Asset Management to rehab the house for seven condos. I haven't found out the status of that proposal, or any other project that may save this historic home.
Partway up Centre Street, I hooked a right onto Marcela Street to start heading up toward the standpipe in Highland Park. On the side of a nice brick apartment building, I spied a different type of mural with a message that I initially took to be 100% uplifting.
"Perhaps it's true that things can change in a day."
But after looking at the Spanish-language version, and seeing "En memoria a," which translates to "in memory of," I considered that perhaps the message could be read in a different way. This work was completed by artists who go by Line One and TECK24Horas.
Before heading to Fort Hill, I'd checked out Google Maps, as I often do. When I saw a pin for "Black Jesus Statue" along Highland Street, I knew I had to seek it out.
The statue is located near the entrance to a small park that includes community gardens. This type of space is at a premium in Boston, so I was glad to see it. The park is surrounded by tightly packed houses and is basically the backyard of the Hawthorne Youth & Community Center. It's a great community resource that was made possible when several buildings were torn down. There's quite a history here, so let's unpack some of it.
The buildings were once owned by Holy Trinity Catholic Church, a parish in Boston's South End that was comprised in its early years in the first half of the 19th century largely of German immigrants. The Highland Park/Fort Hill neighborhood had a significant German population in the first half of last century, according to this Fort Hill History blog post. The church operated a "home" where nuns, the clergy and parishioners tended to those down on their luck. "The 'Home' was located in Roxbury in a large building on Highland, Fulda and Ellis Streets," per the above-linked blog post. "Elderly widows and orphans lived here as well. There was also an elementary school attended by about 200 children from the neighborhood. On Sundays, the neighborhood Catholics attended Mass at St Elizabeth’s Chapel at the 'Home'."
In the 1960s, the church phased out these operations, as well as others in the city, according to this history of the church, which includes some photos of this site and others. "At some point...the complex was closed and the buildings were all destroyed, possibly by one of the many fires our neighborhood suffered in the late '70s and early '80s," per the Fort Hill History blog post.
I'm happy that a site like this is thriving. In 2008, Holy Trinity Church was shuttered and eventually was converted to condos. I wrote about that transformation back in late 2019 (see December 31, 2019, "From Holy to Housing").
OK, finally we get to the Cochituate Standpipe, aka the Fort Hill Tower.
Those are the best shots I made. They aren't terrible, but I was hoping they'd be better. Anyway, let's discuss the history.
Located in Highland Park, the standpipe stands on ground once occupied by the Roxbury High Fort, which was built during the Revolutionary War. "The High Fort, or Upper Fort, sat on the highest point in Roxbury, providing the colonists with an optimal vantage of the British army," according to the National Park Service. "According to [Francis S.] Drake, it is believed to have been 'regarded by [George] Washington as the best and most eligibly situated of all the works.'"
The fort was an earthwork fortification, made from dirt and probably other materials, created during the British Siege of Boston.
The standpipe -- which is truly quite majestic and fairy tale-like in appearance -- rose in 1869. Built by the Cochituate Water Company, it was designed by architect Nathaniel Bradlee, who served as the president of the Boston Water Board and designed more than 500 buildings in and around Boston, according to this article.
The Gothic Revival-style standpipe stored water from Lake Cochituate in Natick for use by local residents, according to this Boston Preservation Alliance article. The standpipe was "soon obsolete" and was disconnected from the water system. "Between 1895 and 1916 the firm of Olmsted, Olmsted, and Eliot made improvements to the property, including the addition of an exterior viewing balcony and the reconstruction of the quadrangular shape of the original fort," according to the BPA article.
The tower was neglected and fell into disrepair. In the early 1980s, the City of Boston restored the tower. In 2013, "an extensive restoration effort was undertaken by the City of Boston," according to the BPA. "Russo Barr Associates, architects, and Building Conservation Associates paid special attention to historically appropriate methods and materials. This included the removal of paint and the restoration of period-appropriate mineral coatings, replacement of window glazing, and repairs to the cast iron staircase, metal roof, and arched wood windows."
The end result is magnificent.
I headed east down Fort Avenue and on Highland Street saw some cool old houses. At 143 Highland stands a lovely old brownstone with some great details...and a creepy guardian.
The house dates to 1910.
Across the street is a true stunner, with seven bedrooms and four bathrooms. This beauty dates to 1826!
This place is known as the Benjamin F. Copeland House, which is one of the earliest examples of the Greek Revival style in this area, per MACRIS.
Heading north on Highland Street, I reached a quaint little park, turned around looking west and saw what I first thought was a former bank, which looked quite odd in the middle of a residential neighborhood.
This handsome Greek Revival building is known as the Alvah Kittredge House, named for the developer who built it in 1836. Kittredge and his family lived in the house, which originally was located on the nearby site of the Roxbury Lower Fort, another Revolutionary War-era structure, and moved to its location on Linwood Street in 1896, per MACRIS.
The house is one of a handful of high style Greek Revival period wood frame houses remaining in Boston, according to Historic Boston, Inc.
The house was occupied in later years by the aforementioned architect Nathaniel Bradlee. "The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and designated a Boston Landmark by the Boston Landmarks Commission in 2016," per Wikipedia.
"In the 1970s and 80s, [the house] was home to the African American advancement organization Roxbury Action Program (RAP)," per HBI. "The house was vacant from 1991-2011. HBI purchased the property in 2011 and completed a $3.8 million rehabilitation in 2014. The renewed mansion now holds five two-bedroom residential units including two permanently designated affordable units."
The quaint little patch of green I mentioned above is Alvah Kittredge Park. Parks like these often feature benches named in honor of a deceased loved one, or plaques honoring those who worked diligently to create the oasis, which are the types of things I love to stumble across. Kittredge Park, alas, features something I've never seen before: a memorial to two local kids who were murdered.
"This is a reproduction of the original mural painted in memory of the loss of Charles Copney and Korey Grant, two local boys who were fatally shot while socializing on their front porch," the plaque reads in part. The boys, 11 and 16, respectively, were gunned down in 1991. I remember their murders; I'd moved to Boston in the fall of 1990 and this was a huge story in the local media. Charles and Korey were caught in the middle of a gang battle.
Their murderer, who was only 15 at the time, served five years in the juvenile system. In the wake of their killings, the Massachusetts legislature passed laws that allowed juveniles convicted of first-degree murder to be sentenced to at least 15 years in prison.
Steps away from this loving memorial is Timothy Baptist Church.
The church building dates to 1932 and was originally known as the Trinity Lettish Evangelical Lutheran Church. This was a church formed for the Roxbury community of Latvian immigrants, who began coming to the Boston area around 1890, according to Wikipedia.
The Timothy Baptist congregation was started in 1967. The building has undergone some renovations in recent years. In 2014, a "team of 46 volunteers...traveled from First Baptist Church in Southern Pines, North Carolina to Timothy Baptist Church in Roxbury to assist with renovations to the historic church building," according to this Bay State Banner article.
From there I headed east on Millmont Street. At the end of that street, I found myself exclaiming, "Oh, wow! Look at THAT place!"
Finding buildings like this is why I love to only do minimal research before visiting an area. I get so excited to discover relics like this, born during a much different architectual age, for an entirely different purpose than its current use.
Designed by the aforementioned Nathaniel Bradlee, the Fellowes Athenaeum opened on July 9, 1873, as a library. The athenaeum is named for Caleb Fellowes (not to be confused with the host of "Brian Fellow's Safari Planet"), who, although born in Gloucester, Mass., in 1771, had many ties to Roxbury, according -- once again -- to the Fort Hill History blog. After spending more than two decades abroad, including in India and China, he returned stateside and married Sarah Carver in Philadelphia in 1814. They settled in Roxbury in 1816.
The couple lived in Roxbury until 1836, when, at the age of 65, Fellowes "got the urge to go back to India, and so...he sold his house, packed his bags, and sailed halfway around the world with his wife. Apparently you can’t go home again, because the next year he gave up on India and moved back to the US, but this time to his wife’s hometown of Philadelphia, where he lived until he died at the age of 82."
OK, Dave, that's great history. But what's the story with the library?
Sorry about that. While living in Roxbury, Fellowes had befriended a man named Supply Clapp Thwing (that's a great name for an indie rock band or a replacement game for Rock Paper Scissors), according to the Fort Hill History piece. Fellowes intended to leave a sum of $40,000 (equal to, well, quite a bit more than that in that day) to Thwing, but the latter "talked him out of it and asked him to use it to found the athenaeum instead."
Long story, short: Thwing and a group of Roxbury muckety-mucks invested the funds and made a plan to build the athenaeum. Then, in 1868, the City of Boston annexed Roxbury and Thwing and his compatriots reached an agreement with their new municipal overseers whereby the former would supply funds (including additional money left by Sarah Carver Fellowes to the trust when she died) to buy the land and the building, and the city would would rent the library and pay the trustees insurance and other expenses.
The library was in use until 1978, when Boston opened other branches and shuttered this one. As you can see in the photo of the full building above, the hulking brick building is currently home to the Refuge Church of Christ and is a little rough around the edges.
I wound my way north along Lambert Avenue, admiring a series of new apartment buildings in the near distance. I headed east on Bartlett Street and as I neared the intersection with Washington Street I peeked through a fence to my left and lo and behold....a junkyard!
Junkyards are a dying breed, although I have come across a few in my travels on behalf of this blog, including the only one I documented: Nissenbaum's in Somerville (see April 1, 2023, "Somerville Junkyard Will Be Scrapped").
The junkyard in Roxbury is filled with a very specific pile of old cars: Cadillacs.
Gately Cadillac Restoration has been in business since 1960, selling antique cars and "[r]ust-free Cadillac parts from California, to Arizona to Florida and back to Massachusetts....Over 50,000 Cadillac parts, most of our parts are stored in our warehouse. Gately Cadillac Restoration also sits on a Cadillac junkyard in which we have stripped over 300 Cadillacs over the years."
Here's wishing the folks at Gately another 64 years of success!
Heading south a little ways down Washington Street, I spied a storefront house of worship: the Ethiopian Evangelical Church in Boston.
I continued northeast on Washington Street until I hit Nubian Square. I knew I didn't have enough time to properly tour that area, so I made a few quick photos and headed west toward the northeast corner of the Fort Hill neighborhood. There I saw a former Boys Club of Boston building.
Formally dedicated in June 1915, what was known at the time as the Roxbury Boys' Club and Institute of Industry was considered to be "the best equipped of its kind in the country," according to a Boston Journal article cited by MACRIS. The building is currently occupied by the Social Security Administration.
Heading west on Dudley Street, my eyes popped out of my head when I saw the building housing O'Aces Barber Shop.
Built in 1899, this unique building features "[r]usticated brickwork and a metal cornice and bays," per MACRIS. I just love it.
Right up the street is a Masonic Temple.
This building, which dates to 1895 and looks much different than it did when it was built, has a long history as a social gathering place. It was built in 1895 as the Dudley Association, according to MACRIS, and featured a clubhouse, recreation center, library and dance hall. Subsequently, the building was occupied by the Lettish Workingmen's Society, again underscoring that this area was once home to a significant Latvian population. There was a third floor that was destroyed in a fire in the 1980s, according to MACRIS.
I'm not sure when the Masons took over, nor whether the lodge is still active.
Just a hop, skip and a jump away along Dudley Street is a small brick apartment building where once lived a local music star. Well, make that Starr.
As I walked by, I could see a plaque by the front door, so I checked it out to see what famous Bostonian lived here, or what event happened nearby. I'm used to seeing historic shout-outs to fusty old Colonial dudes, so I was pleasantly surprised to see the name Maurice Starr on this sign.
For those who didn't grow up on pop music of the 1980s and have no idea who he is, Starr was the svengali behind both New Edition and New Kids On the Block. Born Larry Curtis Johnson in Deland, Florida, in 1953, Starr moved to Boston in the early 1970s, according to Wikipedia. There, he was a member of groups including the Johnson Brothers and the Jonzun Crew. After changing his name to Maurice Starr in 1980, he released two solo albums, which sold poorly.
He discovered New Edition at a talent show in 1982. The Roxbury boy band was a massive success through the 1980s, with hits such as "Candy Girl" and "Popcorn Love," both written with Starr. Long story short, Starr stiffed the band big-time and they fired him and later sued him.
In 1986, Starr created another boy band, New Kids On the Block. Whereas New Edition comprised five young black guys, NKOTB, as the new band became known, consited of a quintet of white guys from Boston's Dorchester neighborhood. This band was also incredibly popular, with songs such as "Please Don't Go Girl" and "You Got It (The Right Stuff)."
Starr has worked with other bands in more recent years, none that ever reached the stratosphere that New Edition and NKOTB did.
Across Dudley Street from Starr's former home is the First Church in Roxbury, a beautiful Federal-style meetinghouse at the head of John Eliot Square.
Dedicated in 1804, the building is the fifth house of worship to stand on this site, according to the web site for the UU Urban Ministry, which has called the church home since 1976. "UUUM works as a non-profit social justice organization to dismantle racism and white supremacy culture and push forward racial, social, and economic justice," according to the web site. I highly recommend reading through the history page on the web site, as it discusses important issues around slavery by Colonial-era white parishioners at this church, and efforts to bring that information to light.
The last two buildings on this tour sit on the south side of Dudley Street, across from the church. The first is the Cox Building, which was built in 1870 as housing and commercial space.
"[A]n unusual, curved block combining commercial space and elegant town houses," the building is one of "the most elaborate developments in the district," according to MACRIS.
Across Bartlett Street from the Cox Building is Norfolk House, which was also built in 1870.
"The Norfolk House was opened as a public house in 1827 with a large brick addition for public assemblies (Highland Hall)," according to this Right Here in Roxbury blog post. "It was the first tavern on the road out of Boston for travelers heading south and west. The original frame building was demolished in 1853 and was replaced with a more substantial brick structure with many amenities including a bowling alley. The Norfolk House Company also ran public coaches; the business increased so rapidly that at one time 252 trips were made daily from Roxbury to Boston, equal to 1500 miles a day or 450,000 miles a year. The coaches ran from Old South Church to Norfolk House."
The building is currently home to missionSAFE, an organization that works with at-risk youth and their families; and an outlet of Rosie's Place, a shelter for women and children located in the South End.
