In Which I Am an Alley Cat

From Dave Brigham:

Nearly 40 years ago I went on what was essentially the first Backside of American expedition. A senior at New Hampshire's Keene State College, I walked around the downtown one night with two friends, singing, playing music, bantering, emgaging with strangers, checking out the back lots of the town (see October 6, 2019, "Remembering a Foundational Moment").

Since that time, I've had a fascination with the hidden parts of small towns and big cities, the places where the rats and riff-raff go. For quite a few years, I've wanted to explore the public alleys of Boston. Last fall, I did my first proper adventure in the city's Back Bay neighborhood (see February 1, 2025, "Sneakin' Sally Through Boston's Alleys"). Earlier this year, I returned to the Back Bay for another foray.

I started at the eastern end of Public Alley 421, which is off Arlington Street, directly across from the Public Garden. It runs between Marlborough and Beacon streets. As I mentioned in the first alley dispatch, the Back Bay is a fairly posh area. Even the parking spaces are architecturally wonderful.

I crossed Berkeley Street and into Public Alley 420. Where that alley meets Clarendon Street, I was inspired by a steam release.

The exhaust was coming from Hale House, a residential home for senior citizens located in a building named for Edwart Everett Hale, a Boston author, historian and minister. "Hale House was once the home of the historian and writer Henry Adams, grandson of President John Quincy Adams," per the Hale House web site. "In 1896, the Massachusetts Audubon Society was founded by Bostonians Harriet Lawrence Hemenway and her cousin Minna B. Hall, in the parlor of the house."

Continuing along, I was in Public Alley 419 when I spied the rear of 237 Beacon Street. Something about the hand-written house number just looked good to me.

I was also quite taken by the tall, skinny building facing onto Marlborough Street.

In Alley #418, I found a nice little scene asking for neighborly etiquette.

I hear Emily Post was big into the whole No Dumping movement.

I don't traverse back alleys looking for great architecture, although sometimes I do find some. What I tend to look for is little scenes that you wouldn't necessarily expect to find in a neighborhood like the Back Bay.

Obviously there is renovation afoot. But that white "X" on a red background essentially cautions first responders it's not safe to enter. I see that sign all over the place, usually on long-abandoned properties.

Why is there a lawnmower?

In Alley #417, I saw the first of two basketball hoops. This one is pretty sweet.

Great architecture, no. But cool details - yes.

And more etiquette lessons.

OK, great architecture, too.

I love this little building. I believe it was brought into the world in 1919, whereas the main buliding it sits behind rose in 1888. It's a tiny house for the post-World War I generation.

The scene below could be the cover for Urban Slacker Design weekly.

The photo below makes me wonder whether some tenant along this public alley descends the fire escape ladder to illegally dispose of rubbish.

Eventually I crossed Massachusetts Avenue and into Public Alley #908. I'm not sure why the system goes from #414 to #908. I saw another basketball hoop.

And then the back entrance to 531 Beacon Street.

The apartment building features studios, 1- and 2-bedroom units, with rents starting at $2,300 a month.

At this point, the alley makes a sharp curve to the south and toward Marlborough Street. I found the mix of buildings at this point quite pleasant.

I walked east on Marlborough Street for a minute before ducking into Public Alley #905. There, I saw a scene reminiscent of the old-timey days....and of the second photo in this post.

And then an odd little door.

At first I assumed this was another old coal-delivery entry point. But then I realized that this door used to be bigger before it was partially bricked up. I crossed back over Mass. Ave. and into Public Alley #429. I don't remember which alley I was in when I saw the industrial yellow locker featured below. This was the second set of lockers I've seen on my back-alley wanderings.

Whereas the locker was neat and secure, the barrels below look gross and dangerous. Perfect for a back alley!

I continued on through Public Alleys 428-423, enjoying seeing other folks using the alleys, and appreciating the relative peace and quiet. Not much caught my eye until the gorgeous fire escape seen below.

At the entrance to Public Alley #422, I made a photo of the gated entrance to the First Lutheran Church of Boston.

The congregation traces its history to 1839. The building dates to 1959.

My final shot was of a lovely old brick and sandstone home directly across the alley from the church.

Known as the Samuel Hooper House, this Commonwealth Avenue residence rose in 1861, from a design by Arthur Gilman and Gridley J.F. Bryant. "The house itself is one of the most elegant examples of the Second Empire style in Boston, with octagonal bays projecting up into the mansard roof," according to this Society of Architectural Historians write-up.

Gilman "advocated filling in the Back Bay district, urging this plan for years before his views were carried out by the state," according to Wikipedia. "Here Gridley James Fox Bryant was his colleague. Commonwealth Avenue, now one of the finest streets in the world, is due almost entirely to his persistent efforts, along with Frederick Law Olmsted. Gilman designed the H. H. Hunnewell house (1851) in Wellesley (then West Needham) and, with Bryant, the Old City Hall in Boston (1862–65).

That's a wrap on public alleys for now. I will explore more later this year for sure.

Bombing Around a Former Norwood Mill

From Dave Brigham:

How's that for a welcome sign!

The Winsmith Mill Market in Norwood, Mass., is quite a shopping/business/entertainment complex. Spread across 14 buildings, the market has six vintage shops featuring 150 vendors; tenants including photographers, designers, painters, seamstresses and more; and a live music venue/video recording studio called The Fallout Shelter.

(The entrance to The Fallout Shelter is located just beyond the fire escape.)

Winsmith is located in the former Winslow Brothers and Smith Tannery. The buildlings date to the mid-19th century, and were used to manufacture bomber jackets during World War II, according to the market's web site. Perhaps that history is what inspired the mural shown below.

(Mural by Alvin "Acoma," who can be found at AcomaArt.com.)

Acoma also painted the Uncle Sam mural shown above, as well as the one featured below.

Below, a view of the mill from the pond that's on site.

There's no shortage of cool angles from which to shoot the mill and its details.

(Entrance to Remarkable Estate Cleanouts.)

(Entrance for Hanging Horse Studio, which I believe is out of business.)

(I believe I see the word SALVAGE across these windows.)

(One last mural.)

Make sure to check back in the near future for my write-up about downtown Norwood.

Man Walking in Manchester

From That Same Old Guy:

Recently I explored a bit of Manchester, Connecticut, a town about half an hour from where I grew up, but that I knew next to nothing about (see April 30, 2022, "Mr. Paranoid Visits an Old Mill"). Named after Manchester, England, this Connecticut burg is known as Silk City, due to its past as a textile town. That's a good nickname, although perhaps not as good as its like-named city in New Hampshire, which is known as Manchvegas, or even the originator in Jolly Old England, which some call Madchester.

Anyway, in this post, I will feature the main commercial drag, which features a lot of cool old buildings, murals and even a ghost sign, and a few other points of interest.

I'm gonna go from A (ADT) to Z (Zipser).

Located on Purnell Place, just off Main Street, this ADT burglar alarm threw me for a loop. I thought ADT was a newfangled security company, but it turns out the company was founded in 1874, in Baltimore, as American District Telegraph. According to the company's web site, it "pioneered the concept of the Central Monitoring Center, enabling thousands of customers to link to 24/7/365 monitoring and protection," in the period between 1920 and 1940. The company also claims to have been the first to launch an automated burglar system.

As you can see, this old alarm box is at the edge of a work of art. More of it is seen below.

This great mural was done by Ben Keller, who has painted murals all across the Nutmeg State.

Below is a doorway on a side street.

I'm not doing this in an entirely alphabetically honest fashion, for which I apologize. Below is the Dilworth-Cornell-Quey Post 102 of the American Legion.

I hope that good-looking sign lights up at night.

Below is a ghost sign on the side of a John Boyle Decorating Center.

The sign says, in part, "PAUL'S PAINT." Google Maps still shows this business as Paul's Paint & Decorating Center.

Whenever I'm walking along a street with old commercial buildings that go back 100 years or more, I look for entryway ghost signs. I saw just one along Main Street.

Grants was a department store chain founded by William T. Grant in 1906. "In 1906 the first 'W. T. Grant Co. 25 Cent Store' opened in Lynn, Massachusetts," according to Wikipedia. "Modest profit, coupled with a fast turnover of inventory, caused the stores to grow to almost $100 million annual sales by 1936, the same year that William Thomas Grant started the W. T. Grant Foundation. By the time Grant died in 1972 at age 96, his chain of W. T. Grant Stores had grown to almost 1,200."

Four years later, the company went out of business. "W. T. Grant's bankruptcy in 1976 which was the then-second biggest in US history, was in part due to a failure to adapt to changing times but was probably accelerated by management's refusal until it was too late to eliminate the shareholder dividend," Wikipedia continues.

On July 13, 2020, I ran a post about East Boston that features another old Grants store, this one with the name carved into the facade.

Below is the former State Theatre, which opened in 1925.

As I've mentioned before, I often do research on Google Street View before visiting a neighborhood, village, town or city. This is important work, as it allows me to keep to maximize the often limited time that I have to explore. This method, however, also sometimes robs me of the surprise of finding places like the Full Gospel Interdenominational Church on Main Street.

I knew this fantastic sign, using the theater's old marquee, was here, but I was still stunned to see it in person. This just isn't something I come across very often in my travels around New England. "The State Theatre on Main Street in South Manchester was opened in June 1925. It was operated by Warner Bros. in the 1940’s. It was given a make-over in 1941," according to Cinema Treasures. "It was sold to a church group in June 1974 and is now the Full Gospel Interdenominational church, which according to the marquee, is open 24 hours."

The Tinker Building, below, was built in 1911.

This space is currently occupied by Market on Main and Jeicoby Scott Salon.

Below is the side of Urban Lodge Brewing on Purnell Place.

The brewery has a cool outdoor space and an amazing mural on the rear outside wall.

Speaking of cool murals....

This one is down an alley off of Main Street, on the side of Work Space Manchester, a co-working and gallery space.

Lastly, we come to the letter "Z," for the Zipser Club, which is located on Brainard Place.

"The Zipser Germans or Zipsers are a German-speaking (specifically Zipser German-speaking) ethnic group which developed in the Szepes County of Upper Hungary — today mostly Slovakia — as that region was settled by people from central Germany beginning in the 13th century," according to Wikipedia. "Beginning in at least the 18th century, many members of the ethnic group migrated to southern Bukovina, Maramuresch, and Transylvania (today in Romania)."

A Google search for "Zipser Club" turned up only information about this one. Is this the only such social club in the United States that feels kinship with former Slovak President Rudolf Schuster, who is partly Zipser German?

Make sure to check back soon for a post about my second stroll through Silk City.