I Seek Newton, Part XIII: Newtonville (Section 2)

From Dave Brigham:

In the first Newtonville post, I discussed and showed photos of the former Orr Block buildings and the Trio Newton complex that replaced them (see January 28, 2023, "I Seek Newton, Part XIII: Newtonville (Section 1, The Orr Block/Trio Newton)").

In this post, I will cover churches, both current and former; some one-time schools; apartment buildings; open spaces; a Masonic Temple; and much more. There will be one more Newtonville post, which will bring my "I Seek Newton" project to a close, as I will have completed all 13 of Newton's villages. By the way, I hope at least one person out there has caught on to my word play with I Seek Newton.

Divided by the Massachusetts Turnpike and the commuter/Amtrak railbed, Newtonville lost some 19th century houses, commercial buildings and a railroad station over the course of the railroad tracks being lowered, Washington Street being widened, and the pike being carved through into Boston. Still, I found plenty to check out.

I'll start with churches and former churches, because there are a handful of each.

St. John's Episcopal Church, on the corner of Lowell Avenue and Otis Street, was built in 1902 in the Neo Gothic Revival style. Additions in the Tudor Revival style were added later. The parish was established in 1898.

The rear wing is the home of Bowen Cooperative Nursery School, where (shameless plug alert!) I once did a reading of my children's book, A Wicked Good Trip!

On the opposite side of the Newton North High School complex from St. John's is the United Methodist Church of Newton, on Walnut Street.

The church itself was constructed in 1980, but it is attached to a former private residence that dates to 1912, according to MACRIS.

Frederick Perry built the house in 1912. "After World War II this house became part of the new Newton Junior College which was established in 1946 by the school committee and the city of Newton to expand educational opportunities for Newton youth and returning veterans," MACRIS indicates. "The Perry house, then known as Walnut Hall, was enlarged in 1966 by the addition of a modern wing which included classrooms, labs and offices. Walnut Hall, along with Claflin Hall...and several other buildings housed Newton Junior College until 1976 when it closed, due to declining enrollment and changing times. In 1979, Walnut Hall was sold by the city to the United Methodist Church of Newton. Renovations...included the addition of a pitched roof and pre-fabricated steeple to the wing of Walnut Hall to convert it for use as a church. Some of the stained glass windows from the former Newtonville Methodist Church were also included in the renovated building."

Due north on Walnut Street, on the other side of the turnpike, is the Boston Chinese Evangelical Church.

Built in 1895, this Romanesque Revival beauty was designed by Hartwell and Richardson, a well-known architectural firm in and around Boston in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The firm's buildings include the First Spiritual Temple in Boston, which I profiled in February 2020; the former Hyde School in Newton Highlands, which I included in my write-up of that village; and the Youth's Companion Building (aka the Pledge of Allegiance Building), which I featured in my post about Boston's Bay Village neighborhood.

The firm also designed Newtonville's Masonic Temple, which I will discuss below.

Known historically as the Central Congregational Church, this "dressed granite structure marks the prosperity of the congregation and the community as it replaced a wooden building at a cost of more than $100,000," MACRIS indicates. The Boston Chinese Evangelical Church took over this building in 2003. "The Newton Campus began with almost 200 worshippers, with worship services in English and Cantonese, and Sunday School classes for every age group," according to the congregation's web site. "Since 2010, we have added a Mandarin-speaking ministry."

The church also has a campus in Boston's Chinatown neighborhood.

In the above photo, notice the church's four-story square tower and its steeply pitched roof. Now look at the beautiful old residence in the photo below.

Located at the corner of Walnut and Watertown streets, this place features six condominium units, and was built in 1880, according to the Newton assessor's database. In the years since I began gathering information about Newton's villages, at some point I ran across a report relating this house to the Central Congregational Church. For the life of me, I haven't been able to track down that information since actually working on the Newtonville posts. I believe what I read was that the tower on the northern corner of this house inspired the architects (most likely William Richardson, who was a Newtonville resident) when they designed their church.

That's it for religious congregations situated in traditional buildings. There is another group of worshipers, Elevation Chapel, located in a building on Lowell Avenue that dates to 1974 that appears to have started life as an office building. Until recently, there was also a Swedenborgian Church congregation in a traditional church buliding on Highland Avenue. That group in October 2021 entered into an agreement to discuss a sale of the building to the New Art Center, a non-profit community arts organization that has been located nearby for more than 40 years. The center is located in another former church, which I will discuss below.

(The former Swedenborgian Church.)

I really like this Neo Gothic Revival church; it's like a quaint English village church. It was designed by Ralph Adams Cram, a New Hampshire native whose work includes buildings at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point; the Gothic Revival Church of St. George at St. George’s School in Rhode Island; the Gothic transformation of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City; and many more. The firm he founded, Cram and Ferguson, lives on today under that name (after many other iterations in the intervening century).

The Swedenborgian building, constructed of Roxbury conglomerate puddingstone and Indiana limestone (thanks, MACRIS), rose in 1893 alongside a parish house that experts estimate was built in 1888.

(The parish house.)

Cram was commissioned to design the church by the Swedenborgian Society, which had moved from Boston to Newtonville in the 1840s. The building replaced a smaller wooden chapel, which was moved to the rear of the property and may have been incorporated into the parish house or a side wing of the church, according to a document included in the MACRIS profile.

In recent years, the congregation was known as the Church of the Open Word. After signing the agreement with the Church of the Open Word in late 2021, the New Art Center conducted due diligence on the site. On March 7, 2022, the City of Newton appropriated $94,000 from its Community Preservation Act fund to the New Art Center to complete the plans and studies necessary to move forward with the restoration of the former church. I'm not sure of the status of that review, and of the sale of the building.

(Details of the former church, which will require some exterior renovation, as well as significant modifications inside in order to be transformed into an arts space.)

Below is the current New Art Center space, located in what was once the Newtonville Universalist Church on Washington Park, one of the true gem neighborhoods in the city.

Dedicated in 1873, the church was built by the Newtonville Universalist Society, "the outgrowth of a missionary effort in 1870 by members of the former Newton and Watertown Universalist Society (organized in 1827) and the former Watertown Universalist Church," according to a document from the Harvard Divinity School Library. The society and the church dissolved in 1937. Notice in the photo at that link that a steeple once towered over the building. It was lopped off in the intervening years. I'm not sure what use was made of the building between when the Universalists dissolved, and the art center took over.

The next former church is located at 391 Walnut Street, very close to the high school, and, I imagine, has some amazing interiors with really cool views through those big windows.

Completed in 1927 as the Newtonville outpost of the Church of Christ, Scientist, this beautiful Colonial Revival building was converted to condos at some point. "By the early 20s [the Newton congregation] had gathered sufficient funds to engage the firm of Densmore, LeClear & Robinson to plan a new church," according to MACRIS. "Edward Densmore, senior member of the firm, was responsible for a number of Boston buildings including the Salada Tea Company Building (1919) and the Park Square Office Building (1927)."

The final former church on this tour is the old Newtonville Methodist, which has a long history that includes several renovations and a time where there was a restaurant in the main sanctuary.

From our friends at MACRIS: "In 1863 [the Newtonville Methodist congregation] bought a brick church on Walnut Street at the corner of Newtonville Avenue, left unfinished by the Baptists. This so-called 'brick church' was completed in 1868 and substantially rebuilt in 1896. The congregation grew in these years and by 1911 a committee was formed to consider expanding the church. However, no action was taken until 1922 when plans were drawn up by the architectural firm of Woodbury and Stuart. According to the building permit the old building was extended on both sides and in the front. The exterior was refaced vith granite on brick and a five story school building was added at the rear. Dedication for the newly enlarged church was held on December 7, 1924."

In 1980, the Newtonville and Newton Centre Methodist congregations combined, becoming the United Methodist Church, which is profiled above. The Newtonville church building was sold in 1983 for commercial use. The former school rooms were turned into offices, and the sanctuary was converted to a restaurant (!). I know at one point the eatery was a Chinese restaurant, but I don't know if that was the original one. I believe the main sanctuary is now also offices.

A bell, manufactured by H.N. Hooper & Company of Boston, is displayed in front of the old church. I assume it hung in the belfry at some point.

Let's move from former churches to erstwhile schools.

The beautiful old Claflin School, located at the corner of Walnut Street and Washington Park, was built in 1891. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, it was designed in the Richardson Romanesque style. Like the United Methodist Church of Newton, the old school was also used as part of Newton Junior College at some point. It has been condominiums for many years.

That Claflin School was replaced by a newer one of the same name, which is also now residences.

Nestled in the woods above a small park along Lowell Avenue, the school was built in 1952. By 1988 it had been turned into Claflin School Studios, an artist studio/living space.

Down the hill of Lowell Avenue from the studios is Newton North High School, the latest iteration of which was opened in 2010, at a cost of nearly $200 million. That complex replaced one that dated to the 1970s, and which some folks said looked and felt like a prison. Before the '70s-era building was torn down completely, I made a photo of the exposed indoor pool, seen below.

Continuing the theme of "former" places, below is the Newton Senior Center, a Classical Revival building that started life in 1938 as the Newtonville branch library.

Built on the site of the former men-only Newton Club, the library was the largest in the system, due to its proximity to the high school. It was converted for use as a senior center in 1993. Big changes are coming to the building, which will undergo renovation and expansion and become known as the Newton Center for Active Living, or NewCAL. Read all about the project here.

The undisputed heavyweight of the main commercial drag of Newtonville is the Masonic Building.

Another Hartwell and Richardson beauty, the stunning temple was dedicated in 1896 after being commissioned by the Masons, the Dalhousie Lodge, the Gethsemane Commandery and the Newton Royal Arch Chapter, according to MACRIS. At its debut, the building featured retail/office space on the first floor, as is true today. The upper floors contained a public assembly hall, the first Newtonville branch library and the masons' quarters.

The building, which is still an active Masons lodge, is quite imposing, yet has fantastic details.

I would love to get inside. Do you think if I flashed my paternal grandfather's Mason credentials, they'd let me in and teach me the secret handshake?

In addition to all of the current and former churches, one-time schools and the behemoth Masonic Lodge, Newtonville features some really nice old apartment buildings. The one below is located on Highland Avenue, adjacent to the former Swedenborgian Church.

Built in 1892, the Joseph Swallow House was one of the few apartment buildings constructed in Newtonville before 1900, according to MACRIS. Joseph Swallow lived nearby, on Newtonville Avenue, and owned a stable in Boston, MACRIS continues. According to a Historic Newton brochure about Newtonville, this place was operated as Highland Villa, a private residential hotel, at the turn of the 20th century.

Between the Swallow House and Lowell Avenue to the west, there are numerous beautiful old homes in a variety of styles, dating to the late 19th century. Some of them have been renovated and expanded to include multiple units. The house at 50 Highland Avenue, shown below when it was up on jacks, will become another such project.

"The petitioner proposes to demolish a rear portion of the existing dwelling and the detached single car garage, renovate and expand the existing dwelling to accommodate two dwelling units, and construct a new two-unit structure to its rear, resulting in four single family attached dwellings in two structures," according to this City of Newton Planning and Development document from October 2021.

Back across to the eastern side of Walnut Street, we find my favorite Newtonville apartment building, located on Madison Avenue.

This building is my elusive crush. I love the entryway, the landscaping, the front door, the roof details, the interiors. But details are scant about this place. MACRIS hasn't written this place up, nor has the historical society. The assessor's database says this place was built in 1900, but you know how I feel about that date. There are eight units with hardwood floors, and parking in the back. That's all I know. Oh, 100 Madison Avenue - why do you tease me so?!

The final apartment building I want to showcase is on a dead-end off of Central Avenue.

1-6 Walnut Terrace was built in 1887...or 1910, depending on which source you believe. I'm going with the older date. I wish I could find out more about this place, which is tucked behind the Boston Chinese Evangelical Church.

To finish up this installment, I'm going to do something that I've done regularly throughout this series: break a village boundary. I've regularly forgotten things from one village and put it into another one's post - nothing ridiculous, just stuff that was close to the border line. In this case, I have to confess that the three locations below are actually in Nonantum, at least according to Google Maps. Hell, I LIVE in Nonantum if you consult that source, even though my zip code and the real estate report when we bought the house indicate that we live in Newtonville.

Anyway, borders are fungible, and the more important thing is that I cover as much of the city as I can.

So: Avery Woods.

Sandwiched between F.A. Day Middle School and the Albemarle Athletic Fields complex, Avery Woods came into the city's possession in 1959. Wool merchant Charles Avery, a Newton alderman from 1908-1911, bought the land in 1886, according to the Newton Conservators. The Avery family sold approximately 8.6 acres of this property to the City, stipulating that it be used for park and recreation purposes. Eventually, the parties reached an agremeent when Newton wanted to use part of the land to construct the middle school.

The wooded area isn't large, but is nice to explore, something my dog and I do regularly. There have been rumors over the years that a coyote has a den in there. Other sources tell me that one-time Newton resident Louis CK may have toked up in these woods back in the early '80s.

Anyway....

A short distance away, on North Street, is the former Captain Edward Fuller Farm house, which is thought to have been built in 1775.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, this beautifully restored farmhouse was built by Captain Edward Fuller, who served in the Revolutionary War. The Fuller family arrived in Newton in 1644, when it was part of Cambridge. John Fuller (1611-1698) "eventually acquired 1000 acres of farmland and built a house somewhat to the north and east of the present house," per MACRIS. The land was passed down through the generations to Edward Fuller, who built this house on the grave of a previous residence. The home's former barn was converted to a separate residence in 1950.

As you might expect from a member of a family that had been in the area for more than a century, and apparently doing pretty well, Edward Fuller, "like his predecessors, held various positions of authority in the town," per MACRIS. "He is reported as surveyor of highways in 1763, tithingman in 1769, warden in 1776, and other posts. He served on several committees and assisted in the construction of the Waltham Bridge in 1762. He served in the Revolution in New York in 1777."

The Fuller family owned the home until 1886. The City of Newton Atlas Map of 1929 indicates this property was owned at that time by Samuel Thurber. On the map, just northeast of the old Fuller site is New England Creamery Products Company. Across North Street, on the western side, is part of the former Albemarle Golf Course. Opened in the 1890s, the nine-hole course spread across parts of West Newton and Newtonville (aka Nonantum), and owned and leased contiguous properties including land belonging to the Fessenden School, according to this National Register of Historic Places document. Fairways spanned either side of Cheesecake Brook, along what is now Albemarle Road.

The clubhouse was located on Crafts Street, near the intersection with North Street, approximately where the southern end of Fessenden Street is today. In an ad cited in "A Walk Through Time along Cheesecake Brook," published by the Newton Conservators and the Newton History Museum, Some Newtonville Homes, from 1913, touts that the clubhouse is located "five minutes by the electrics from Newtonville Square."

Love that.

There were fairways between Fair Oaks and Nevada Street, as well as between Nevada Street and the Charles River. At the northern end of Albemarle Road, where it intersects with Nevada Street, there is a short footbridge, which I have been led to believe is a remnant from the old course.

I walk or drive past this bridge on a daily basis, and I sure hope it's a leftover from the Albemarle course. During the 1930s, as land values rose in West Newton, Fairway Drive (off Watertown Street) was laid out on land previously used by the golf course, according to the National Register document cited above. By the mid-1940s, the course had closed, the City had acquired the land and Albemarle Park was developed on part of the old site.

To read the history of Albemarle Park, check out this 2005 Albemarle Park Master Plan, which was assembled by Judith Kokesh as part of the requirements for her Certificate in Landscape Design from the Landscape Design Institute of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University.

Say that five times fast.

To see an action shot from the course, check out this photo at Digital Commonwealth.

OK, that wraps up the penultimate post in the series. One more to go!

Here are the previous posts in the series:

September 10, 2022, "I Seek Newton, Part XII: West Newton (Section 3)"

September 3, 2022, "I Seek Newton, Part XII: West Newton (Section 2)"

August 27, 2022, "I Seek Newton, Part XII: West Newton (Section 1: The Barn Redevelopment)"

December 31, 2021, "I Seek Newton, Part XI: Newton Corner (Section 3)"

December 18, 2021, "I Seek Newton, Part XI: Newton Corner (Section 2)"

December 11, 2021, "I Seek Newton, Part XI: Newton Corner (Section 1)"

April 10, 2021, "I Seek Newton, Part X: Newton Centre (Section 3)"

April 3, 2021, "I Seek Newton, Part X: Newton Centre (Section 2)"

March 27, 2021, "I Seek Newton, Part X: Newton Centre (Section 1)"

November 15, 2020, "I Seek Newton, Part IX: Nonantum (Section 3)"

October 29, 2020, "I Seek Newton, Part IX: Nonantum (Section 2)"

September 24, 2020, "I Seek Newton, Part IX: Nonantum (Section 1)"

March 14, 2018, "I Seek Newton, Part VIII: Upper Falls (Section 3)"

March 8, 2018, "I Seek Newton, Part VIII: Upper Falls (Section 2)"

March 1, 2018, "I Seek Newton, Part VIII: Upper Falls (Section 1)"

March 7, 2017, "I Seek Newton, Part VII: Thompsonville"

December 5, 2016, "I Seek Newton, Part VI: Chestnut Hill"

September 26, 2016, "I Seek Newton, Part V: Oak Hill"

June 3, 2016, "I Seek Newton, Part IV: Waban"

March 23, 2016, "I Seek Newton, Part III: Newton Highlands"

September 20, 2015, "I Seek Newton, Part II: Auburndale"

May 21, 2015, "I Seek Newton, Part I: Lower Falls"

I Seek Newton, Part XIII: Newtonville (Section 1, The Orr Block/Trio Newton)

From Dave Brigham:

Welcome to the beginning of the end! Over the past eight years, I have done my best to find every backside element of my adopted hometown of Newton, Massachusetts (see bottom of this post for links to the articles chronicling the other 12 villages of this city). With this post -- the first of three -- I present Newtonville, the village where I live, and wrap up a series that I never thought would take this long for me to complete. Along the way, I have learned a LOT about Newton -- Gregory Steinsieck has established a cool outdoor sculpture garden in Newton Corner; the recreation hut at the Newton Centre playground is a former church; there were once rumors of a silver mine in Thompsonville; and, my favorite, a Cardinal's Coat of Arms carved in stone was years ago dumped in Cold Spring Park.

I have enjoyed receiving feedback from lifelong residents about places I missed, and corrected information about places I profiled; and reading residents' memories of their city and its history, both the places and the people.

With most of my posts in this series, I relied on my favorite resource, the Massachusetts Culural Resources Information System (MACRIS), as well as old maps and brochures available online in order to learn the history of buildings, companies, stores and schools of Newton. I occasionally asked folks in Newton-centric Facebook groups for background information.

In this post, however, I feature photos of several buildings that I made many years ago, before they were torn down, and write about retailers and other small businesses that I knew of first-hand. I will first discuss the assemblage of buildings known as the Orr Block, once located along Walnut and Washington streets. Then, I will talk about what replaced those buildings and businesses.

In the second and third posts, I will cover churches (current and former), apartment buildings, retail and restaurant spaces, industrial spaces and much more.

Perhaps if the Orr Building in Newtonville had been named after The Greatest Hockey Player in the World...Bar None, it wouldn't have been torn down, along with several of its neighbors. Razed a few years ago in the name of progress, this block at the corner of Walnut and Washington streets wasn't anything particularly noteworthy or beautiful, I'll admit. But aesthetically, I will almost always choose old brick buildings over newer ones made of glass and metal and composite materials of one sort or another. The circa-1896 Colonial Revival Orr Building, constructed of buff brick and home to several small businesses, stood for more than 120 years. Many of the adjacent buildings were of the same age and size - one, two or three stories - and were also populated by locally owned shops.

Collectively known as the Orr Block, these buildings "were developed for a variety of commercial uses by Horace W. Orr," according to MACIRS. "...A permit to build two brick stores and a Post Office at 659-61 Washington Street was granted to Mr. Orr in 1916. This building was designed by local architect W. Northrup Tudlay. Presumably the adjacent building at 663 Washington Street was built about the same time. Although the numbering differs today, contemporary Atlases and Directories show that Orr's Plumbing and Heating business, and later Orr's Hardware, was located at that address in 1917."

Mr. Orr was an important guy in Newtonville, evidently. These days, the important guy around the village, as well as other parts of the city, is Robert Korff, founding principal and CEO of Mark Development, which is slated to effect major changes across Newton in coming years (check the first few portfolio listings on the firm's web site to get an idea).

In spring of 2018, the developer began knocking these buildings down, to make way for new four- and five-story buildings featuring apartments, restaurants and retail spots. As you can imagine, opposition to this project was intense. People said the project was out of scale with Newtonville; feared an influx of traffic to the main and side streets; and worred that new students would overwhelm neighborhood schools. I don't know if I ever heard anyone say, "Hey, let's save those beautiful buildings!"

Before the wrecking balls began to swing, I shot a bunch of photos around the Orr Block. While I found some interesting details on several buildings, I didn't come across anything that made me say, "Damn, I'm gonna miss these places."

While I don't miss the buildings, I am sad that some of the businesses that had called them home aren't around anymore. I will discuss that below. I will also showcase photos of the buildings that replaced these old edifices.

The Orr Building was home to numerous ground-floor retailers, one restaurant, and, I assume, small businesses in the second-floor office space. Newtonville Camera, which moved here in 1980 from a spot around the corner on Washington Street, found a new location about a mile and a half away in Waltham. I bought a few things at the Newtonville location, and have continued to occasionally patronize their new location.

Joe's Barber Shop moved a short walk away, to 799 Washington Street.

I don't recall what other businesses were in this building, other than Karoun, an Armenian restaurant that closed its doors after 40 years once developers acquired these buildings.

I went to Karoun twice. The food -- tasty kebabs and rice and many other Armenian and Middle Eastern dishes -- was really good, but this place was equally as well known for its belly dancers. I really felt transported to another time and place when the dancers were performing on the floor in the middle of the restaurant. I wish I'd gone there more often. Here's a taste of the experience:

Here are some shots of the rear of the Orr Building.

Across a driveway and to the north was a newer brick building that was home to Eastern Advertising, "a professional fundraising organization dedicated to law enforcement, firefighters associations, as well as civic organizations," according to its web site.

The organization is now located in Waltham.

Below is a not-so-great shot of a building located behind the old Eastern Advertising.

I have no idea what was here, but MACRIS provides information about earlier uses for this building and others in the complex. "A variety of brick garages and warehouses were located behind these buildings and fronted on Bailey Place. Earlier businesses, such as a blacksmith and carriage maker related to horse drawn transportation, while later ones were automobile oriented. A right of way beside 663 Washington Street lead to 'Orr Mart,' a pair of long narrow connected parking garages for the storage of automobiles."

My memory is a little fuzzy, but I believe that the building next to the Orr Building was home to a tailor shop and a dance apparel store, the latter of which I shopped at a few times for my daughter. According to MACRIS, the other buildings in this area dated to between 1890 and 1916.

There was a side street called Bailey Place that led to a parking lot behind the complex of buildings.

In addition to stores and perhaps offices, there were apartments on the upper floors.

As for The French Tailor, I'm pretty sure he relocated to Newton's Waban neighborhood.

I'm happy to report that Dancer's Image was also able to relocate, not far away on Washington Street.

Do the stores and restaurants that replaced these outfits -- Clover Food Lab, CVS, Mida, Fuji at Newton, The Barn shoe store -- capture the light and provide interesting layers of patina? Perhaps.

Heading west, the next building was home to J. Stevens Salon, which moved to a spot not far away in West Newton.

While at Karoun the focus was on belly dancing, just a few doors down there were ballerinas and danseurs at work, at Boston Ballet School. Again, I'm happy to report that the school relocated to Needham Street in Newton Upper Falls.

(I'm guessing this is one of the buildings where Mr. Orr stored autombiles back in the day.)

The last building to fall under the wrecking ball was a gas/service station, bordering a dead-end street next to the post office, which remains today.

(Before.)

(After.)

The two homes at the end of the dead-end street were torn down in late December/early January. I'm not sure what, if anything, will replace them. You can see one of them in the two photos above.

One last note of interest about the old buildings, before I showcase what replaced them.

Before the old structures had been torn down, the demolition company, or perhaps the developer, indicated, for some reason, where the lobby entrance to one of the new buildings would be. Which provides a segue to Trio Newton, the three apartment/retail/restaurant buildings that were built on the grave of the Orr Block.

As I said, I felt no great loss when these buildings were torn down. "As long as there are a few good restaurants and some decent stores," I said, "I'll be happy." At the corner of Walnut and Washington streets is where the best tenants have landed, in my opinion. Mida, sister restaurant to a well-established eatery in Boston's South End, serves modern takes on Italian food and (I'm told) great pizza. I love their food. Also in this building is The Barn shoe store. In business since 1948, this store moved from its longtime West Newton home, about a mile west on Washington Street, since Mark Development has also leveled several buildings in West Newton Square in advance of another retail/residential development.

Also located in this building is the New Art Center's public gallery, as well as a retail space.

The second building is home to a Clover Food Lab, a "fast" vegetarian restaurant. There are others in the area. There is also an outlet of Chipotle and a Chase Bank.

This photo shows the aforementioned "lobby."

The third building, below, is occupied by a CVS.

Make sure to check back for much more of the backside of Newtonville in the near future.

Here are the previous posts in the series:

September 10, 2022, "I Seek Newton, Part XII: West Newton (Section 3)"

September 3, 2022, "I Seek Newton, Part XII: West Newton (Section 2)"

August 27, 2022, "I Seek Newton, Part XII: West Newton (Section 1: The Barn Redevelopment)"

December 31, 2021, "I Seek Newton, Part XI: Newton Corner (Section 3)"

December 18, 2021, "I Seek Newton, Part XI: Newton Corner (Section 2)"

December 11, 2021, "I Seek Newton, Part XI: Newton Corner (Section 1)"

April 10, 2021, "I Seek Newton, Part X: Newton Centre (Section 3)"

April 3, 2021, "I Seek Newton, Part X: Newton Centre (Section 2)"

March 27, 2021, "I Seek Newton, Part X: Newton Centre (Section 1)"

November 15, 2020, "I Seek Newton, Part IX: Nonantum (Section 3)"

October 29, 2020, "I Seek Newton, Part IX: Nonantum (Section 2)"

September 24, 2020, "I Seek Newton, Part IX: Nonantum (Section 1)"

March 14, 2018, "I Seek Newton, Part VIII: Upper Falls (Section 3)"

March 8, 2018, "I Seek Newton, Part VIII: Upper Falls (Section 2)"

March 1, 2018, "I Seek Newton, Part VIII: Upper Falls (Section 1)"

March 7, 2017, "I Seek Newton, Part VII: Thompsonville"

December 5, 2016, "I Seek Newton, Part VI: Chestnut Hill"

September 26, 2016, "I Seek Newton, Part V: Oak Hill"

June 3, 2016, "I Seek Newton, Part IV: Waban"

March 23, 2016, "I Seek Newton, Part III: Newton Highlands"

September 20, 2015, "I Seek Newton, Part II: Auburndale"

May 21, 2015, "I Seek Newton, Part I: Lower Falls"

Keep the Ladies in the House

From Dave Brigham:

I saw the plaque above and figured it was a historic marker or relic from a time gone by. But, just as with every single thing that Donald Trump has ever said, I was wrong. And what I assumed would be a simple blog post about a historic institution for women turned out to be something much more complicated.

Located on the outskirts of Boston's Kenmore Square, Our Lady's Guild House (OLGH) is a short-term residence in Boston for women, including students, according to its web site. The residence contains 137 single-occupancy rooms, along with a chapel, a lounge, a conference room and two shared kitchens. In operation since 1947, the house is run by the Daughters of Mary of the Immaculate Conception and is open to women of all faiths and national origins.

So far, so good.

In the early 2010's, though, there was a change in the Daughters' leadership, and the group "essentially stopped running OLGH as a charity," according to a September 15, 2021, article from The Boston Sun. "The Daughters hired Boston realtor Marc Roostaie (known as Marc Roos) to run the property. They raised rents, set time limits on the tenancies of residents, and began evicting long-term residents," the Sun article continues. "....[T]he Daughters rented vacant rooms as high-priced Air BNB (sic) units until Boston outlawed the practice....They set an illegal age limit of 50 years old for applicants and used discriminatory language to discourage applicants with disabilities. The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) found probable cause to conclude that these actions discriminated on the basis of age and disability."

Not so good.

In late 2021, seven residents of Our Lady’s Guild House submitted a bid on the 20 Charlesgate West property, according to a December 14, 2021, article from Banker & Tradesman. Greater Boston Legal Services represented the group and asked the attorney general’s office to block any sale that would convert the building into market-rate apartments, attorney Margaret Turner told B&T.

"The charitable purpose of OLGH Inc. is to provide permanent [single-room occupancy] housing for low and moderate-income women," Turner said in the article. "The proposed sale to the highest bidder will undermine this purpose."

A Boston Globe article posted on the web site for the Fenway Community Development Corporation indicates that Fenway CDC and the Planning Office of Urban Affairs, an affordable housing developer affiliated with the Archdiocese of Boston, were interested in purchasing the Guild House and turning it into permanent affordable housing.

I've seen articles indicating that the Daughters agreed to sell the building, but I haven't seen confirmation that a sale went through, nor have I seen anything about who the purchasers might be.

Fenway Bas-relief Carving Honors Female Pioneers

From Dave Brigham:

When I first saw the work of art above, I assumed it was an old mural that had been uncovered during construction in an adjacent building. Located on the side of the Regal Fenway cinema, the bas-relief work is new, and appears to be part of a larger project honoring groundbreaking women in science and medicine.

When I happened by, the theater was under renovation, part of a project to overhaul the adjacent (and historic) Landmark Center and add a new building on the corner of Brookline Avenue and Fullerton Street. The Landmark Center, also known as 401 Park, started life in 1928 as a warehouse and distribution center for Sears, Roebuck & Company. After the retail giant closed the facility in 1988, it sat vacant for years.

See the video below for more on the latest redevelopment.

As part of the redevelopment, an office tower has risen next door, facing Brookline Ave.

OK, let's get back to the art and the subject.

The sculpture in question features Rosalind Franklin, a British chemist "whose x-ray diffraction studies provided crucial clues to the structure of DNA and quantitatively confirmed the Watson-Crick DNA model," per the National Library of Medicine (NLM). Born in London in 1920, she matriculated to Newnham College, one of two women's colleges at Cambridge University.

After receiving her degree in 1941, Franklin spent the next four years working for the British Coal Utilisation Research Association. She "worked to elucidate the micro-structures of various coals and carbons, and explain why some were more permeable by water, gases, or solvents and how heating and carbonization affected permeability," according to the NLM. "In this original work, she found that the pores in coal have fine constrictions at the molecular level, which increase with heating, and vary according to the carbon content of the coal....Franklin was the first to identify and measure these micro-structures, and this fundamental work made it possible to classify coals and predict their performance to a high degree of accuracy. Her work at BCURA yielded a doctoral thesis -- she received her PhD from Cambridge in 1945 -- and five scientific papers."

It is her work related to DNA that made her sculpture-worthy, though. In 1949, she began a three-year fellowship at John T. Randall's Biophysics Unit at King's College London. It was there that she began doing x-ray diffraction studies of DNA. "Meanwhile, at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge, Francis Crick and James Watson were working on a theoretical model of DNA," the NLM continues. "Though not in close communication with Franklin, in January 1953 they gleaned crucial insights about DNA's structure from one of her x-ray diffraction photos shown to them by [a fellow scientist], and from a summary of her unpublished research submitted to the Medical Research Council. Watson and Crick never told Franklin that they had seen her materials, and they did not directly acknowledge their debt to her work when they published their classic announcement in Nature that April. Crick later admitted that Franklin was two steps away from realizing the correct structure in the spring of 1953."

So Franklin got the shaft, earning her the nickname "the dark lady of DNA," according to Wikipedia. Her trailblazing work continued nevertheless. "Working under John Desmond Bernal, Franklin led pioneering work at Birkbeck on the molecular structures of viruses," per Wikipedia. "On the day before she was to unveil the structure of tobacco mosaic virus at an international fair in Brussels, she died of ovarian cancer at the age of 37 in 1958. Her team member Aaron Klug continued her research, winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1982."

Wow. A brilliant life cut short. I had never heard of Rosalind Franklin before making a photo of the artwork above. Now that we've learned about her, let's find out more about the artist who brought her to Boston's attention.

"Portuguese artist Alexandre Farto...has been interacting visually with the urban environment under the name of Vhils since his days as a prolific graffiti writer in the early-to-mid 2000s," per the artist's web site.

His bas-relief carving technique "was first presented to the public at the VSP group exhibition in Lisbon in 2007 and at the Cans Festival in London the following year," per the web site. "This striking form of visual poetry, showcased around the world in both indoor and outdoor settings, has been described as brutal and complex, yet imbued with a simplicity that speaks to the core of human emotions.

"An ongoing reflection on identity, on life in contemporary urban societies and their saturated environments, it explores themes such as the struggle between the aspirations of the individual and the demands of everyday life, or the erosion of cultural uniqueness in the face of the dominant model of globalised development and the increasingly uniform reality it has been imposing around the world," Vhils continues on his web site. "It speaks of effacement but also of resistance, of destruction yet also of beauty in this overwhelming setting, exploring the connections and contrasts, similarities and differences, between global and local realities."

Since 2005, Vhils has exhibited his work in more than 30 countries.

As for the project in the Fenway, Vhils says, per the LinkedIn account of Cox Engineering, which is working on the 401 Park Drive project, "As the building is intended to house leading organizations working in life sciences, the composition of the mural represents a unity between symbols and important historical personalities from this area of knowledge and iconic landmarks associated with the city of Boston.

"The intervention features 3 main figures: Clara Barton, who founded the American Red Cross and fought for women’s civil rights; Rosalind Franklin, the chemist and X-ray crystallographer whose work was essential to unlocking the secrets of DNA, RNA, viruses, coal, and graphite; and Mary Mahoney, the first African-American to study and work as a professionally trained nurse in the United States and who played a foundational role in the fight against racial discrimination in the nursing profession."

I like Vhils' term "intervention." As you can see in the video below, his work is quite intricate and detailed and involves working directly with buildings and other surfaces (doors, walls) to create art.

Vhils mentions two other female science and medicine pioneers. I'm not sure where those components of the project will (or are) located. I'll keep my eyes peeled.