CultureNOW - High Street: Peter Vanderwarker

High Street

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ABOUT THE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS
The more you wander Boston with your eyes open, the more you discover remarkable buildings. One of them is the centerpiece of these two views. It's the Chadwick Lead Works on High Street downtown, right across from the marble-slathered lobby of the ickily pompous International Place office tower.

The Chadwick is the building with the four big arches near the top. It was built in 1887 as -- of all things -- a factory for manufacturing lead bullets. Notice the tower that sticks up near the back of the building. The bullets were balls in those days, molded from hot lead and dropped the full height of the tower into a pool of water to shape, cool, and harden them. Other kinds of metalwork were made there, too.

The Chadwick boasts a superb façade. Out of ordinary red brick, with just a few accents in stone or terra cotta, the architects and masons sculpted an amazingly rich and expressive surface. Not so handsome, but equally rich in detail, is the building to the left of the Chadwick in the photos, done by architect George Young in 1875 -- soon after the Great Boston Fire of 1872 leveled this part of town.

The Chadwick's architect was the amazing William Preston, who was happy to design you a building in any fashionable style you liked. He also did the Vendome at Dartmouth Street and Commonwealth Avenue, the First Corps of Cadets Armory in Park Square (now the Smith & Wollensky steakhouse), the Claflin Building at 20 Beacon Street (originally Boston University's School for Religious Education and Social Service), and Louis Boston clothing store at Berkeley and Newbury streets (originally Boston's Museum of Natural History). All are gems, and none looks the least bit like any of the others.

The new photo shows the Chadwick's side of the street almost unchanged after 71 years. We're at the heart of today's office world, and, at street level, High Street is now practically a food court. It's lined with such eating and drinking places as the High Street Cafe, the International, Ottimo, Highbar, Just Lunch, and O! Deli.

Visible at right is a corner of International Place, designed by 20th-century architect Philip Johnson. Johnson worked in as many styles as Preston but produced fewer gems. His postmodern arched window at the second floor is a thin, stagy reminiscence of the Italian Renaissance. It lacks the craft and confidence that seemed to come so easily to the Victorians.

-Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker, "CITYSCAPES - High Street", Boston Globe, 11 September 2005

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Location

High Street & Oliver Street
Boston, MA 02110
United States

Nearby Items

Oliver Street at High Street		11 feet
State Street Bank Building (225 Franklin Street)		327 feet
Two International Place		611 feet
Langham Hotel / Former Federal Reserve Bank		628 feet
Post Office Square		716 feet
Central Artery at High Street		827 feet
Trellis Dance		950 feet