CultureNOW - Columbus Avenue at Appleton Street: Peter Vanderwarker

Columbus Avenue at Appleton Street

There are no podcasts available.

Description

"The lovely picture at the top is titled ‘Rainy Day, Boston’ and was painted by Childe Hassam in 1885, at the beginning of his long career. The twin perspectives show the intersection of Columbus Avenue (on the left) and Appleton Street, in the South End. At the end of Columbus Avenue is the tower of the Boston and Providence Railroad Station, in Park Square.

Hassam was born in Boston in 1859; by 1884, he had married and moved to an apartment at 282 Columbus Avenue, a few blocks from the location of this painting. Columbus Avenue was built in the 1870s and became a fashionable area for a young artist on the rise. ‘Rainy Day, Boston’ shows Hassam's fascination with the reflections of people and carriages off the glistening asphalt and granite-block pavers.

Painters can eliminate anything they deem ugly from their canvases, and Hassam no doubt cleaned up the old scene. Today’s dull sidewalks don't glisten for the camera in the same way. The clean intersection of Hassam’s painting is marked in the photograph by the familiar, unromantic furniture of a city street: traffic signals, manhole covers, and one-way signs.

The recent photograph shows the complex character of the South End. The townhouses on the left in Hassam’s painting were replaced by Methunion Manor Housing, sponsored by Union United Methodist Church and designed in 1965. The original design called for a series of staggered duplexes, echoing the surrounding blocks, but politics and disagreements delayed the groundbreaking of the building until 1970, and budget cuts resulted in the flat facade we see today. At the center of both views is 380 Columbus Avenue, which remains in excellent shape, thanks to a restoration of the entire block in the 1980s. Although it has lost one of its two bay fronts, the building still retains its tall chimneys and Italianate detailing, and it is an enduring symbol of the vibrant mix of housing and handsome streets that make up the South End today."

-Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker, "CITYSCAPES - Columbus Avenue," Boston Globe, 1997

map not available at this time.

Location

Columbus Avenue & Appleton Street
Boston, MA 02116
United States

Nearby Items

Tent City		799 feet
Step on Board / Harriet Tubman Memorial		893 feet
If My Boundary Stops Here		0.3 miles
Counterpoint		0.3 miles
Neon for Back Bay/South End Station		0.3 miles
Farewell to Steam		0.3 miles
A. Philip Randolph		0.3 miles