CultureNOW - Combat Zone at Washington Street: Peter Vanderwarker

Combat Zone at Washington Street

There are no podcasts available.

Description

ABOUT THE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS
Potentially beautiful parts of a city can become nearly unrecognizable beneath decaying layers of inappropriate uses and incongruous signage. Nowhere in Boston is this more true than in the Combat Zone, a small area that retains a sense of the ornate scale of a Victorian downtown and boasts one of the best collections of buildings, architecturally, in Boston. Four of the Combat Zone's buildings have been declared official landmarks by the city. A fifth, expected to be added to the list shortly, is the Liberty Tree Building.

It is the subject of these two photographs, taken in 1961 and 1985. The Liberty Tree Building takes its name from a famous elm tree that stood on the site, at Essex and Washington streets, in Revolutionary times. A commercial building of 1850, it is a lovely but hideously deteriorated work, designed in brick and stone by an unknown architect, in a style that falls between Greek Revival and Italianate. A unique feature is a five-by eight- foot carving of the Liberty Tree, made by ship carvers and set into the second-floor facade. Around and beneath the tree are carved the following words: "Liberty 1776ILaw and Order/Sons of Liberty 1766IIndependence of Their Country 1776."

The photos are a record of great changes in the lower Washington Street area over the past 25 years. Strip clubs and prostitution drifted here in the 1960s from Scollay Square, which was then being , redeveloped as Government Center. The Combat Zone, as the area become known, was accepted by the city as a fact of life. In 1974, it was declared an "adult entertainment zone" in a successful effort to contain Boston's X-rated activities within this small area. The results can be read in the photos: A cafeteria has become a strip club, a pawnshop has become a peepshow arcade, a deli has become another peep show.

And above the ground floor, a fire has destroyed the building's interior. The 1985 photo shows the Combat Zone at what will probably prove to be its economic nadir. Today, the zone is pressured by expanding development on all sides - by an active Chinese community, by an expanding medical area, and by the new Lafayette Place hotel-retail complex. The area is becoming hot real estate, a fact that threatens the existence of its historic buildings while offering hope for having them restored. Not long ago, a fire nearly destroyed the Hayden Building, another Boston landmark. Designed by H. H. Richardson, it is just down the street from the Liberty Tree .

-Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker, "CITYSCAPES - Xmarks the spot", Boston Globe, 14 April 1985

map not available at this time.

Location

Washington St & Kneeland St
Boston, MA 02111
United States

Nearby Items

Hostelling International		103 feet
Tufts University, School of Dental Medicine, Vertical Expansion		159 feet
Hayden Building		338 feet
Market Still Life		724 feet
FAO Schwartz Bear		804 feet
South Cove Community Health Center Tobacco Control Mural Health Project		804 feet
Caravan		819 feet