CultureNOW - Summer Street at Washington Street: Peter Vanderwarker

Summer Street at Washington Street

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Description

ABOUT THE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS
In both these photographs, we're looking up Summer Street toward its intersection with Washington, at what used to be known in real estate circles as the "One Hundred Percent Comer" of Boston, because of the sure success of stores there. Here were clustered most of the department stores of the city - Jordan Marsh and Filene's (still there), and R. H. White's, Kennedy's, and Gilchrist's (all gone).

The old photo looks as if it dates from about 1930. It shows a lushly detailed row of commercial buildings along Summer Street. They're bulky structures, but they're made to look friendly by the clutter of windows, doors, and awnings along the sidewalk.

The new photo, made in 1986, is dominated by the extraordinary Erector Set wall of dark steel scaffolding that is temporarily supporting - in what is otherwise thin air - the top three floors of the brick facade of the former Kennedy's store. The Kennedy building (visible in the old photo), a brick Victorian built in 1874, was the object of a fierce battle several years ago when preservation groups challenged a developer who proposed to demolish it. The Solomon-like outcome of that battle is what we see in the new photo.

Most of Kennedy's has been removed, but the upper floors of its front remain while a new building goes in behind. On the right of Kennedy's is 40-46 Summer, a rare cast-iron-front building, one of only two still intact in the central business district. Built in 1874, it replaced, as did Kennedy's, an earlier building destroyed by the Great Fire of 1872. The Boston Landmarks Commission has recommended it for designation as a city landmark. And on Kennedy's left, at the comer of Washington Street, is the familiar, curving shape of Filene's store, the last work of the great Chicago architect Daniel Burnham. Built in 1911, it has an olive-and-gray terra-cotta facade that is much more subdued than those of its earlier Victorian neighbors.

Filene's originally was a social and economic experiment, a profit-sharing, employee-owned cooperative; when the store opened it boasted a rooftop recreation field, an assembly hall, a library, and a hospital. It has been recommended for citation as a Boston Landmark and also for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places.

-Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker, "CITYSCAPES - Look What's in store ", Boston Globe,11 May 1986

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Location

Summer St & Washington St
Boston, MA 02108
United States

Nearby Items

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Orpheum Theatre		515 feet
Washington Street at Bromfield Street		545 feet
Bromfield Street		703 feet
Benedictions		820 feet
Summer Street (Great Fire)		824 feet
45 Province Street		848 feet