Postcards from Boston #5 - Engine Company 33

Located at 941 and 951 Boylston St. in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood, two adjoining Richardsonian Romanesque buildings were originally constructed to house the local police and fire stations.  It was the first combination police and fire station in the city of Boston.   Designated landmarks by the City of Boston, the eastern building still functions as a fire house, but the western building has been extensively altered on the interior and repurposed twice since the mid-1970s.

City Architect Arthur H. Vinal designed the buildings in 1886 in the then popular style based on the work of Boston’s most celebrated architect, H. H. Richardson.  Vinal was a prolific architect who designed many buildings in the Richardsonian Romanesque style.  

Chestnut Hill Pumping Station (Photo courtesy of HAER)

His most celebrated design is the Chestnut Hill Pumping Station on Beacon Street in the Allston/Brighton neighborhood, completed in 1888.  The Pumping Station is even more of a direct homage to Richardson, reminding one of the series of libraries Richardson designed late in his career.

Police District 16 occupied the larger four story building at 951 which was noted as “the handsomest station house in America” in 1888, a year after its completion.   By the early 1900s, the police needed additional space and a small building at 955 Boylston was constructed in the Classical Revival style.  (It now houses Dillon’s Restaurant, named for a police captain who served here from 1920 until 1950).  Both buildings continued to serve their original function until 1975, when District 16 was consolidated with another nearby police district.  At that time, the four story building was completely gutted and renovated by Graham Gund Architects for use by the Institute of Contemporary Art.  Galleries and other spaces were created around a centralized staircase.  The Institute moved to larger quarters in 2007, and the building was acquired by the Boston Architectural College, which has its main building immediately to the north facing Newbury Street.  The College spent $14 million to purchase and renovate the building, which opened in 2012.  It was the first building added to its campus in 50 years.  The Newbury and Boylston buildings are connected by way of a green alley sustainability project.

The eastern building has always functioned as home to Engine Company 33 and Ladder Company 15.  It is connected to the police station by a central bay with a large opening that led to shared stable yards behind the buildings.  

Two huge arched openings on the fire station accommodated the equipment including the first ladder truck in Boston to be equipped with a three-horse hitch, and the first turntable aerial truck.  Plaques at the entrances memorialize four Boston firefighters killed in the line of duty who served out of the building:  Cornelius J. Noonan (d. 1938), Richard F. Concannon (d. 1961), Richard B. Magee (d. 1972), and Stephen F. Minehan (d. 1994). 

A tall turret at the northeast corner of the building was designed so that the heavy canvas hoses could be hung to dry.  

Classic Richardsonian Romanesque features of the buildings include numerous arches over doors and windows, carved foliate decoration, heavy rusticated stone, and clusters of engaged columns between windows.  

Fire alarm box on Boylston Street;

side of building visible at far right

Postcards from Boston #1 - First Spiritual Temple

During the first week of August 2017, nearly two dozen docents, staff, and supporters of Glessner House Museum journeyed to Boston, Massachusetts to explore the work of H. H. Richardson and his contemporaries.  Over the next few months, we will be bringing our readers a series of "postcards" from Boston highlighting some of the buildings we saw - some well known, some less so.  

We begin our series with the First Spiritual Temple located at 26 Exeter Street.  

The building was designed by the architectural firm of Hartwell & Richardson in 1884 and was completed the following year.  Hartwell & Richardson was a Boston-based architectural firm founded in 1881 by Henry Walker Hartwell and William Cummings Richardson (no relation to H. H. Richardson).  The firm was prolific through the late 19th century, designing numerous churches and municipal buildings in its early years, and many residences later on.  Their most significant commission is generally regarded to be Osgood Hill, the Moses T. Stevens estate in North Andover, Maryland, completed in 1886.  

Osgood Hill and First Spiritual Temple both owe much to H. H. Richardson, and demonstrate the enormous impact he had on other architects of the period.

The First Spiritual Temple, a classic example of the Richardsonian Romanesque style, was the first house of worship built in the United States for the Spiritualists, who popularized the idea that the living could commune with the dead.  The movement originated in New York and gained popularity in the mid- to late-19th century and included the use of mediums, seances, the Ouija board, and other ways of connecting with the dearly departed.  The popularity of Spiritualism declined in the early 20th century and for seventy years the Temple operated as the 900-seat Exeter Street Theater.  After years housing various commercial enterprises, it was converted into the Kingsley Montessori School, which currently occupies the structure.

Classic features of the building which show the influence of Richardson include the rusticated stone in two contrasting colors, the tall dormers rising up from the wall surface below, clustered columns around window groupings, polychromatic stone work in checkerboard and leaf patterns on the front facade, and of course, the extensive use of the arch.  

Looking at the building as a whole, it is composed of a simple large box richly ornamented to give it an imposing presence on its corner site.  

The name "First Spiritual Temple" is set into the stone above the entry arch, amidst richly carved foliate decoration.  Immediately below, two medallions depict the words Religion and Science atop a globe sitting over a cross, and a triangular arrangement of the words Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity with a downward flying bird at the top point, and six-pointed stars at the lower points.  (Another six-pointed star sits over the side entrance on Newbury Street).  

Above the Temple name to either side, ghostly faces are carved into the stone, another indication of the original purpose of the building.

Today, passers-by continue to note the impressive architecture, but few are aware of the other-worldly movement that led to its construction in the 1880s.