Hey, there! Log in / Register
The lads meant no harm
By adamg on Mon, 05/16/2016 - 11:48am
The folks at the Boston City Archives wonder if you can place this photo. See it larger.
Neighborhoods:
Topics:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Dorchester Historical Society
Dorchester Historical Society Building? 195 Boston Street? wow if so it was in rough shape.
not quite
That popped into my head too. But the chimneys on that building are more distinctive.
William Clapp House
Yes, the William Clapp House has four chimneys, one on each corner of the house. Also, the entry to the Clapp house is completely different - there's a whole little porch with a roof, which was built in 1870, not the simple triangular pediment that's in this photo.
The Lemuel Clap House, also part of the DHS properties, has a more similar entrance, but the roof and chimneys are completely different.
Pierce House in Dorchester?
Pierce House in Dorchester?
We know what it's not
We know what it's not
Dorchester Historical Society or the Pierce House
This is a 1700's house.
Pierce House is mid-1600's and not as elegant as this one.
Hey, you kids...
.get off my l... Wait a minute! Where is my lawn?!?
Wild Guess
Curley's house before the renovations - you know - those ones apparently paid for by the guys that got all kinds of city contracts, including the shamrock "encrusted" shutters.
Loring Greenough House
Circa 1926?
Jabez Lewis-Dawson House
Pretty sure that's the Jabez Lewis-Dawson House that now sits on the Arnold Arboretum land on Centre Street.
http://www.arboretum.harvard.edu/jabez-lewis-house/
Modern Day: https://goo.gl/maps/b6hpdU1CWDR2
Can't be
That house has a gable roof. This house has a hip roof.
65 Pleasant Street, Dorchester
Founder of the Animal Rescue League - Boston; Ms. Anna Harris Smith's house?
65 Pleasant St Dorchester!
It's located at 65 Pleasant St Dorchester!. Anna Harris Smith house, founder of Animal Rescue League.
close
but no cigar
65 Pleasant is much smaller. They should really update the side picture. Stacy is doing a great job rehabbing the building.
It isn't.
Look at that house at 65 Pleasant Dorchester from the Whitby Terrace side. The main body of the house is only two windows long. Half as long as this house.
A hint?
Looks like there was a fire at that house which is probably why everyone is standing around - one window appears to be partly boarded up and there is a scorch mark by the lower right window on the side of the house - not the back one - the one just in front of that.
This looks remarkably similar to the Anna Harris Smith house - though some have said that this is a bigger home. Perhaps part of the house demolished due to a fire? Restorations also note that they completely rebuilt part of the original (17th c.?) foundation.
Love the ARL! We got our nebelung there (very cool cats):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebelung
Nebelung
Wow, beautiful. That's a helluva cat to go astray.
Kinda lucky
He was a bit scrawny and scraggly when we got him. They told us he was full.grown about 3 years old. 9 months later he was 2 inches taller, 2 lbs heavier and grew that magnificent coat. Found out that happens when they are about 2 years old and now he looks like those photos. Will never know if he's really a nebelung but i think so. Super sweet cat too which is why we got him Very social.
Similar story here
Also via ARL. They do good work -- Anna Harris Smith would be proud.
The Answer
Thanks for playing folks! This is 1027 Washington Street in Dorchester, on January 10, 1917. We're not sure who the children in the photo are, but the photo was taken by the city's Public Works Department
For real??
Just looked at it on Google and it makes sense but ugh...so under that vinyl siding and horrible windows and horrible doors and cropped off or removed chimneys...is that house? Kind of sad.
I think
The fact that so few houses of this vintage remain is what makes them so precious.
In other words: no, that's not the house. That's one of the things they built when they tore the house in the photo down.
No--I think it's the same house!
Really--look at the proportions, including the side depth. It's the same building--it's just been altered beyond recognition, including siding over that center window, replacing the front door with double doors, etc. It's just shocking how something so beautiful can be made so ugly with just a few changes.
Exaggeration?
Other than the entrance portico, I'd say it's a stretch to call this house "something so beautiful". I see a box with windows. The equivalent in its day of the sort of recent architecture UHubbers often deride here.
Ok, so I may have an extra fondness
for this kind of very plain architecture but I still say it was a very handsome house. Just comparing the windows, the door, the general proportions and symmetry with what was done to it...the effect is very different.
agree, same house
If you look at the Google earth aerial you can see it even still has that funky back right ell angle
I don't think so
The house in the photo had a hipped roof.
Also, the window spacing is different.
So the theory is that the original house is there underneath, except that they tore everything above the second floor windows off, built a gable roof, then came back and moved the windows around?
I think they tore down the original house and built a new one on the same foundation.
Same foundation?
My parents lived in a house that was moved from another location around 1905. The foundation dated to the 1850s.
This was done more frequently than you might think.
Pretty sure it's the same
Look at the side of the house. In Google Streertview, It's got the same 2,2,1 window layout of the original picture above. That's an odd configuration to randomly reproduce.
House built in 1899
Public records have that house built in 1899. Also a good photo here. Window placement, elevation looks consistent with 1917 pic. Now a duplex.
homefacts
(Hope I'm inserting this link properly...)
I'm convinced
Pictures show a hipped roof on the right side of the front, and a gable on the left.
1027 Washington Street
These 5 bay colonial homes (often looking square as the 5 bay layout was sometimes carried around the front and both sides , and sometimes as an ell with only front and one side showing the 5 window symmetry)were a staple of New England streetscapes. It is sad that so many have disappeared, but there are a few other local ones that are very visible, my own at 770 Washington Street(a modified ell) and 168 River Street(a handsome square), 34 Adams Street are a few examples. Most have been carved up into multi-family homes.