Before dryers

Very flat lot, and probably same for immediately abutting area.
L-shaped, not usual rectangle cookie-cutter triple decker.
I get a vibe of a lot that once had one house, maybe grander, later filled in with "high density" development.

I also wonder about the house

By Rob
Wed, 03/10/2021 - 4:33pm

I also wonder about the house behind to the left, that can be seen just a little bit beyond the roofline. It doesn't quite seem to be at the same right angles as the house and the foreground. I'm wondering if that means it's a house with bay windows, and the bay window is the angle we're seeing.

The Answer

By Boston City Archives
Wed, 03/10/2021 - 4:25pm

Thanks for playing, folks! This photo was taken in 1956 and shows the rear of 101 Lamartine. The back of the photo is labeled "Donovan's Terrace"

Are any of these buildings

By Homer Bedloe
Wed, 03/10/2021 - 5:03pm

Are any of these buildings still standing? Doesn’t look like it.

1931 Roxbury Bromley fits

By Rob
Wed, 03/10/2021 - 5:53pm

1931 Roxbury Bromley fits with the photo.
Current street view... either the two existing houses were substantially renovated (with entirely different roof style on the house in the foreground), or new houses built on the old foundations.

Roof

By Rob O
Wed, 03/10/2021 - 6:05pm

Is this the mansard roof on the right? https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3136353,-71.1065054,3a,75y,349.86h,102.62t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s5xsrviHxTmDd4SUBDhV1-Q!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

Good eye on the roofline, but

By Rob
Wed, 03/10/2021 - 6:57pm

Good eye on the roofline, but I think it's the property on Lamartine Street, not Place.

...the bay windows on the

By Rob
Wed, 03/10/2021 - 7:10pm

...the bay windows on the house in back are where the front steps (and enclosed porches above) are in the old photo. I think so, anyway...

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3196399,-71.1030082,3a,75y,331.7h,88.3t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sTr7iS67t5E4xc8K1fN3zlQ!2e0!5s20160601T000000!7i13312!8i6656

Good find

By Rob O
Thu, 03/11/2021 - 9:12am

Can someone send the GoogleMaps car into the driveway so we can see the entire original house?

Solar powered clothes dryer!

By anon
Wed, 03/10/2021 - 5:48pm

Solar powered clothes dryer!

I wish Mass Save would subsidize clothes lines, instead of just encouraging buying "efficient" dryers. It's not really possible to have an efficient gas or electric dryer, and the Energy Star certification didn't even cover dryers until 2015.

That Green Thing

By cybah
Thu, 03/11/2021 - 12:47am

I really don't understand why clothes lines haven't come back in a two fold. Its the easiest & cheapest thing you can do to save energy and be a bit more green.

Clothes lines = slavery for women

By Island Guy
Thu, 03/11/2021 - 6:40am

If you live in a leafy outer suburb where the air is clear, you or the maid can hang out the laundry. It will smell sweet.

If you don’t have a maid, you can’t work because hanging out and taking in the laundry takes forever. If you are in court for your law firm and it rains, there is no one to bring the laundry in, and you get to wash it all over again. You get to wash it all over again anyway if you have trees. Birds sit above the lines and poop on the laundry. Maybe your husband Trip is a househusband with a trust fund, and he can do it for you.

If you live in the city, your laundry will be bombarded all day by particulate matter from motor vehicles. I lived on Putnam Avenue in Cambridge two blocks off Memorial Drive and everything was filthy all the time.

Wash lines coming back in any significant way is sentimental.

Bullshit

By cybah
Thu, 03/11/2021 - 10:47am

Thank you for your useless comment.

So you're saying my mother and grandmother.. who refused to use a dryer were slaves as woman?

If you knew both of them, you wouldn't say that. But continue to throw stones at people you don't know a single thing about.

Both of them loved clothes that were hung outside. Clean, fresh, and it doesn't burn your clothes (dryers do wear out clothes from the heat).

and then

Wash lines coming back in any significant way is sentimental.

Is the biggest line of BS I've heard since Donald Trump last spoke.

I can't think of any other way to positively help the environment and save energy, that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, and ANYONE can do today.. instantly. Is hang drying your clothes.

Spare me your argument. Sometimes things are not as they seem and contemporary mindsets do not apply.

My Mom had dryer but

By redheadedjen
Fri, 03/12/2021 - 11:54am

My Mom had dryer but preferred to line dry clothes, for some reason. Even in the winter sometimes!

You have some strange ideas

By anon
Thu, 03/11/2021 - 4:31pm

You have some strange ideas about hanging laundry.

For example, in 1980, only half of American households had a dryer. The other half didn't all live in the suburbs and have a maid and trust fund.

The problem is that there's an underlying stigma in the U.S., associating hanging your laundry with poverty. Other countries don't have this hang-up, and you'll see plenty of laundry drying even in big cities in Western Europe.

Each porch of my triple

By Christine Langhoff
Tue, 03/16/2021 - 11:50am

Each porch of my triple decker has clotheslines. We use the Solar Dryer method all the time. You just need to wash when the sun is going to sun, NBD. Quite chilly days leave a pleasant scent.

Solar powered clothes dryer!

By Keiko
Thu, 03/11/2021 - 9:15am

Love it! Didn't even realize that I have been using one for years! In fact I'm planning on using it today for the first time since late fall of 2020!

I'm going to start talking it up and try to get other people to use one! Costs nothing to use. Your clothes and linens are wrinkle-free even If you forget to get them after they dry. And they smel wonderfully fresh and clean!

Highly recommend

It could have been demolished

By anon
Wed, 03/10/2021 - 7:31pm

During so-called urban renewal and the never built I-695 through that area of JP, today the Southwest Corridor.

Missing streets

By RichM
Thu, 03/11/2021 - 10:06am

There are a lot of missing side streets that used to dead end at the tracks.
I remember one guy had 3 Plymouth Superbirds who used to live on the missing section of Lamartine Place.

Donovan Terrace/Place

By Charles Bahne
Wed, 03/10/2021 - 9:27pm

"A Record of the Streets, Alleys, Places, Etc., in the City of Boston ", published by the city in 1910, says that Donovan Place was a dead-end private way leading from 103 Lamartine Street, laid out in 1905. This is consistent with the "Donovan's Terrace" inscription on the back of the photo. Donovan Place is also shown on the 1915 Bromley Atlas, as between 101 Lamartine and 105 Lamartine, leading to a house in the rear that was apparently numbered 103 Lamartine. In 1915 those houses were all owned by Daniel Donovan's heirs.

On the modern Google Maps view we still have 103-103A Lamartine in the rear of 101 Lamartine, but 105 Lamartine is a vacant lot.

But I agree with Rob that the present buildings are either replacements or substantially altered. Among other things, in the 1915 atlas, the house at the rear consisted of 2 wings, a 3-story wing and a 2-story wing grafted onto each other at right angles -- which is consistent with the 1956 photo.

[Rob - do you have a link for the 1931 Bromley? I only have 1899 and 1915. Thanks!]

I looked at it via

By Rob
Thu, 03/11/2021 - 2:15am

I looked at it via mapjunction.
I think it was Roxbury Bromley '31.

Before dryers

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