Tag Archives: urban planning

March 13, 2013

Preservation and Post Offices

By daseger

The fundamental challenges facing the U.S. Postal Service as an agency are beginning to trickle down to our local post office buildings, creating ripple-effect challenges for preservationists across the country. The New York Times ran an article last week highlighting the issue (with great comments), and the National Trust for Historic Preservation placed “Historic Post Office Buildings” on its Most Endangered List last year. Apparently the agency has identified nearly 3,700 buildings as likely candidates for closure, about 200 are soon to go on sale, and eleven are on the market right now. There are several concerns from the preservation perspective:  not only do these buildings serve as community centers, but that they are often the most architecturally significant structure in many towns. And like so many federal buildings, many post offices are also surviving legacies of the New Deal policies designed to put Americans back to work during the Depression. The adaptive reuse of these buildings is the logical answer, but that is always a tricky business, and even if the exteriors of those buildings with landmark status are preserved historic interiors remain threatened:  murals, marble, and metals could be ripped out and sold to the highest bidder.

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Berkeley PO Jim Wilson NY Times

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Three photographs of the 1915 Renaissance Revival Berkeley, California Post Office, on the short list for closure:  interior murals of by Suzanne Scheuer, exterior, and protester Josh Kornbluth in character as Benjamin Franklin, the first Postmaster General. Jim Wilson/New York Times.

I checked out several of the post offices that are on the market now (on this great blog) and was immediately drawn to two in particular:  another Renaissance Revival building in Gulfport, Mississippi and the beautiful Greek Revival post office in the Georgetown section of Washington, DC.  The DC building has been sold to a developer who is apparently going to adapt it for office space while retaining the post office on the first floor; this deal seems to have been years in the making and illustrates just how difficult the redevelopment process can be.

Gulfport PO

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Georgetown post office by Young

The Gulfport, Mississippi Post Office today and shortly after its construction in 1910,  postcard courtesy of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History; the Georgetown Post Office, built in 1858, and a 1856 rendering by architect Ammi B. Young, Library of Congress.

I must admit that I have never really appreciated Salem’s Post Office, which I walk by nearly every day with little more than a passing glance. It is a classic WPA project, designed by local architect Philip Horton Smith and constructed in 1932-33 in the Colonial Revival style.  It definitely has presence, but I always thought it was a bit boring, until I recently started noticing the details, inside and out:  there certainly is a lot of marble and bronze in there, and the tables and radiator grates–even the mailboxes–are really lovely, as I now can see. To emphasize its centrality–as well as its connection to the outside world–this building was sited right across from Salem’s grand and gothic railroad station, whose destruction in 1954 is lamented to this day.

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Post Office PC 1940s

Post Office Interior

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The Salem Post Office today and in the 1940s, downstairs interior and mailboxes, the former Post Office in Salem, adapted for reuse as shops in the 1930s and still serving in that capacity.

9 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Current Events, Salem

February 22, 2013

Double Houses

By daseger

Our house is part of a double house, in which a central party wall divides two autonomous units, a not-uncommon configuration in historic urban areas, large and small.  Though, as you will see in my pictures below, double houses are not exclusively urban constructions. I love living in our half of the double house, primarily because we have great neighbors, but also because there are no restrictions on privacy and lots of economic benefits which derive from the common wall:  I am certain that the heating bills for my very large house would be a lot higher without it!  Our particular property has very private spaces out back as well, as the previous owners of my house (several previous owners ago) extended an addition to my neighbors’ barn, creating separate courtyard gardens on each side. While our houses started out as mirror images of each other, many changes have been made over the nearly 2 centuries of the building’s existence, mostly to my side. Even though they are semi-detached (to use the British term), we could even paint our houses different colors if we wanted to (but we don’t).

It seems that every double house has its own story:  many were built by and for family members, but not all.  Here in Salem, there are several instances of fathers constructing double houses for their marrying daughters (in one case, daughters who are marrying brothers!). There are also business partnerships behind the construction of double houses.  Here on Chestnut Street and in the surrounding McIntire Historic District, I think builders were running out of land on which to build, and double-house construction offered an economic way to build two houses in a fashionable neighborhood.  I know that’s the story with our house, which was built by the distiller-developer Deacon John Stone who lived across the street:  he bought the lot as an investment, and constructed our house as an investment property, to be let out on both sides.  Quite soon after its erection, both sides of the house were sold to different families, and then its separate-but-connected history began. Some double houses were converted from single houses; some single houses were extended to become double houses.

My favorite double house (besides my own, of course) is not in an urban setting or even in Salem:  it is in Byfield, Massachusetts, on a rural country road.  I don’t know anything about its construction, but the fact it is built in the midst of isolated farm/marshland leads me to believe there was a family connection; I can’t imagine strangers living side by side but maybe its dwellers were looking for close comfort.  On the day before the big snowstorm a couple of weeks ago, I was up in that part of Essex County, so I took some pictures of the Byfield house and some other double houses in nearby Newburyport, Newbury and Essex.

Double House Newbury

Double House Newburyport

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Double House Historic New England

Double House Blue Anchor Tavern Newbury MA HABS 1940 bw

Double House Ipswich

Double House on the Marsh, Byfield, Massachusetts, the former Newburyport Academy on High Street in Newburyport, converted into a double house in 1842; the Swett-Ilsley House (Historic New England), which began its life as a single house in 1670 and then was extended (HABS photograph from 1940, Library of Congress); a double house in Ipswich.

Double houses in Salem are for the most part more straightforward constructions, but as is the case with our house, changes to the exterior on one side or another over time distort the mirror image, but usually in a relatively graceful way. There are lots of added bay windows and rear and side additions. I’ve don’t have any interior images today, but the comparative interiors of a double house often provide an interesting lesson in architectural history; generally one side is a bit more pristine and the other a bit more “modern”. There are lots of double houses in Salem, in every area of the downtown, so I chose a chronological sampling of those in my immediate neighborhood, and I’m picturing them in chronological order, starting with the Pickering-Mack-Stone double house on Chestnut Street, which was built in 1814-15 for two Pickering brothers. The western (right-hand) half of this house is currently for sale: it has absolutely beautiful “bones”, a Federal carriage house out back, and, according to Bryant Tolles’ Architecture in Salem, Andrew Jackson was entertained there in 1833 on a presidential visit to Salem.

Double Houses Salem 1807

Double House Cousins 1890s NYPL

Frank Cousins photograph of Chestnut Street in the 1890s, New York Public Library.

Next are two great Greek Revival double houses, the Thompson-West double house, built in 1845-46 on Chestnut Street (note the entrance bay window added to the left-hand side later in the nineteenth century), and the Nancy Courtis double house, built in the following year on Federal Street. Miss Courtis was a “singlewoman” who built the house and lived on one side her entire life while leasing out the other, no doubt a convenient arrangement for her. It’s a striking house, made all the more so because of its paint scheme.

Double Houses Salem 1840s

Double House Salem 1846-47

And last but certainly not least, two Victorian double houses in the same general area.  I’m really not sure about the date of this first house, which is further along Federal Street from the Courtis house:  it looks like it was built in the 1850s or 1860s to me, but I could be wrong. I wanted to include it because of its doorways, which are not located adjacent to each other but at opposite ends of the building.  This seems a bit unusual to me, especially for a town house.  Both sides of the house have their addition wings off the side,and matching dormer windows as well. The paint color (a very dark purple with salmon-orange doors) makes this house really stand out on the street. The last house, on Hamilton Street, was built in 1890 for the Reverend James Potter Franks, long-time rector at Grace Episcopal Church around the corner, and his daughters. The gabled entrance really stands out on this house; it is clearly the result of deliberate design rather than organic evolution.

Double House Victorian Salem

Double House Salem 1890

11 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in History, Home, Houses, Paper

January 12, 2013

End of an Era

By daseger

The razing of St. Joseph’s Church in Salem began this week, with the steeple coming down on Thursday and some serious demolition ongoing yesterday. This was the parish church of the Point neighborhood of Salem, closed by the Archdiocese of Boston in 2004. Since that time, plans for its removal and/or redevelopment have divided the community. Preservationists, represented by Historic Salem, Inc., sought to save the mid-century “International Style” structure (it was built in 1949-50, finally replacing the more majestic church that was destroyed in the great fire of 1914) while others favored the affordable housing plan put forward by the Archdiocese’s development arm, the Planning Office for Urban Affairs. The two sides/goals could not be brought together, and of course affordable housing always trumps historic preservation, so the church is coming down.

St. Joseph's Church and Parish House, Salem, Mass, MA

St. Joseph's Church Salem

St. Joseph’s before the fire of 1914, and the shiny new building of the 1950s.

While I did not care for the style of St. Joseph’s, I fear that something far worse will be erected in its place. This is a very vulnerable, and prominent, location in Salem, where the once-grand boulevard of Lafayette Street meets downtown, and it has been neglected for some time. And while the exterior left me cold, the cruciform-planned interior was apparently something to behold.  I regret that I never saw it while in use:  all I have to go on now are pictures, like the one held by one of the witnesses to yesterday’s demolition.

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9 comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Current Events, History, Salem

January 10, 2013

Vanished Vantage Points

By daseger

There’s no better way to see how a landscape, or a streetscape, changes over time than to compare images of the past and the present. I am always on the hunt for nineteenth-century photographs and drawings of Salem, before urban renewal, before the great fire of 1914, before the CAR, so I can see how these forces altered the city, for better or for worse (mostly for worse).

I’m going to ease into what is often a shocking contrast of past and present with two photographs of a section of Federal Street, taken about a century apart.  This is the street looking east from the vantage point of the Peirce-Nichols House, one of Samuel McIntire’s most important commissions, looking toward North Street and the courthouses on the other side. The new (hugely out-of-scale) courthouse (or “judicial center”), which opened up for business just last year, is mostly out of the frame of the modern picture, or the contrast would indeed be shocking. What you do see, or what I see, is the brick former Baptist church, now law library, which was moved to its present location and situated on an angle so to accommodate the curve in the road and effect a transition from residential to institutional buildings on the street. This was an absolutely brilliant idea, whoever thought of it (I know that Historic Salem, Inc. advocated for it) as the courthouse project mandated the demolition of the smaller wooden buildings you see in that location in the earlier picture:  without the in-scale angled brick building, the judicial center would have even less connection to the street.

Vantage Point Fed Street 1910

Vanished Federal Street present

Now for a comparative vantage point that is a little more jarring:  Church Street in the 1890s and today. This was an old residential street in Salem, which was also the site of the original Salem Lyceum building, which you see here (the image is from Winfield S. Nevins’ Witchcraft in Salem Village, 1892 & 1916) as well as St. Peter’s Church, the source of its name.  In between the church, the Lyceum, and the great old firehouse (fortunately still there) were rows of primarily eighteenth-century houses, now all gone. The old wooden Lyceum was built about 1831 and burned down at the turn of the century, but it was replaced by a very elegant brick structure that was long the site of the Lyceum Restaurant, now 43 Church. Despite the unfortunate designs of both the District court on the right and the office building past the Lyceum on the left, the upper (foreground) part of Church Street is aesthetically pleasing and commercially successful (the site of an organic grocery store, a wine shop, and a coffee shop in addition to 43 Church), primarily because its buildings line up with the sidewalk, just like those in the older photograph. But in the background of the modern photographs, you see the ravages of urban renewal:  a large parking lot on the right, and a faux-Federal condominium building and brutally ugly parking garage/mall on the right.

Vanished Church Street Nevins Witchcraft

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From the vantage point of St. Peter’s Church, looking west towards the Lyceum: all those house removed to accommodate cars.

Vantage Church Street

My last group of images shows a completely obliterated street:  Norman Street, a short street that has been transformed beyond all recognition in the twentieth century. Not a shred of its built historical fabric remains, including this wonderful house, the Benjamin Cox house at 21 Norman Street (with the man standing in front of it). It is gone, along with its garden, and all of its neighbors, replaced by office buildings and a wide, wide road so that commuters might easily speed through Salem on their way to the university, or Marblehead. The historic photographs below, which date from about 1875-85, are from the Brown Family Collection of the Schlesinger Library at Harvard, and the modern photograph was taken this morning.  It’s difficult to reconcile these two settings:  I think that the Cox House was located somewhere in the vicinity of the white car (the one driving, as opposed to the one parked) in the 2013 photograph.

Vanished Cox House 21 Norman

Vanished Cox House garden

Vanished Cox House Interior

Vanished Norman Street

18 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Design, History, Houses

January 8, 2013

Salem Savior

By daseger

She was not the only hero(ine) in the story, but rather in good company:  still Ada Louise Huxtable played a big role in the prevention of the complete annihilation of historic Salem by the forces of urban renewal in the 1960s. The Pulitzer-Prize-winning architectural critic for The New York Times and The Wall Street Post, often referred to as the “dean” of American architectural criticism, died yesterday at the age of 91. The dominant themes of the obituaries that I am reading this morning are Mrs. Huxtable’s influence over both architectural criticism and the architecture of New York, but she shaped the architecture of Salem as well. So here is my little parochial appreciation.

Ada Louise Huxtable in her New York apartment, 1988. Arnold Newman/Getty Images.

Ada Louise Huxtable in her New York apartment, 1988. Arnold Newman/Getty Images

Mrs. Huxtable. who summered in nearby Marblehead, heard of the urban renewal plans for Salem and was moved to write a rather passionate piece that the Times put on its front page on October 13, 1965: “Foes Fear Plans Will Mar Old New England Heritage; Urban Renewal Plan Threatens Historic Sites in Salem, Mass.” She reported on what was going on, but definitely put her own viewpoint in the article:  By setting up “design controls” for the new construction, the city guarantees itself, at best, “instant Georgian” (apparently she detested Colonial Williamsburg!) to replace the genuine example. The spurious product is a much better economic deal than the real thing…As things stand now, it will take some potent modern witchcraft to save Salem’s historic past.  A series of follow-up articles were published in the Times from 1967 to 1974, culminating, happily, with the latter year’s “How Salem Saved itself from Urban Renewal (September 29). During this period, local preservationists were galvanized to fight the demolition of 103 buildings in the city center in the name of “urban renewal”, and the plan shifted to the redevelopment and revitalization of Essex Street, Derby Square, and Front Street. Many buildings were lost, but not as many as would have been without the advocacy and inspiration of Mrs. Huxtable, I believe.

Many years later (1993), Mrs. Huxtable was interviewed by Robert Campbell, the architectural critic of the Boston Globe, and he asked her where in New England she thought she had had the most impact.  She replied:  I think I had more impact on Salem, because Salem had a hideous urban renewal plan. I remember going over it with the then-mayor and planner, and they were going to eliminate the beautiful Japanese garden next to the museum and they were planning roads that would take away whole blocks. So I went back to New York and sold it to the Times as a Page 1 piece … and that brought whoever was on the National Advisory Council on Historic Preservation in Washington to Salem. “What are you doing here?” That resulted in the change of planners and the total change in the plan.

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Essex Street today:  a road does NOT run through the Japanese garden of the Peabody Essex Museum, but unfortunately the Brutalist parking garage with its first-floor shops did replace earlier commercial buildings.

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Front Street, revitalized not destroyed, a far more successful shopping district than the nearby Essex Street pedestrian mall, and the Ash Street house (built in 1811) of another preservation heroine, Bessie Munroe.  She fought urban renewal in the 1960s while she was in her 80s! Unfortunately the house now looks over a parking lot, and a very ugly modern building built on the site of jail where the accused witches were held in 1692.

4 comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Current Events, Design, History, Houses

December 27, 2012

Best Bedside Books 2012

By daseger

Well, it’s the time of year for lists, lots of lists:  best and worst, most important, so on and so forth, lists of ten things that characterize the passing year in one way or another. I’ll do my part with a best books list, with a qualification:  these are titles that were published in 2012 which I consider to be essential for bedtime reading, or bedtime reference, to be more precise. I do like to read in bed before I sleep, but I drop off quite rapidly, so I need a quick hit of compelling information, and/or some visual stimulation, before I’m gone. I’ve given up fiction altogether for this purpose, and I never read any sort of academic history later at night:  my bedside books need to be “dippable”; I will pick up one or the other from the stack–too tall for the bedside table–and dip into it every other night or so, in order to see or learn something before I fall asleep (books that do not perform these services leave the stack rather quickly). Several amazing natural histories were published this year which are perfect for this purpose, so I’ll start with them.

Natural Histories cover

Natural Histories. Extraordinary Selections from the Rare Book Archive of the American Museum of Natural History Library. Edited by Tom Baione.  Sterling Signature, 2012.

Nothing fascinates me more than the merger of art and science and this first book illustrates that historical merger in an extraordinary way. It is the ultimate gift and coffee table book, as it comprises a collection of historical sources relating to every branch of natural history from anthropology to zoology, succinct yet substantive contextual essays, and lots of images, as well as frame-ready prints, but it is also incredibly informative and inspirational. Similar in its historical range and the compelling nature of its images is the National Library of Medicine’s Hidden Treasure, and rather more whimsical (yet still empirical) is Caspar Henderson’s The Book of Barely Imagined Beings.  A 21st Century Bestiary. These books are just visual feasts, and I also learn something every time I pick them up.

Hidden Treasure

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Hidden Treasure:  the National Library of Medicine.  Edited by Michael Sappol.  Blast Books, 2012; The Book of Barely Imagined Beings by Caspar Henderson.  Granta Books, 2012.

I’ve been interested in folklore for quite some time, and an amazing new edition of Grimm’s Fairy Tales was published this year: this bicentennial edition of The Annotated Brothers Grimm was edited and annotated by Maria Tatar, Chair of the Program in Mythology and Culture at Harvard.  It really is a definitive edition, and also includes many classic illustrations.  There’s nothing better than reading Grimm fairy tales before you fall asleep:  food for dreams!

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The Bicentennial Edition of the Annotated Brothers Grimm. Edited by Maria Tatar.  W.W. Norton, 2012.

I always have architecture and design books in my bedside stack, also good for dreaming, and the ones I purchased this year are American Decoration by Thomas Jayne and London Hidden Interiors by Phillip Davies.  Their titles are self-explanatory. I love Jayne’s traditional style, and with its 180 properties and 1200 photographs, Hidden Interiors is positively encyclopedic.

Book Jayne

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American Decoration:  A Sense of Place, by Thomas Jayne. Monacelli Press, 2012. London Hidden Interiors, Phillip Davies. An English Heritage Book, Atlantic Publishing, Ltd., 2012.

Both art history and history texts seldom function well as bedside books, as they require a bit more sustained concentration. If they are far removed from my academic interests, sometimes I can make them work out of sheer ignorance/ interest and curiosity (or if they have relatively short chapters!)  Right now I have two books in these categories by my bed, both very recently published:  Eleanor Jones Harvey’s The Civil War and American Art, which is the companion volume to the exhibition that’s on right now at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, and Todd Andrlik’s Reporting the Revolutionary War, which presents a narrative of the American Revolution through contemporary newspaper reports, including several from the Salem Gazette.

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Reporting

Eleanor Jones Harvey, The Civil War and American Art. Yale University Press, 2012; Todd Andrlik, Reporting the Revolutionary War. Before it was History, it was News.  Sourcebooks, 2012.

Salem is a “walkable city”, and I think more places in car-obsessed America should be walkable cities, which is why I purchased urban planner Jeff Speck’s Walkable City. How Downtown can Save America, One Step at a Time. I’m learning a lot from this book, but I do think it is better read in the daytime rather than just before bed. And last but not least, a perfect bedside book that my brother just gave me for Christmas:  Simon Garfield’s Just My Type. A Book about Fonts. This was actually published in 2010, but I also have another Garfield book that was published this year, On the Map: A Mind-Expanding Exploration of the Way the World Looks, (Gotham) so together they can fill out my top ten list.  Typography and cartography: two very interesting, yet contained topics.  Perfect for end-of-day reading.

Walkable City

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Jeff Speck, Walkable City. How Downtown can Save America, One Step at a Time. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012; Simon Garfield, Just my Type. A Book about Fonts. Gotham reprint, 2012.

8 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Culture, Design, History

November 27, 2012

Queen Anne and Napoleon III

By daseger

We spent Thanksgiving in Saratoga Springs, New York, a city that on first impressions is as “Victorian” as Salem is “Federal”. I wasn’t able to spend the entire long holiday weekend there (and I was sick most of the time I was there), so I didn’t go on a long architectural/photographic walking tour as is my typical inclination, but I did dash down North Broadway, which is lined with Gilded Era mansions, as well as a few downtown side streets. I’m going back for more soon. Even before the quick trip to Saratoga, I had been thinking about Victorian houses here in Salem, and how I’ve never really done justice to this broad category of architecture. There are so many subcategories and styles!  I’ve always been a bit confused about two in particular:  Queen Anne and Second Empire. Not the styles of these houses, which are easily recognizable with their towers, turrets, and mansard roofs, but the names:  how did these thoroughly American houses get named for the last Stuart monarch, who reigned in Britain a full 150 years before a “Queen Anne” house was built across the Atlantic, and the French Second Empire ruled by Napoleon III (which was at least contemporary with Second Empire houses here in America)?  These names seem to imply a cultural imperialism that is incompatible with the assertive American spirit of the later nineteenth century, but then again, I’m neither an American historian or an architectural one, so my impression could be incorrect.

Queen Anne (r. 1702-1714) in 1705 by Michael Dahl, and an carte-de-visite of Napoleon III (r. 1852-70), National Portrait Gallery, London.

I can understand the use of the term “Victorian” for nineteenth-century houses on both sides of the Atlantic, as Queen Victoria really dominated her long era, but Napoleon III was no Queen Victoria! I suppose the rebuilding of Paris–the cultural center of the world–in Second Empire style during his reign provides the general explanation for the use of that term over here. The use of “Queen Anne” remains a mystery to me, but here are a couple of Queen Anne houses:  the first one in Saratoga, the second in Salem. There are several great Queen Anne houses in Salem, mostly outside the city center, but this more compact example is just a few steps from the Common:  it seems to feature all the characteristic details of the style in a much smaller footprint than the grand Saratoga house. This is a house that even a Federal fan such as myself could love.

The Second Empire style was forged by the Haussman Plan, a comprehensive urban planning initiative in Paris commissioned by Napoleon III and administered by Georges-Eugène Haussmann between 1853 and 1870. Much of central “old” Paris was swept away and replaced by grand boulevards and squares lined with mansard-roofed and embellished multi-story buildings made of “sanitary” stone. The “haussmannization of Paris” was projected to the world via serial publications and French paintings, creating an international style.

Images of the new boulevards of Paris, 1850s-1870s, Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

When I walk down the streets of Salem, I see structures, small and large,  that seem to be inspired by the Second Empire style:  American translations in a “colonial” context. Lafayette Street gives off a “French” impression in more ways than one, and not far from the Queen Anne house, just off the Common, is a multi-family painted-brick house that comes close to the French standard, at least to my untrained eye. The Salem house that really reads Second Empire to me, however, is over on my side of town, on upper Essex Street.  Even though Bryant Tolles (in Architecture in Salem:  an Illustrated Guide,1983) refers to it as reflecting “French Academic and High Victorian Italianate” influences, the Putnam-Balch House, which was built at the height of the Second Empire style, always reads “Paris, 1870s” to me. This majestic mansion, somehow all the more extravagant because it is built of wood, really dominates the streetscape with its sheer presence:  it once served as an American Legion post and has recently been restored.

8 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in History, Houses, Salem

May 25, 2012

Preservation Précis

By daseger

We’re well into “Preservation Month” and I’ve yet to post on this topic, so it is definitely time. In my experience, the preservation process is seldom a smooth one, because it is ultimately a political process, tied more to property rights or urban planning than any aesthetic or cultural initiative. About a month ago, I was driving home from Maine and I decided to stop in Newburyport, a beautiful old port city north of Salem with an amazing collection of historic houses from many periods (they had their big fire in 1811, whereas we had our much larger fire in 1914).  I will take any and every opportunity to drive down High Street just to see the succession of stately homes, all perfectly preserved.  On this particular occasion, however, nearly every house had a sign in front of it:  either for the expansion of  the Local Historic District, or against. It clearly wasn’t a preservation issue–no matter what the sign said in front, the house was perfect–it was a property rights issue.  I stopped to talk to one man, with a “NO” sign on the fence in front of his beautiful Federal house, and he indicated that the appointed, not elected historic commission charged with enforcing regulations within the district were the problem–they had no accountability. His neighbor had another opinion.

For and against the Local Historic District in Newburyport.

Here in Salem a preservation controversy has been festering for months, even years.  Following the closure of St. Joseph’s Church by the Archdiocese of Boston in 2004, its development arm, The Planning Office for Urban Affairs, put forward a plan to demolish the 1949 “International Style” church and build an affordable housing complex on the site.  After a complete review process, and despite a lawsuit, the plan has been gradually moving forward, even gaining tacit approval from the Massachusetts Historical Commission (charged with enforcing the Section 106 review triggered by all redevelopment projects that are slated to receive federal funds) which ruled that the demolition of the church was unavoidable. The voices of opposition to the project–or specifically to the demolition of the church–were Salem residents who had grown up in the “Point” neighborhood surrounding the church when it was largely French Canadian (now no longer the case), who clearly saw the church as the sole physical reminder of their historic community, and Historic Salem, Incorporated (HSI), the venerable preservation organization in Salem.  HSI’s continued appeals, based on the positions that due diligence was not done and that the church could be saved and incorporated into the housing project, have divided not only the community, but also its membership and Board of Directors.  For me, one of the most interesting aspects of this process/struggle has been the continuing question of what is historic?  As you can see from the pictures below, St. Joseph’s is not a traditional “historic” structure, but a mid-century modern one. I think it has been hard for a lot of people in Salem (myself included!) to see this structure as historic, given our stock of much older (and frankly, more aesthetically pleasing) buildings.  The present building replaced the Romanesque Revival church that was destroyed in the Great Salem Fire of 1914, only a years after it was built.  If that church was slated for demolition, how would the process–and the debate–have been different?

St. Joseph’s Church before and after the Great Salem Fire of 1914, and yesterday.

Often preservation efforts result in a compromise, as is the case with the former First Baptist Church on Federal Street, saved (in large part due to HSI’s advocacy) as the historic anchor of the new Ruane Courthouse complex, but surrounded by imposing and intimidating  Soviet-style buildings.

There have been several smaller preservation projects in Salem over the past few months; no controversies here, just some nice restorations.  I wrote a post just a couple of months ago about a dilapidated and condemned Victorian house in North Salem that was almost gone; today it seems to be experiencing a near-miraculous revival. Along Derby Street, a long-declining little Georgian house has experienced a similar rebirth in the last few months, and the little Brown Street house of Daniel Bray, mariner, built in 1776, is looking better every day.

Preservation projects in North Salem, Derby Street (“before” picture courtesy of Jerome Curley/Salem Patch), and downtown.

6 comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in History, Salem

April 19, 2012

Past and Present

By daseger

A very special post today, presenting some seldom-seen images of Salem streets and people from 1860 to 1930, part of an exhibition of photographs from the collection of the Phillips Library of the Essex Institute (now Peabody Essex Museum) held at Old Town Hall in 1974.  This was an interesting time in Salem’s built history; the city had just been through the worst of urban development and was now embarking on a redevelopment plan to save what was left.  The captions on the back of the enlarged postcards, which must have been souvenirs of the exhibition, refer (with great hopefulness) about the various elements of this plan, including the creation of the pedestrian mall on Essex Street, which is slated for a major redesign now, in the present.  These photographs are amazing; I’ve included a few present shots for comparison but I didn’t do that for every image because frankly, it was depressing:  I prefer to stay in the past.

Norman Street from the vantage point of Chestnut Street, 1885 and this morning.  A shocking comparison.  All of those charming houses on Norman are gone, replaced by parking lots.  Consequently the people are gone too; this is one of the most dangerous intersections in the city for pedestrians.  For orientation,  that little stubby post in the center of the modern shot is the remnant of the gaslight on which the policeman leans in the 1885 photograph.  And they say the 20th century was progressive?

Busy downtown Salem:  the Boston & Maine Railway Station, demolished in 1954, Front Street, looking toward Washington, in 1885, and Derby Square and Old Town Hall in 1890.

Delivery boys for the Salem Evening News pose for the photographer in front of the Daniel Low building, 1886, Edward’s Market on Hardy Street, circa 1900, and the Toll House on what is now Salem’s main “big box” thoroughfare, Highland Avenue, 1860.  Toll rates for sleighs and sheep!

Bathers at Collins Cove and wharves and pavilions at the Willows, 1891.

The Jonathan Corwin house in disguise as an apothecary, 1872 and today, as the “Witch House:  a rare present improvement (thanks to Historic Salem, Inc.) except for the name.

Across the street from the Jonathan Corwin house, looking down Essex Street  toward Washington, 1885 and today. At least the street hasn’t been widened beyond recognition.  Look at that bicycle girl in the foreground of the 1885 picture!

Appendix:  the Future?  A rendering of the new and improved Essex Street pedestrian mall below. No cars, more people, just like 1885.

14 comments   |  tags: , , | posted in History, Salem

March 4, 2012

Botts Court

By daseger

I think it’s time for a simple, literal streets of Salem post, so today we have some photographs of a small “street” that runs between Chestnut and Essex Streets in the McIntire Historic District:  Botts Court.  This charming little way is named after the Bott family, who settled here in Salem in the eighteenth century, but the possessive is never used:  all streets lose the possessive over time.  As you can see, it’s quite narrow, so it is one-way and that’s the way I’ll present it. On the corner of Chestnut and Botts Court is one of my very favorite Salem houses (there are so many):  the Bott-Fabens House, built before 1800 and before Chestnut Street:  the entrance that you see here was moved from the west (Court) side to the south side in the 1880s by the Faben family, presumably after Chestnut Street became the street on which to live. The bay window over the entrance was added at that time as well, when there must have been a bay window-building boom in Salem (and elsewhere, I’m sure).  I think the entrance’s window tracery is beautiful, and there is a very patriotic eagle as well.  This is one of several houses in Salem associated with Nathaniel Hawthorne; he lived here for a time while he was working (unhappily) at the Custom House.

Turning the corner, we’re on Botts Court, which was clearly laid out from Essex Street (Salem’s main street, dating from the seventeenth century) rather than Chestnut (developed as a very early example of “track housing” by Salem’s merchant princes after 1805). This is very evident because of the presence of the three Georgian houses on the right-hand side of the street: great houses which still look like they’re in their 18th century milieu because of their protected Court location. On the other side of the street there are great house too, but they were built much later. The owners of the houses on the next street over (Hamilton) must have sold parcels of property in the later nineteenth century, and Botts Court experienced a flurry of building that must have changed its character rather dramatically. I first came to Salem about 20 years ago when I was in graduate school studying English history, and as I really wanted to learn about the history of my new city, I started doing plaque research for Historic Salem, Inc.  Several Botts Court houses were my first assignments, so some (not all) of my speculation about the development of the court can be confirmed by this research.

Georgian houses on one side of Botts Court.

The best example of the late nineteenth-century development of Botts Court is the charming Tudor Revival building below:  an “automobile house” (that’s what it said on the building permit) built by the owner (then the Mayor of Salem) of the large colonial revival house on Hamilton Street, behind it. In the next century, it was conveyed to the owners of the adjacent Botts Court house, along with a particularly charming garden.

The “automobile house” of changing ownership.

I’m losing my sun, and we’re at the end of the very short but very charming Botts Court.  As you will notice, there are front porches on both eighteenth- and nineteenth-century houses on the court; a rarity in downtown Salem but not on this little protected path.  The last (early) Georgian house below, located on the corner of Botts and Essex Street (right next to the Salem Athenaeum and its expansive garden) used to be painted a bubblegum pink, marking the transition from the serious main street to the more whimsical Botts Court.

1 comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in History, Salem

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