This is my first time living in a landmark. It isn’t in history books, nor is it on any tourist maps, but most people with some familiarity of Jamaica Plain know this building—pass by enough and it will try to connect with you on some level. Along Centre Street its hulking presence seems to almost push cars and busses through the bend in the road. The slower moving may note the intricate sandstone beasts crawling around its surface, or the odd little faces that have watched a century of Boston move past. Others may simply know someone who lives, or has lived, here; its density and sheer longevity make for a large web of connections. Like many I was fascinated by it instantly, and as my relationship to it has grown more intimate (from passerby to visitor to resident) that fascination has not subsided.
A curious building attracts curious residents, and initial investigations have confirmed for me that the building’s current status as home to a group of wonderfully peculiar personalities is not just a modern phenomenon. To find the famous, noteworthy, eccentric, or otherwise mentionable (here, at least), one need not dig very deep. Needing a place to put the information I’ve uncovered, and as an exercise towards some synthesis of it, I’ve created this blog as a place to periodically share it with family, friends, neighbors, and anyone else who may be curious. I’m not a professional historian, nor am I professional writer, but I’m hoping this will be a way to improve on both. Above all I hope that this can engender some serendipity, and that it will bring out the holders of more information on this building. For as great as Boston’s public library (and librarians) are, and for as well documented the history of this neighborhood is, most of history evaporates as it happens. May this site help to sweep together any of the remaining minutiae and marginalia for this/our/my home.
Nice idea, Kris. I'll be interested to see what you come up with.
ReplyDeleteAlthough this must be one of the older and certainly one of the very largest residential buildings in JP, when I tell long-term JP residents where I live I'm very often startled to find that they can't identify the building, or only vaguely at best. I suspect it has to do with the fact that neither Lakeville nor Beaufort are avenues to anywhere (especially not for driving)and the building presents a relatively modest facade on Centre. Only if you look down Lakeville or Beaufort, say as you pass down Centre on the bus (as I used to before moving here),and see the building continue, seemingly endlessly, into the distance are you likely to become intrigued by it. It's always seemed an anomaly in its neighborhood to me.
As you doubtless know, there's no scarcity of long-time residents (25 years and up) to consult about its history. That longevity is a pretty interesting fact in itself.
I see that to post a comment I'm forced to "select profile", about which I know nothing, so I'll choose more or less at random and hope this gets through.
Marc Grossman 10 Beaufort 6
Marc, Thanks for checking in. Hopefully I'll get the first post up this weekend, it's hard to know when to stop digging and hit "post".
ReplyDeleteMy experience is similar, no one knows the streets (especially cab drivers), but they often stop me or finish my sentence when I start describing the building.
I'm slowly learning about our longtime resident neighbors, I hope to begin meeting more of them through this.
The select profile thing I see now that I'm commenting, I don't get it either, perhaps I can disable it? I'll look into it.