From Residential Neighborhood to Film Distribution Center and Back: Bay Village Historic District
The Bay Village Historic District used to be home to movie distribution studios, like MGM and Columbia. Now, it is mainly residential.
This is the fifth in a nine-part series on Boston.com about historic districts in the city of Boston.
As with many neighborhoods in Boston, Bay Village, now a few blocks south of Boston Common, was not always inhabitable land.
According to the Boston Landmarks Commission, up to 1825 the area consisted of mudflats until a city ordinance was passed to construct a dam. The land was then drained, and houses went up almost immediately.
The Landmarks Commission said that originally, building regulations mandated a structure’s height and the materials that could be used to build it. Those rules were responsible for filling the main streets with visually homogenous brick buildings.
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“It’s one of the smaller districts, it is nestled between South End and Back Bay,’’ said William Young, overseer of the Bay Village District and director of design review for the city of Boston’s Environment Department. “Its original development is contemporaneous with Beacon Hill, and many of the earliest buildings on Fayette Street were built by the same housewrights that constructed Beacon Hill.’’
Young said that many of the early residents of Bay Village were shopkeepers and skilled craftsmen.
According to a 1983 report from the Landmarks Commission, river water still bordered the neighborhood well into the 1830s, as the district ended at Arlington Street, which bordered the river, where there were fishermen and boats.
“The Charles would periodically flood the Bay Village neighborhood, given how primitive sewage arrangements were at the time,’’ Young said. “It wasn’t the cleanest water that was infiltrating, so in 1868 the grade of the neighborhood was raised, and the houses were backfilled, and a new street level was established.’’
450 dwellings, 24 stores, and other buildings and streets were raised 18 feet in some places, according to the report.
The neighborhood is now known for its sunken backyards, as those were not raised at the time and even today lie significantly lower than the houses themselves.
Moving into the early 20th century, the district stayed mainly residential, but according to the Bay Village Neighborhood Association, it housed a variety of speak-easies during the Prohibition era.
One of these nightclubs, according to Young, was the Cocoanut Grove club, which tragically burnt down in 1942. According to the Neighborhood Association, the fire killed 492 people and led to stricter fire codes across the country. There is now a Radisson Hotel where the building once stood on Piedmont Street. Young said only one club remains in the former entertainment district.
Young also said the district changed quite a bit when some buildings were torn down to make room for the I-90 Massachusetts Turnpike in the 1950s and 60s.
Around the same time, Boston’s movie industry was beginning to settle in to the Bay Village District.
“In the 20th century, because the neighborhood was so close to downtown movie houses, it became a center for film distribution activities,’’ Young said.
Boston wasn’t actually making the movies, but distributing movie equipment from big warehouses.
“Boston was the hub for cinemas all over New England,’’ Young said. “So the movies and the news reels would come in on trains to South or Back Bay Station and be delivered to the facilities at each of the major studios in the neighborhood.’’
“In addition to the film distribution,’’ he added, “there were also movie theater equipment companies in the area that sold theater seats, that sold concession equipment, like popcorn machines, into the early 1990s.’’
Once there became more of a demand for housing in the area, many of these big warehouses were reused and converted into apartments.
Bay Village was made a historic district in 1983. The Landmarks Commission report explained: “The intent of the standards and criteria for Bay Village is not to freeze the appearance of the district to a certain point in time, but, instead, to guide inevitable changes to the buildings composing the district in order to make those changes sensitive to the architectural character of the area and to prevent intrusions of incompatible architecture elements.’’
Architectural Styles
Fayette Street, mainly built in the 1820s, is Federal in style, according to Young. The Boston Preservation Alliance says Federal style is known for columns, flat facades, and Palladian windows.
Move over to Melrose Street, which Young said was the next period of development, and you will find brick row houses in the Greek revival style. According to the Preservation Alliance, Greek revival style homes are more monumental looking than Federal homes and often contain granite details.
“In many instances [Melrose Street homes] are a story taller than those on Fayette Street,’’ Young said. “Entryways are arched on Fayette and those of Melrose are square.’’
The Landmarks Commission 1983 report said that on Winchester and Piedmont Streets many of the buildings are more commercial looking in the art deco or art moderne style (many were built specifically for the movie industry). Art deco, according to the Preservation Alliance, is a style that came from France. Buildings have chevron patterns, “Jazz Age motifs,’’ and sweeping curves.
Famous Sites in the Bay Village District
– Columbia Pictures Building (45 Church St.): Once the Columbia Pictures distribution center in Boston, this art deco building is a now residential apartment building.
– 1 Bay Street: This tiny house is one of the smallest houses in any of the historic districts, according to Young. He said it is a two-story house that is only two windows wide. Bay Street is the remnant of a once larger street that had a lot of construction done and has been reduced to a little cul-de-sac. This house is on the National Register of Historic Places.
– Abraham Lincoln School (Arlington Street): This building is now the Josiah Quincy School, after the two schools were combined in 1976. Young said Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s nephew developed the Abraham Lincoln School.
Regulations
The Landmarks Commission’s guidelines for the district have many of the same regulations as other districts, in regards to keeping windows and doors the same, altering colors significantly, and changing the roofing.
What is interesting about this district, according to Young, is that many of the buildings that are now residential were once commercial, so the guidelines cover both.
“It is to the credit of the commission that its guidelines have acknowledged the distinct visual character of industrial and residential buildings,’’ Young said. “They haven’t imposed residential aesthetics on non-residential buildings.’’
The commercial buildings, some of which have metal windows and unique lighting fixtures, haven’t been transformed to look completely residential.
“Even though there is a distinction in original use,’’ Young said. “There’s a smallness of scale that continues, and the intimacy that gives the neighborhood is, I think, very striking, and makes for a great deal of charm.’’
Any questions, concerns, or proposals for exterior change should be brought up with the Boston Landmarks Commission.
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