Bowdoin Square (Boston)

Bowdoin Square (established 1788) in Boston, Massachusetts was located in the West End. In the 18th and 19th centuries it featured residential houses, leafy trees, a church, hotel, theatre and other buildings. Among the notables who have lived in the square: physician Thomas Bulfinch; merchant Kirk Boott; and mayor Theodore Lyman. The urban renewal project in the West End in the 1950s removed Green Street and Chardon Street, which formerly ran into the square, and renamed some existing streets; it is now a traffic intersection at Cambridge Street, Bowdoin Street, and New Chardon Street.

Bowdoin Square is served by the MBTA Blue Line station Bowdoin.

Brief history

Some of the features of Bowdoin Square in its heyday included:
* Kirk Boott house (built 1804). "The half-acre lot on which Boott build his brick house was then a pasture in Boston's West End, an area that was just beginning to be developed. Boott's 3-story Federal mansion, with its tall Palladian windows lighting the staircase overlooking the garden, was very likely designed by Charles Bulfinch."
* Samuel Parkman house (built c. 1816). "The large granite double house which stood for years at the western end of Bowdoin Square was built about 1816 by Hon. Samuel Parkman, a rich merchant. He was father of Dr.George Parkman who was murdered in 1849 by John White Webster ... ndgrandfather of Francis Parkman, the historian."
* Baptist Tabernacle (built 1840); also known as the Bowdoin-Square Church or the Bowdoin Square Baptist ChurchKing's hand-book of Boston. 1889. Includes illustration of the church.
* Revere House hotel (1847–1912)
* United States Court House (19th century)
* Bowdoin Square Hotel"Boston hotel on fire; The Bowdoin Square House Damaged and Two inmates Injured." ''New York Times'', Feb 28, 1902. p.6.
* Bowdoin Square Theatre

Images

Image:BowdoinSq Boston Bulfinch1896.png, House built by Thomas Bulfinch II, after 1722. His grandson Charles Bulfinch was born here
Image:KirkBoott house BowdoinSq Boston2 19thc.png, Kirk Boott house, built 1804
Image:SamuelParkman house BowdoinSq Boston.png, Samuel Parkman house, built c. 1816
Image:DanielWebster RevereHouse Boston 1850s.jpg, Daniel Webster, 1850 ("A great crowd had collected ... and on his appearance in a barouche, he was enthusiastically cheered."
Image:BowdoinSqBaptist Boston HomansSketches1851.jpg, Bowdoin Square Baptist Church, built 1840Homans. Sketches of Boston, Past and Present. 1851.
Image:RRJubilee 2 Gleasons1854.JPG, Railroad Jubilee, 1854
Image:BowdoinSquare BalPict 1855 1856.JPG, U.S. Court House, Bowdoin Square, c. 1856; engraving by Samuel Smith Kilburn, Ballou's Pictorial
Image:1883 Walker map Boston.png, Detail of 1883 map of Boston, showing Bowdoin Square at intersection of Green, Chardon, Court, Bowdoin and Cambridge Streets
Image:BowdoinSq StrangersGuideToBoston 1883.png, 1883
Image:2010 NewChardonSt Boston2.jpg, Intersection of Cambridge, New Chardon and Bowdoin Streets, Boston, 2010

References

Further reading

* Fire in Bowdoin Square, Last Evening. Boston Daily Globe, Jan 7, 1874. p.1.
* Bowdoin Square Literary Union Entertainment. Boston Daily Globe (1872-1922); Boston, Mass. Dec 1, 1875. p.4.
* The Outside Show: Illuminations Along the Line of March- Columns Avenue a Blaze of Light--The Display Elsewhere--Some of the More Prominent Illuminations and Decorations. Boston Daily Globe, Oct 27, 1876. p.8.
* Twelve missing in Boston fire; Blaze Starts in Old Revere House and Spreads to Nearby Buildings. New York Times, Jan 16, 1912. p.1.
* Robert Campbell. From square to bare; once filled with stately homes, Bowdoin Square's modern incarnation is decidedly less impressive. Boston Globe. May 21, 2006.

External links

* Library of Congress
A Group of Boot-Blacks in Bowdoin Square, a Passing Juvenile Industry
Location: Boston, Massachusetts. Photo by Lewis Hine, 1909

Google news archive
Articles about Bowdoin Square
* Flickr
Photo of Cambridge Street looking toward Bowdoin Square
1950s
* Flickr
Photos of area that was Bowdoin Square
by Gig Harmon, 2009
* Flickr
Gleason's
Cambridge omnibus, Benjamin Franklin, passing Bowdoin Square church in a snow storm, 1852
* Flickr
Boston and Cambridge New Horse Railroad (Bowdoin Square)
c. 1856 engraving

{{Streets and squares in Boston
Squares in Boston
West End, Boston
1788 establishments in Massachusetts
Former buildings and structures in Boston