Commonwealth Avenue Boston

17-19 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston

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The houses at 17 and 19 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, sometime in the 1870s. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

The houses in 2017:


These houses were built on a lot that had been purchased in 1866 by attorney William H. Gardiner. A member of a prominent Boston family, his father John Sylvester John Gardiner had been the rector of Trinity Church from 1805 to 1830, and William had studied law under Harrison Gray Otis in the early 1800s. He was nearly 70 when he purchased this property in the Back Bay, and he had his house built on the right side, at 17 Commonwealth. The house was completed in 1867, and that same year he sold the remaining two-fifths of the lot to Thomas C. Amory, who built his own house here on the left, at 19 Commonwealth.

Like Gardiner, Amory was an attorney, but he was also a poet, author, and historian who published a number of books in the 1870s and 1880s. His house here was completed in 1868, and it was designed by Henry Van Brunt, a young architect who later went on to become one of Boston’s leading architects of the era. It matches the Second Empire-style design of its neighbors, and although narrower than the surrounding homes, it is one story taller, with a fifth floor under the mansard roof.

Both Gardiner and Amory died in the 1880s, and these two houses went on to have a number of subsequent owners in the next few decades. Probably the most notable of these was William Phillips, who owned 17 Commonwealth from 1930 to 1942. Phillips was a diplomat whose career included serving as Assistant Secretary of State and Under Secretary of State, as well as ambassador to Belgium, Canada, and Italy. Because of the nature of his diplomatic work, though, he and his wife Caroline did not live here very much, and instead rented it out to other tenants.

Both of these houses are still standing today, although they have been modified over the years. In the early 1920s, the front entrance of 19 Commonwealth was lowered to the ground floor, the steps were removed, and the old doorway became a window. About a decade later, similar work was done to 17 Commonwealth, shortly after William Phillips purchased the property. Later in the 20th century, both houses were converted into condominiums, and today each house is divided into three individual units.

For more detailed historical information on these houses, see the Back Bay Houses website for 17 and 19 Commonwealth.

21-23 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston

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The houses at 21 and 23 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, sometime in the 1870s. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

The houses in 2017:


The easternmost block of Commonwealth Avenue, between Arlington and Berkeley Streets, was among the first to be developed in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood. Shortly after the land was filled, much of the block on the north side of the street was purchased in 1860 by merchant and Congressman Samuel Hooper, who built his own house at 25-27 Commonwealth, which is partially visible on the far left. Hooper sold the rest of the lots, including these ones, and in 1868 a pair of symmetrical Second Empire-style townhouses were built here. The homes match the architectural style of the rest of the street, and they are nearly identical to two other sets of houses at 41-47 Commonwealth.

The house on the left, number 23, was owned by Daniel Spooner, a former shipping merchant who later entered the textile industry, becoming treasurer of the Great Falls Manufacturing Company in New Hampshire. He only lived in this house for about a year, until his death in 1869, but his wife Elizabeth continued to live here until later in the 1870s. The house on the right, 21 Commonwealth, was owned by John A. Burnham, a manufacturer whose positions included serving as president of the Nashua Iron and Steel Company. He lived here until his death in 1884, and the house remained in his family until 1913.

Since then, both houses have seen a number of subsequent owners, but essentially nothing has changed in this scene. Both houses are still standing, as are the houses on either side of the photos, and Commonwealth Avenue continues to be one of the most desirable streets in Boston. Today, many of the historic townhouses have been converted into apartments or condominiums, including the house on the left at 23 Commonwealth, which is now a four-unit condominium building. The building on the right was converted into classrooms in the 1940s, and was used by several different school over the years before eventually being restored to a single-family home in the early 2000s.

For more detailed historical information on these houses, see the Back Bay Houses website for 21 and 23 Commonwealth.

Commonwealth Avenue Mall, Boston

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Facing west on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall from Berkeley Street, on November 27, 1901. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

The scene in 2017:


When the Back Bay was planned in the mid-19th century, the streets were laid out in a rectangular grid pattern, with five east-west streets running the length of the development. In the middle was Commonwealth Avenue, which was made significantly wider than the others in order to accommodate a wide, tree-lined mall in the center. The house lots on this street soon became some of the most desirable in the Back Bay, and as the trees matured the street began to take on the appearance of a Parisian boulevard.

Most of the houses along this section of Commonwealth Avenue, which extends west from Berkeley to Clarendon Streets, were built in the 1860s and 1870s, in the Second Empire style of architecture that was popular during this period. Among the street’s few non-residential buildings is the First Baptist Church, which was built in 1875 and can be seen a block away on the left. The streetscape of Commonwealth Avenue also features a number of statues, including the one in the center of the photo that honors Revolutionary War hero General John Glover.

More than a century after the first photo was taken, the Back Bay has remained remarkably unchanged. Nearly all of the historic Victorian brownstone homes are still standing, and Commonwealth Avenue has continued to be the centerpiece of one of the city’s most desirable neighborhoods. Aside from the cars on the street, the only hint of the modern world in the present-day scene is the Prudential Tower, which is barely visible through the trees on the far left side of the photo.

41-47 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston

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The four houses at 41, 43, 45, and 47 Commonwealth Avenue, sometime in the 1870s. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

The houses in 2017:


In the mid-19th century, Boston was geographically small and very crowded, with very little undeveloped land. The population was continuing to grow, however, leading the city to embark on an ambitious civil engineering plan to fill in the Back Bay, a badly polluted tidal marsh along the Charles River. The project began in the late 1850s, and within a decade the neighborhood was already well on its way to becoming one of the city’s most exclusive residential areas.

Commonwealth Avenue, with its broad, tree-lined mall, was intended to be a centerpiece of the development, and house lots on the sunny north side were considered particularly desirable. This spot here, partway between Berkeley and Clarendon Streets, was purchased in 1869 by Elijah C. Drew, a merchant and president of the Eleventh Ward National Bank. Here, he built two identical pairs of symmetrical houses, with a Second Empire-style design that matched most of the other homes in the area.

Upon completion around 1869, Drew moved into the house at 41 Commonwealth Avenue, on the far right side, but he sold the other three homes. House number 43, second from the right, was sold to William T. Andrews, who purchased it for his daughter Elizabeth and her husband, John T. Clark. John was a partner in the crockery firm of Clark, Adams, and Clark, and he also served as chairman of the city’s Board of Aldermen. The house to the left, number 45, was sold to Elmer Townsend, a businessman who owned the New England Wax Thread Sewing Machine Company, and last house on the left, number 47, was also sold to a businessman, dry goods merchant Henry Blaney and his wife Mary.

None of the original families in these homes lived here for very long, and by the end of the 1870s all four had been sold. Over the next few decades, the houses has a variety of other residents, and in 1902 the house at 43 Commonwealth was demolished and replaced with a new house, designed by architect Julius A. Schweinfurth for Ashton R. Willard. This broke up the symmetry of the original set of four houses, and it also created an interesting contrast between the dark brownstones of the Victorian era and the much lighter building materials of the Classical Revival era.

When the first photo was taken, the surrounding lots had not been developed yet. These homes would be built later in the 1870s, and very little has changed since then. Aside from the replacement of the house at 43 Commonwealth, the only other significant change in this scene is the fifth floor atop 45-47 Commonwealth. These two houses had been purchased in 1963 and combined into a single apartment building, and a fifth-floor penthouse was added, replacing the original mansard roof. However, the building was renovated again in 2008, restoring the roof and making the fifth floor almost unnoticeable from the street.

For more detailed historical information on these houses, see the Back Bay Houses website for 41, 43, and 45-47 Commonwealth.

50 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston

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The house at the southwest corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Berkeley Street in Boston, sometime in the 1870s. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

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The scene in 2015:

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The house in the first photo was built around 1868, and for many years it was the home of dry goods merchant John Hogg. He and his wife Emma lived her from when it was built until around 1892, and the subsequent owners, Frank and Mary Going, operated it as a hotel called The Holland. Like many other hotels of the era, it functioned more as a boarding house than as a place for transient visitors, and it continued in this capacity until 1925, when it and the neighboring 52 Commonwealth were demolished. They were replaced with the current building,which has 40 apartments that were converted into condominiums in 1985.

Although the house from the first photo is no longer standing, the other two buildings beyond it have survived. The church is the Central Congregational Church, which was built in 1867 and is now the Church of the Covenant. Beyond the church is the distinctive facade of the former Museum of Natural History building at the corner of Berkeley and Newbury Streets. Built in 1863, it is among the oldest public buildings in the Back Bay, and after many years as the home of Bonwit Teller, it is now a Restoration Hardware gallery.

For more information on the history of the house at 50 Commonwealth Ave, please see this post on the Back Bay Houses website.

29-33 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston

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The houses at 29-33 Commonwealth Avenue, just west of Berkeley Street, sometime in the 1870s. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

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The view in 2015:

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These three townhouses at the northwestern corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Berkeley Street were built around 1863, on land that had been recently filled in the Back Bay. The neighborhood was designed from the start as a wealthy, exclusive area; Boston had feared that its upper class would flee the crowded city for the suburbs, so the Back Bay project was intended to encourage rich Bostonians to remain in the city.

When the first photo was taken, all three of these homes were owned by wealthy families. To the left, 33 Commonwealth Avenue was the home of Charles H. Dalton, a merchant and businessman who served as the president of several different businesses. He also served as the treasurer of MIT, which was just a couple blocks away at the time, and as president of Massachusetts General Hospital. The house in the middle was owned by another businessman, Joseph Sawyer, who owned textile factories. Both men died shortly after the turn of the 20th century, and eventually the two buildings were converted into apartments. It is hard to see both in the 2015 photo, but they are still standing today, and have since been combined to create a 7-unit condominium building.

Unlike its neighbors to the left, the house at 29 Commonwealth Avenue did not even survive to the end of the 19th century. It was originally the home of textile mill owner Joshua Stetson, and after his death the house was sold to Elizabeth Bowditch in 1870. She was the widow of Nathaniel Ingersoll Bowditch, a lawyer who was the son of noted mathematician Nathaniel Bowditch, and she lived here until her death in 1892. The house was then sold and demolished, and replaced with a 9 story, 26 unit apartment building in 1894. It was completed before there were any height restrictions in the Back Bay, so it is substantially taller than most other 19th century buildings in the area. In the 1920s, its apartments were converted into offices, and it has remained an office building ever since.

The church to the right just behind 29 Commonwealth Avenue is the First Church of Boston. It was built in 1867 at the corner of Marlborough Street, and it was mostly destroyed in a fire in 1968. The steeple and parts of the facade were saved, though, and they were incorporated into the design of the current building.

For more information, visit the Back Bay Houses website, which has more details and photographs of 29 and 31-33 Commonwealth Avenue and the First Church in Boston.