Here Comes the Wrecking Ball

I've been asked to publicize a meeting being held to discuss the possible demolition of the New England Home for Little Wanderers building on South Huntington avenue. You can read about it in the Jamaica Plain Gazette. To add some color, I've reposted an earlier entry from this blog.



Here's another South Huntington avenue institution. The New England Home for Little Wanderers was founded in 1865, and moved to the edge of Jamaica Plain as described in this article. For some reason, this region of Roxbury/Jamaica Plain was quite popular with charitable institutions, as shown in earlier entries. I added a contemporary picture below.


Boston Daily Globe July 28, 1914


Little Wanderers' $100,000 Building New Location for Home for Destitute Children. Work on the Erection of a Flameproof Structure Has Begun.


The New England Home for Little Wanderers will sell its present location at 202 West Newton st, and has begun to erect a new structure at a cost of $100,000 between the Jamaicaway and South Huntington av, about four miles from the Public Library and near the spots now occupied by the Boston Nursery for Blind Babies and St Vincent's Hospital. The grounds will comprise about six acres.

The plan of moving has been under consideration for some months, but negotiations for the actual construction have only just been completed.

The architects of the new institution are Brainerd(sp) & Leeds. The building will be fireproof, of three stories and a basement. The ground floor will contain the great dining room for the children, the kitchen and allied features. The boiler plant will be outside the building, its roof forming a terrace.

The first floor will hold a large auditorium with a capacity of 180, suitable for conventions held in the building. There will also be administration rooms for the superintendent, matrons, directors, etc.

The second floor will provide for the occupancy of from 40 to 50 children - rather fewer than the present building, because the plan is that the outside department henceforth shall be of more importance than the actual administrative department.

About 1000 inmates pass through the institution in the course of a year, the most detailed record of them being kept after they pass from beneath the roof of the building to homes elsewhere.

The third floor will be for a playroom and a hospital. The basement will be of reinforced concrete and the material of the remainder of the building will be of antique brick with a considerable amount of stone trimmings, the whole presenting an appearance of the Colonial period. It is hoped the new building may be ready for occupancy by next Spring.

The institution was organized in Boston in May, 1865, under a charter granted by the Legislature of Massachusetts for the purpose "of rescuing children from want and shame, providing them with food and clothing, giving them instruction in mind and heart and placing them, with the consent of their parents, or guardians in Christian homes."

Homeless and destitute children are received from all parts of New England. No discrimination is made because of color, race, sex or religion.

Arthur S Johnson is president of the Home; Samuel D. Parker, treasurer, and Frederic D. Fuller, secretary. The superintendent is Rev F.H. Knight.

The Home is a private charity. It is not supported by State, city or town funds, but by legacies and contributions from churches and individuals.


January, 2008

Ye Olde Forest Hills Station

This 1908 article discusses the then-new Forest Hills elevated station. The drawing above shows an open, fenced-in ground floor. It did get closed in quite a bit more than that on the sides. Notice the water fountain in the middle of the road. And notice the style of writing in the article. It content comes out sounding like a P.R. release, but they style is very different from anything we'd read in a newspaper today. They had not yet received the cut, cut cut message, so they weren't mean with their words.


Boston Daily Globe March 23, 1908

Hope To Have work Done This Year

Building of the Elevated Station in Forest Hills Sq Has Commenced - The Platform Arrangement.


After a prolonged disagreement over the location of the Forest Hills terminal of the elevated railroad, ground has at last been broken in Forest Hills sq. and the work of putting in the foundations for the new station begun.

The abrupt termination of the elevated structure at the entrance of the square, with its big derricks overhanging the roadway, has long been an annoyance to the residents of the district, and the completion of the work is looked forward to by all.

The terminal will be located on the west side of the square, adjoining the NY, NH & H tracks, and will be 360 feet long by 70 feet wide - a much larger station than the present terminal at Dudley st. Two tracks will pass through the station, one inbound and the other outbound.

There being no loop as at Dudley st, a blind end will be used; that is, the tracks will extend beyond the station far enough for a train that has unloaded its passengers from Boston to run out and switch over to the inbound track, when it will return to the station and load passengers for Boston from an opposite platform.

Egress from the unloading platform of the station to the surface car loading platform will be by means of two stairways. Passengers arriving on surface cars and bound for Boston will alight on an opposite platform and will gain access
to the elevated loading platform by means of two moving stairways and two ordinary stairways. Both surface car platforms will be enclosed by fences as is the case now at Dudley st.

The elevated platforms will be large enough to accommodate any crowds that will have occasion to use them for some years to come, the loading platform being 30 feet wide and the unloading platform will have a width of 20 feet, while their great length of 360 feet will amply accommodate an eight-car train, as will all of the new elevated stations and those on the Washington-st subway.

The material used in the construction of the new station and that portion of the elevated structure which crosses the arborway will be reinforced concrete, and the architecture of the whole will be sufficiently ornate to be in keeping with the surroundings, the portion of the elevated structure previously mentioned being somewhat similar in design to the present railroad bridge over the arborway.

The northern end of the station, which might be called the front entrance, will be somewhat higher than the rest of the building and will be 64 feet high. In that portion of the building will be located a waiting room, toilet rooms and an office.

With the completion of this station the Dudley-st station will cease to be a terminal and become a way station, and to this end important changes are to be made there.

No definite arrangements have yet been made by the elevated officials for handling the traffic under the new conditions, but in all probability some of the surface car line which now feed Dudley-st station will be diverted to one of the new elevated stations, possibly that at Egleston Square, thus relieving the Dudley-st station of a great deal of congestion. The engineers hope, with good fortune, to be able to complete the work by the end of this year, when, with the completion of the new subway, Boston will have taken a long stride in the direction of real rapid transit.

The May House - En-Castle-ated

Detail of room in old wing of the May house.


Known as the Arborway Castle, or alternately as the house with all those fr*&%$in' Christmas lights, the May house joins the Curtis house in our parade of modified-to-the-point-of-unrecognizability Colonial houses. As is common with such articles, there is questionable information in this one. The writer states that the modern 'castle' part of the house was added to the original Colonial house in the 1800s. To be more precise, the addition was built between 1896 and 1904. It states that the house was built by a Mr Bridge. Bridge did sell the land to the Mays, but I'm not sure we can be confident that this was the original Bridge homestead. There were other houses on May's lane owned by the Mays in the late 1800s, any one of which could have been the oldest. And of course, the original house may have been torn down and replaced during the Colonial era. The Curtis house recently discussed here is dated to 1722, so it, too could be the oldest in the community.



Daily Boston Globe February 15, 1937

Jamaica Plain House Sold, Recalls Colonial History


The house of a thousand daily conjectures, strange in its location and imposing with its turreted, castle-like architectural appointments, has opened its portals and revealed an historical secret - the remnants of the Colonial home of Capt John May.

The unusual structure, located at 61 Arborway, Jamaica Plain, a short distance from Jamaica Pond on a main highway artery, has been viewed by passing motorists who wondered at its age and history.

For many years it has been tightly closed, but will now have an occupant, James M. Graham, Boston attorney, who purchased the property, known as the May and later Carter estate, from Mrs. John Emmons, Hingham, through the real estate office of the MacLellan Brothers.

In the passing of papers it was revealed that 11 "modern" rooms of the "castle" had been constructed in the 1800s, around five of the rooms of the old May house, which was built on May's lane, now May st, by a a Mr Bridge in 1650.

The first John May, master of the vessel (?), came from Mayfield in Sussex, England, and became a resident of Jamaica Plain and the ancestor of many of bear the name of May in this country. The original home was known in later years as the May House, after Capt Lemuel May, who fought in the Battle of Lexington and whose grave is in the little churchyard of the First Congregational Church on Eliot st, Jamaica Plain.

The five rooms represent what was probably the oldest house in Jamaica Plain. There were originally 47 acres on the May farm, but with the expansion of the park system about one-third of the area was taken. When part of the old house was razed incident to the erection of the present structure by Thomas W. Carter, workmen found a number of relics of Colonial years.

They included pewter spoons, buttons from the uniforms of the "Minute Men of 1775" and a number of silver coins. Spanish silver coins were plowed in the land adjacent to the house.

The old section of the property contains the original hardware of the Revolutionary period and the figures 1760 can still be seen on the fire back in the old fireplace.

Entering from the front porch there is a small, square reception hall that opens through narrow doorways into the old low-studded,irregular shaped rooms that have corner beams and wooden fittings of rich quartered oak.

The old living room with its hand-hewn ceiling beams, wainscotted sides, corner cupboard with convenient little shelves bears a distince Colonial tinge even though the woodwork has been covered with enameled paint. The old wooden coat hangers are in evidence and the beautiful hand-carved wooden staircase has a spiral carved newel post and uprights.

It is said that the house was used as a barracks durign the siege of Boston. On July 4, 1901, long after the present structure was erected, Capt Richmond P Hobson, United States Navy; Admiral Sampson and Boston Mayor Hart were entertained there.

Underpass Passes (Temporarily)

With the decision to tear down the Casey Overpass just announced recently, I thought this little tidbit would be of interest. While the Casey Overpass was built in the 1950s, the need for it seems to have predated the post-war years. At the time, the railroad tracks ran on a raised embankment that bridged the Arborway with multiple arches, and the Elevated line bridged the Arborway a stone's throw away as well. And streetcars ran down Washington street and through the station as well. Add automobiles, and the Arborway grade crossing must have been quite a mess.

It was natural to propose a tunnel under Washington street to help break what must have been intersection-lock at the time, but something wasn't accounted for. That would be Stony brook, carried through Forest Hills and the rest of Jamaica Plain in a buried conduit. Apparently, no one brought up this obstacle at the City council meeting discussed below, and the proposal got a temporary green light. I'll leave the wisdom of the choice recently announced to others, but it is clear that the overpass was built for a good reason, and served its purpose well for over half a century.


Daily Boston Globe August 6, 1929

Forest Hills Underpass Order is Passed for First Reading


[Discussion of the widening of Centre st in West Roxbury]


Forest Hills Underpass

The council also, at this meeting, passed for its first reading Councillor Motley's order for $350,000 for the construction of an under-pass at Forest Hills, to relieve traffic congestion on Arborway, Washington st and other nearby streets. This underpass is planned to be 40 feet wide, and, the council was told, it is estimated that it wall save the city $107,000 annually in economic value, through elimination of delays under the elevated structure at Forest Hills.

The Lady Was A Dope Thief

I didn't see any follow-up, so I assume so got away with the heist. Between 1914 and 1924, doctors could prescribe opiates, so that explains the presence of the drugs. The pharmacy was in Hyde Square, at the current location of a tattoo shop. Just goes to show that drug crimes didn't begin in the 1960s.

Boston Globe March 31, 1917

Mysterious Drug Woman Eludes Police Chase

The mysterious young woman who "cleaned up" 30 grains of morphine sulphate, 30 grains of hydrochlorate of morphine, 20 grains of cocaine, 40 grains of heroin and half an ounce of powdered opium, at the pharmacy of William A. Lynch at 380 Centre st, Jamaica Plain, Thursday afternoon, was still at large at a late hour last evening, though the police have clews that may result in an arrest. The large amount and the variety of the narcotics taken is spurring on to a thorough canvass of West Roxbury by special officers.

The young woman entered the store and said she was ill. While the clerk was trying to assist her she swept off the drug shelf. The police secured a detailed description of the young woman.

Deadly Beauty

I've recorded many deaths be drowning at Jamaica Pond, and this entry brings the numbers more up to date with the addition of nine more unfortunates. For all its beauty, Jamaica Pond is certainly the deadliest locale in Jamaica Plain.



June 27, 1930

Boy Drowned in Jamaica Pond

John W. Rock, 11, Falls In Sailing Toy Boat

Cousin, Andrew S. Molloy, Aged 9, Rescued by Peter Dignon


John W. Rock, 11, of 195 Lamartine st. Jamaica Plain, was drowned yesterday afternoon when a toy sailboat he was playing with drifted out of reach and he fell into the Jamaica Pond in an attempt to retrieve it.

The accident occurred at the Cove shore near the Children's Museum. His cousin Andrew S Molloy, 9 years old, of 1873 Columbus av fell in at the same time, but was rescued by Michael Dignon of 128 Day st Jamaica Plain.

The Rock boy's body was recovered by police using grappling irons. The child was pronounced dead at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital.


August 21, 1930

Find Body of Man in Jamaica Pond.


The body of Henry Parker, 69, a widower, of 63 Chestnut ave, Jamaica Plain, was seen in Jamaica Pond yesterday afternoon and was removed by police.

The body was taken to the Southern Mortuary, where it remained unidentified for some time until Henry E Parker, the mans' son, visited the mortuary.


July 13, 1932

Boy, 10 Drowned in Jamaica Pond


Stepping into a hole in the bottom of Jamaica Pond while wading there yesterday afternoon with an 11-year-old companion, George F. Clearly Jr, 10, of 8 Warren sq, Jamaica Plain, sank below the surface and was drowned.

His playmate, Robert Jordan of 5 Warren sq, went to his assistance, but becoming exhausted when Clearly struggled with him, was obliged to wrest himself from the grasp of the drowning boy and make for the banking a few yards away.

Jordan told the police that he and the Cleary boy were wading with their trousers rolled up to their thighs when Cleary suddenly announced that he was going to get wet all over and marched into the water almost up to his neck.

He was jumping up and down, laughing and shouting, when he threw up his hands and sank beneath the surface. When Jordan's efforts to save his friend proved futile he began shouting for help and two men who were rowing some distance away brought their boat to the scene, while passerby on the bank ran to summon police.

One of the men in the boat stripped off his outer clothes and dived into the water. He was unable to find the body, and police, putting out in another boat, worked for five minutes with the grappling irons before Cleary was brought to the surface.

On the way to City Hospital in the police ambulance, patrolmen Frank Berringer and Joseph Chalifaux worked over the boy in an unsuccessful attempt to revive him. Hospital physicians pronounced him dead.

The boy's father, Goerge F. Cleary had just arrived home from work when news of his son's death was brought to him. He was overcome with grief and Mrs Cleary collapsed. Besides his parents, George leaves several brothers and sisters.


July 29, 1936

Drowns, Caught By Anchor Rope

Meltzer Pulled Under at Jamaica Pond

Roxbury Man's Body Found After Fishing Trip


Pulled overboard when an anchor rope looped about his arm as he was anchoring a rowboat, Abraham D. Meltzer, 60, of 108 Elm Hill av, Roxbury, drowned in Jamaica Pond yesterday afternoon.

Meltzer hired the rowboat from Nelson Curtis and rowed out on the pond to fish, about 11 o'clock in the morning. Curtis, looking out on the pond in the afternoon, became worried when he noticed Meltzer's boat motionless but apparently unoccupied. He asked William Clancy, 20 Spring Park av, Jamaica Plain, who was rowing another boat, to see if Meltzer was all right.

Held Down by Rope

Clancy reported that Meltzer was in the water, held mysteriously below the surface. Patrolmen Harry Cook and John Moylan answered Curtis' call shortly after 4 yesterday afternoon and rowed out to Meltzer's boat, seeing one end of it was apparently weighted down. They pulled on the anchor rope and brought Meltzer's body up.

The police said the boat was securely anchored and that they believed when he threw the anchor overboard the rope caught his right arm.

At City Hospital Meltzer was pronounced dead by Dr Donald Sullivan from accidental drowning. Meltzer's wife, Mary, told police her husband was subject to fainting spells.

The water is between 25 and 30 feet deep where Meltzer drowned. His steel fishing rod was still in the boat.


July 8, 1939

Police Work Fast But Man Drowns in Jamaica Pond.


In spite of the hurried rescue attempts of almost two score policemen early today, Edward F. Mahoney, 26, 40 Cranston st., Jamaica Plain, drowned after he fell or jumped from the Jamaica Pond boat landing.

The victim was in the water at the deep end of the float for only 12 minutes as police recovered his body from a boat. His wrist watch was stopped at 2:58, they said, and at 3:10 his body was on the float with the prone method of resuscitation being applied.

Police were first attracted to the scene by passing motorists who said they saw a man jump or fall into the pond. Two police cars from the Jamaica Plain division were dispatched to the landing as once and others from Roxbury followed.

A crowd of more than 100 persons gathered to watch the efforts of the police. Dr Fred W. Beering of South st., Jamaica Plain, pronounced the man dead.


Daily Boston Globe

September 11, 1939

Two Boys Find Body in Jamaica Pond.


The body of a man of more than middle age, which apparently had been in the water for many months, was found in Jamaica Pond, near the Burroughs Museum, by two 11-year-old boys yesterday afternoon.

Medical Examiner Timothy Leary said there appeared to be no evidence of foul play.

The man, about 6 feet 9 inches tall, wore a blue serge two-piece suit bearing the label of the Boston firm, blue shirt, shoes with no shoe-strings, and fine check socks held up by rubber bands.

The body was discovered by Edward Sarno, 11, of 22 Cranston st., and Thomas Goode, 11, of 28 Cranston st., Jamaica Plain.


Daily Boston Globe July 10, 1945

Mother of 2 Soldiers Drowns in Jamaica Pond.


The body of Mrs. Ruth Whelan, 48, of 102 Perkins st., Jamaica Plain, missing since Sunday, was recovered from Jamaica Pond late yesterday afternoon by police. Her husband told police at the time of her disappearance she had been upset for some time because her two sons, Lawrene J. Jr., and Robert J., were serving with the Arm in the Pacific area.


Boston Globe August 22, 1973

Jamaica Pond drowning victim still unidentified


Medical Examiner George Katsas of Southern Mortuary is seeking the identity of a man in his late 20s or 30s whose body was found in Jamaica Pond, Jamaica Plain.

Dr. Katsas said the man who drowned ws 5 feet 10 and 160 pounds with moderately long brown hair and sideburns but no moustache. The was wearing blue dungarees, a sport shirt, brown socks and tennis shoes when discovered in the cove section of the pond by two boys Sunday, July 22.




Boston Globe July 27, 1975

Jamaica Plain youth drowns in off-limits pond


Tyrone Smith was warned about the drop. He could go out to a certain point, but that was all. Tyrone, a nonswimmer, said he understood.

But he, like many others who swim in Jamaica Pond, yesterday wandered out a bit too far and he drowned.

"He couldn't swim," said his father, James Smith, of 28 Walden st., Jamaica Plain. "He went out too far, and now.... he's gone."

Tyrone, 17, who would have entered Boston English high in the fall, was walking around the edge of Jamaica Pond yesterday with two friends, Tom Perechodruk, 17, of 182 Heath st., Jamaica Plain, and Arthur Bone, 18, of 16 Shannon rd., Dorchester. The three decided to go for a swim, despite its being against regulations.

Perechodruk, the only swimmer of the three, later said he repeatedly told his friends where the drop was and warned them not to go out too far.

"I swam out, leaving Art and Tyrone behind," said Perechodruk last night. "While I was swimming around I saw Tyrone go under. I thought he was kidding around. I started to swim in when I felt Tyrone grab my legs. He didn't hang on. At this point, I knew he was beyond the ledge and wasn't kidding. I dove under after him, but didn't see him. I dove under again and again, but the water is so murky out there I just couldn't see him."

Perechodruk then called two men sitting of a bench for help. They went in, but they, too, did not find a trace of Tyrone.

Perechodruk told Bone to call the police. After they arrived, a scuba team was brought in and they found Tyrone about 30 feet offshore and 25 feet down. He was taken to Boston City Hospital, and pronounced dead there.

Despite posted signs and a general knowledge that swimming in Jamaica Pond is forbidden, "most kids figure the day is hot, why not go for a swim?" said Sgt. Joseph Regan of District 13. "That's mostly the kind of swimming that goes on out there."

"About 10 feet out there's a slight slant, then suddenly, it it just slopes," said Regan. "It drops to 20-25 feet in no time."

"He was a good boy," said Tyrone's father, his eyes red and swollen. "He was a good son and was good to his brothers and sisters.

"He loved track. He won a lot of medals out at the city races at Franklin Park. He was an athletic boy."

The End of a Commuting Era

I've often wondered when the local passenger train service to Boylston, Jamaica Plain (Green street), and Forest Hills ended. I've read somewhere that ridership had fallen off significantly by the end of World War I. I was under the assumption that my father used the Forest Hills station in my early childhood (vague memories of watching for the train from our back porch on Spalding street), but I suspected that the former two stations had been mothballed quite a bit earlier. Now I know - and I mis-remembered my father's 1960-era commute.

Daily Boston Globe July 30, 1940

Three Suburban B.& P. Stations to Close Sept. 30

Request to Abandon Boylston-St., Forest Hills, Jamaica Plain Approved

Abandonment of the Boylston st., Jamaica Plain and Forest Hills stations on the Boston and Providence stations of the Boston & Providence Railroad, effective Sept. 30, was approved yesterday by the State Department of Public Utilities at the request of the New Haven Railroad trustees, who operate the road.

The action follows a recent hearing conducted by the department, which found that the stations were not sufficiently patronized to justify operation. The three stations were among those closed July 17, 1938, by order of the United States District Court, and subsequently re-opened under order of the State Department last February.

"We are aware of the destructive possibilities of enforced continuation of passenger train stops where passengers have made little use of them or are adequately served by other means of transportation," said the commissioners, "and are strongly of the opinion that in the problem of determining the question of abandonment of passenger stations which are not well patronized consideration must be given to those stations made use of by the very substantial number of passengers to the end that the large pubic convenience may be served and requirements met."

The commissioners pointed out that other means of transportation were "reasonably available."

No Thanks to Urban Renewal for Jamaica Plain

Continuing my recent look into recent Jamaica Plain events, the story becomes depressing. As the disaster that would be the Southwest Expressway property-taking approached, Jamaica Plain residents were already up in arms over the threat of 'urban renewal.' These people had seen what urban renewal meant in Boston, and they wanted no part of it.

Boston Globe Aug.28, 1965

Renewal Foes Protest JP Plan

Urban renewal foes turned out in large numbers in Jamaica Plain Friday night to protest, often with boos and catcalls, what they regard as the malice of change.

A crowd of more than 2000 jammed the auditorium of the Mary E. Curley School, spilling out into the lobby and the street, for a sometimes tumultuous meeting that resulted in:

-- Hundreds of signatures on a petition demanding a change in state housing laws to permit a voter referendum on any urban renewal project that may be proposed for Jamaica Plain.

-- An expression of broad support for a neighborhood "cleanup, fixup program" independent of the Boston Redevelopment Authority - a plan advanced by Edward Dalton, president of the Jamaica Plain Action Committee.

"We'll have our own renewal program," said Dalton. "We don't need outsiders here in Jamaica Plain."

John Stainton, a B.R.A. planner representing Authority Director Edward Logue, and City Councilor George Foley, chairman of the City Council's Urban Renewal Committee, were interrupted repeatedly when they spoke.

Stainton told the emotion-charged crowd no large-scale demolition is contemplated for the area and the only thing under consideration was "a careful program of rehabilitation and improvement."

"But whether anyone likes it or not," Stainton said, Jamaica Plain is changing and, if you walk around the district, you'll find conditions that don't speak well for the future health of the neighborhood."

He said some property values had already declined drastically and others are being threatened.

George Foley was shouted down by cries of "you're a liar" and "you don't know nothin'" as he attempted to assure the crowd that "if you don't want urban renewal, you won't have to have it."

Foley was echoing Mayor Collins' assurances, given Friday, that there will be no urban renewal program for Jamaica Plain unless the residents of the area show strong support for it.

Several times, as Stainton and Foley pressed their points, Dalton had to take the microphone to plead with the crowd to give both men a fair hearing.

Foley himself asked his critics to "show some respect for the people who came here honestly to learn something."

Through the Eyes of the Boston Globe - 1967

This article was from a series produced in 1967 on the city's different districts. It is a window into the time, but don't take it without a grain of salt. The fact that they chose to feature a photo of a Lamartine street back yard, including laundry hanging on the clotheslines, should tell you something. I suppose there were muggings during those years in parts of Jamaica Plain, but I walked the streets those years in my neck of the woods, and I don't remember women living in fear of attacks. And people I talk to now reminisce about walking to the Pond, the Arboreteum, and travelling across the city on public transportation in those years without fear. In fact, times would get much worse in Jamaica Plain in the coming years, but in 1967 it hadn't happened yet.



Boston Globe, July 14, 1967

BOSTON: A Closeup of Its Neighborhoods, Its People and Its Problems


There is no one Jamaica Plain.

There are countless Jamaica Plains - the Jamaica Plain of the elderly Yankee widow and the poor white, of the old Irish precinct worker and the newly-arrived Portuguese laborer, of the owner-occupied three-decker and the dull, gray mansion turned into a nursing home.

Perhaps more than any other section of the city, Jamaica Plain is a cross-section of Boston a district whose 51,000 inhabitants go from the very top to the very bottom, both geographically and economically.

At the top is Moss Hill, one of the classiest sections of the city, whose fertile fields made up the estates of the Yankee Bowdithes and the Balches, fields now subdivided into split-levels and ranch homes, ranging from $20,000 to $60,000. The occupants are predominantly Catholic.

You go to Moss Hill by driving down a bucolic, suburban road from Brookline. You go through it on winding, tree-lined streets, featuring large lawns and single family homes.

Here are the homes of the professionals - the dentists, doctors, lawyers, real estate and insurance men. When you press their doorbells, you are answered by chimes, followed by housewives who will tell you that Pond st. should be straightened, the Arborway traffic should be slowed down, garbage should be collected twice wekly in the summer, a recreation area should be built for the kids.

They will tell you that Moss HIll is "an ideal neighborhood," well protected by a strong association that will allow no beauty parlors, funeral homes, schools, or anything else that does not fit into the scheme of things.

Move down from Moss Hill, and the roads become congested and bumpier; the neighborhoods more closely settled; the zoning mixed commercial and residential.

Cutting through the guts of Jamaica Plain is Centre st., the tributary for the district's blighted busines section, a bockmarked two-way avenue of potholes sliced down the middle by the Huntington av.trolley line.

West of Centre st. leading to Jamaica Pond, east of Centre st. leading to the railroad tracks and south of Centre st. in the Forest Hills area are the single-family, two-story and triple-decker hoomes that for years have given stability to Jamaica Plain.

Here lives the traditional Jamaica Plain resident, white Catholic (not necessarily Irish, perhaps Ukranian, Latvian, Italian), a skilled worker who pays between $75 and $100 rent (unheated) to live above his landlord in a three-decker worth $24,000 or so on the market.

But the contrast is not simply between Moss Hill and this vast working man's area.

On and around Amory st., for example, lower income Negroes, whites, Cubans and Puerto Ricans now mix with the older residents. A neighborhood committee meeting features Irish and Negro faces.

A block away from the well-clipped lawn at 56 Lochstead av., the home of Kenneth O'Donnell former aide to President Kennedy, is a smudged brick apartment ouse, where a white-haired woman lives along and wonders in the Winter whether the ice will be removed from the sidewalk so that she may go shopping.

Here, surrounded by stability and blight, are the landmarks and last bastions of an older society such as the Eliot School, a well-kept 191-year-old structure named after the Rev. John Eliot, who preached to the Indians, the Footlight Club, the oldest amateur theatrical club in America and Eliot Hall, where Margeurite Souther holds her dancing classes for debs.

Not far away are back streets were elderly women fear to tread lest they be mugged.

In this vast neighborhood is the home of Mayor John F. Collins, and here too are the midle income people who feel alienated from the city regardless of who the mayor may be.

They are people like Mrs Hugh O'Neill, of 70 Weld Hill st., a young mother born in Ireland and now living in her own home in the Forest Hills area.

Mrs. O'Neill is disgusted that halfway down her street are two triple-decker houses "that are a disgrace to the street." One is abandoned and boarded up. The other perhaps should be. They are examples of the blight that has begun to creep into the solid middle-income neighborhoods.

But the worst blight is at the bottom, across the tracks from Moss Hill and the middle-income areas.

You get there by picking up the train downtown at the Washington st. Station. In three of four minutes you are on the elevated, looking down on the South End and Roxbury, on vacant lots, rooftops splattered with broken glass, slums and rubble.


The train clacks rhythmically on the tracks. It hisses, It squeaks around turns. Egleston sq. In the distance are the projects, which are the very bottom.

When you ring the doorbells under the elevated on Washington st., you are answered not by chimes but often by silence. Silence because everyone is out working, or because everyone is too scared to answer the door, or because the ancient earphones and mouthpieces in the grimey apartment building no longer work.

When someone does answer the bell, he will not talk about tough zoning or ideal neighborhoods. He will speak little or ill of politicians. There is no candidate for mayor around the block.

There the merchants, the residents and workers talk of a friend mugged, a pocketbook snatched, a teenager drunk, a cop who wasn't there. A candidate - what's a candidate?

Alienated voters, the sociologists would say, and their kind are legion in a community once regarded as politically savvy, a community where you can still see the Jamaicaway home of James Michael Curley, the school named after his wife, and the oldtimers who remember the old pols.

But old pols die, and neighborhoods change. Jamaica Plain is changing.

Old Curtis Farm

I remember this old house beside the Curley school as a funeral home. Many such large old houses had been turned into funeral homes, nursing homes and fraternity houses by the 1960s, and most have now been recycled again into condos. The Curtis family was one of the first to settle Jamaica Plain, and the original homestead, located near today's Stony Brook T stop, survived to the 1880s. The story is that the first Curtis settled on the Centre street land in the 1720s with a horse and a slave. Later, one of his descendants would be one of the first tenants to sell produce at Quincy Market.

Boston Globe September 13, 1970

Old Curtis farm

Jamaica Plain mansion has 18th century flavor

Most of the inhabitants of Jamaica Plain wold be astounded by the changes made during the past 100 years in their pleasant community. In the Civil War period, this area was a part of West Roxbury. The city of Boston later separated the portion near Jamaica Pond to make the present-day suburb with its imposing mansions, built on ample, landscaped grounds.

Once Farm

All of this land, 100 acres or more, was the Curtis farm 250 years ago. It was owned by Joseph and Charles Curtis, brothers, who built the original house at 509 Center(sic) St, in 1721. This house is still standing by is swallowed up by the huge mid-Victorian structure that Charles E.Curtis added at the front several generations later, in 1862 [This is wrong. The JP Historical Society cites an 1882 date, which would make it an early shingle design].

To the casual passerby it's a typical three-story house of the period that was marked by grotesque architecture. It has all the gingerbread found in such houses and some features all its own. Shingles on two upper floors are cut in fanciful designs, each floor in a different pattern. A large dormer has an elaborate hand carving in a floral design. The tallest pinnacle of the roof is adorned with a bronze or copper griffin, covered with the green patina of age.

The exterior is substantially the same as the day it was built, but the interior has modern improvements, including hot water heat in the 14 rooms, to take over the function of the 10 fireplaces that were in use a century or so ago.

And inspection of the house shows some unusual features. The large rooms on the first floor have lofty ceilings and appear to have no doors, but each room can be shut off from the others by simply pressing a button in a partition. A handsome 1-2 paneled double door then slides out to close the opening into the next room.

Fireplaces

Each of the fireplaces has a mantel of different design in natural-grained hardwood.

The front entrance hall is probably unique in New England. It has a pipe organ on the stairway, whose console is 20 feet or more away in another room. Across the hall is the music room and the broad landing is lighted by two stained glass windows. A long maple settee is set against some fine oak paneling. The newel post is of hand-carved maple, as are the ornate balusters that support the rail of the winding stair.

A handsome antique crystal chandelier hangs from the ceiling. Bernard Gateley long a custodian of the house says it was rescued in 1862 from an old Boston dwelling that was being demolished.

When you step into the rear rooms you get the full early 18th century flavor. The ceilings are so low that a six-footer can lay the palm of his hand up against them. Summer beams, now encased, support the upper floors. The gunstock corner posts hold up long exposed timbers, all part and parcel of Early American post-and-plank construction. The rafters of the original attic are held together by wooden pegs. The smoking lounge in this section is paneled in wormy ash, no doubt an 1862 improvement.

The front yard of the half acre surrounding the Curtis house has the oldest beech tree in New England and also a large elm at least 300 years old.

The original Curtis farm extended north to Jamaica Pond and the Brookline town line; west to Beaufort rd. and east to Halifax st.

Early in the 1900s it was cut into house lots and the Jamaicaway was built through the backyard. Four other new streets were laid out - Lochstead av., Pershing rd., Moraine st. and Pond View av.

The residence of former Mayor James M. Curley is nearby, now a home of the Oblate Fathers, and the Mary E. Curley school, with its 20 new rooms, is virtually in the Gormley's backyard.