Vacant Elementary School Building in Jamaica Plain MA

Bowditch School, Jamaica Plain-Boston Massachusetts

Date added: February 18, 2024 Categories:

Green Street southwest, and southeast elevations (1988)

Do you have an update on the current status of this structure? Please tell us about it in the comments below.

The Bowditch School (1890-1892) was designed by the prominent local architect and politician, Harrison Henry Atwood (1863-1954). The architects' sensitivity to site is still evident today as may be seen in the scale, siting and use of materials for the school and its successful relationship to the 2- and 3-story frame, shingle and brick residential environment. The major exterior additions over the years were paired rear fire escapes and metal vent shaft covers, as well as fire doors inside the building. A 1943 fire resulted in damage to the third-floor auditorium, attic and roof, but repairs closely matched original details, with the exception of eliminating skylights over the stage.

Rich with cultural and historical associations for generations of Jamaica Plain residents, the Bowditch School was constructed during the development boom of the 1880s and 1890s which dramatically altered the composition of Jamaica Plain. Jamaica Plain has played an important role in the history of the Commonwealth dating back to pre-Revolutionary days. Originally known as "Jamaica Plain in Roxbury", the area was settled early on, initially as a small farming community within the larger Roxbury district.

Roxbury, with Jamaica Plain as a smaller community within its boundaries, was a hotbed of Revolutionary activity. Joshua Loring, for example, a prominent citizen and Loyalist, was forced to flee the country, leaving behind all possessions and the grand Loring-Greenough House when he would not renounce his allegiance to the Crown. Nearby at John Eliot Square, the grounds of the First Church in Roxbury were the scene of repeated cannon fire during the siege of Boston, and it was from the Church green that William Dawes began the second leg of his famous Midnight Ride of 1775.

Jamaica Plain developed a character of its own within the larger area of West Roxbury, which severed its ties with Roxbury proper in 1851. Sam Bass Warner, whose book Streetcar Suburbs helps understand the growth and development of Boston's suburbs, states: "During the 1820s a charming rural village grew up near Jamaica Pond and along the main street, Centre Street, which was formerly the highway to Dedham." This area, which came to be known as Jamaica Plain, was the political and social center of West Roxbury.

Jamaica Plain was sparsely populated until the second half of the 18^th century, when the area became a popular location for the summer estates of such notables as Governor Francis Bernard and John Hancock. A series of improvements in roads and turnpikes, ca. 1795-1830s, and the laying of the Boston and Providence Railroad, opened the doors for industrial growth. By the mid-19^th century, tanneries and breweries, such as the Haffenreffer Brewery, were familiar sights. In 1873, the citizens of West Roxbury voted to annex the town to the City of Boston.

The most striking physical change for Jamaica Plain occurred in the 1870s when streetcar lines were extended from Roxbury into West Roxbury along Washington and Centre Streets, making the area available to larger numbers of commuters. The streetcar lines dramatically changed the area by bringing real estate speculation, which resulted in increased residential, industrial, and municipal growth, thus making possible to many the "ideal" housing opportunities we now associate with suburban life. Warner notes that the suburbanization of Roxbury, West Roxbury, and Dorchester occurred in two waves, first from 1865-1873 and then during the 1880s-1890s. With this second wave of development in housing, came dozens of schools, libraries, and public buildings, of which the Bowditch School is a prime example. Franklin Park and the Arnold Arboretum were also being planned at this time, again providing evidence of tremendous civic commitment.

Built during this second wave of development on the site of an earlier frame schoolhouse, the Bowditch School represents the well-intentioned civic concerns of the day: increased attention was given to fireproof construction, adequate ventilation, and proper lighting. As part of Jamaica Plain's rich school inventory, the Bowditch School shows the pride the community took in educational structures at this time. This is evident in the high quality of design, not only of the Bowditch School, but also in other neighborhood educational buildings such as the earliest extant school in Jamaica Plain, the Eliot School (dedicated 1832), through the completion of the Margaret Fuller School (1891-1892) by Edmund M. Wheelwright, the Jamaica Plain High School (1901, 1920s) by Andrews, Jacques, and Rantoul, and the Mary E. Curley School (1931) by McLaughlin and Burr.

The urbanization (or suburbanization) of the Green Street section of Jamaica Plain began on July 27^th, 1836, when Samuel G. Goodrich of Roxbury, a gentleman, conveyed a large portion of his land and gardens to John Ashton and Theophilus Parsons, plus a trust including Charles W. Greene, Charles Bradley, Levi Haskell and others, on a 40-foot wide street "now being made" (referred to as Union Street) from Jamaica Plain to the Dedham Turnpike.

In June of 1837, a "Plan of House Lots at Jamaica Plain" by Alexander Wadsworth, Surveyor, appeared in the deeds with 30 lots of varying sizes grouped around "Willow Street" running northwest and southeast, crossing the Boston and Providence Railroad, and "Boston Avenue" running northeast from Willow Street. Part of lots 26 and 27 eventually became the Bowditch School site. Willow became Greene Street on August 14^th, 1837, and Boston Avenue was renamed Lamatine Street in 1848.

The Bowditch site is made up of three lots with different histories of ownership, acquired by the City of Boston at different times. The vacant northwest lot at the corner of Greene and Cheshire Streets was purchased from Roxbury carriage makers John E. and George H. Williams by Joseph Perry, carpenter, also of Roxbury, on October 7^th, thereon" to Josiah Capen of Boston, also a carriage maker. Charles E. Jackson acquired the house and lot in 1864 and eventually conveyed it to the City of Boston on February 27^th, 1890. The middle and southeast lots were acquired by Phillip Allens Senior and Junior from Charles W. Greene in 1844. Following a series of transactions, William Wellington, a West Roxbury trader, conveyed the middle lot to the Town of West Roxbury on June 27^th, 1863 for the construction of a primary school, which occurred soon thereafter. The land and building became City of Boston property when West Roxbury was annexed in 1874.

Those two lots formed the original site for the construction of the Bowditch School. Charles Jackson's house was probably demolished, but the wooden late Greek Revival schoolhouse was moved to the southeast adjacent property, where it still stands in an altered state abutting the Bowditch parking area. The third lot, which of late served as an asphalt-covered play area, was added to the site on April 22^nd, 1926, when the city took the property from Alice E. Fowler for unpaid taxes.

Built with what were considered to be the finest materials of the day, granite, North River stone and sandy-colored brick, the Bowditch School is a well-proportioned, carefully detailed building exhibiting an imaginative interplay of the materials, especially on the central pavilion on Greene Street. The fenestration is well composed and made integral to the structure by the stone trim. The interior spaces are generous and airy, with well-detailed woodwork in all rooms and graceful plaster arches in the central corridors. The scale, siting, and materials of the Bowditch School as a whole relate well to the immediate neighborhood which features a comfortable mix of residential and institutional (or former institutional) uses such as the old Jamaica Plain Police Station, designed by George A. Clough ca. 1873, and the Municipal Court, designed by Edmund M. Wheelwright ca. 1890. Both are located a short distance from the Bowditch School on Seaverns Avenue.

The Bowditch School was the recipient of local patronage and alumni support. The Boston Art Commission, in its annual reports, lists several items of artistic note within the Bowditch School. For example, the artist Walter Gilman Page (1862-1934), organizer of the Public School Art League, had two portraits on display at the Bowditch School. A portrait of Charles Willard Hill (1834-1896), the first master of the Bowditch School from 1890-1896 and a Jamaica Plain resident, hung in the Assembly Room. It was purchased in 1898 "with the proceeds of an entertainment arranged by school." A Memorial Service was held in Jamaica Plain's Curtis Hall to commemorate Hill in November 1896. An account in the Boston Herald, entitled "Record of a Usefull Life", reported that the hall was Filled to capacity with present and former pupils as well as school committee members. Hill was obviously a well-liked and respected Jamaica Plain citizen.

Hill's tenure was followed by that of Edward Schuerch, who was master of the Bowditch School from 1896 until at least 1926. His long reign saw many changes in the school, including the change from a Girls Grammer School (Grades 4-9) to an Elementary School (Grades 1-3) in 1907. In the mid-1920s, the Bowditch became an Intermediate School.

While Hill and Schuerch are both important individuals in the history of the Bowditch School's development, Dr. Elizabeth Catherine Keller, while not a graduate of the school apparently had close ties with it. Keller (1837-1912) was, according to a page-one obituary in The Boston Evening Transcript of 29^th November 1912, "One of the first four women in the world to study and practice surgery." Keller was Superintendent for the Home for Friendless Children in Philadelphia, going on to establish a hospital and dispensary in 1871, also in Philadelphia. She was called to succeed Susan Dimmock at New England Hospital for Women in Roxbury in 1875. She was a resident surgeon there until ca. 1900. Keller had established a private practice in Jamaica Plain by 1877. From 1899 on, Keller took a keen interest in the Boston School Board, representing the 24^th Ward on the School Committee. She donated a 3/4 portrait of herself (also by Walter Gilan Page mentioned above) to the Bowditch School during the 1890s. Keller first lived at Greene and Lamartine Streets, a short distance from the school, and later built a mansion at Rockview and Greene Streets, also only a few blocks away. That she probably felt a civic responsibility as a successful woman surgeon to the young women and girls of the Bowditch School is quite likely.

Throughout its construction, the school was referred to as a "Hillside District Grammar School", first appearing as the "Bowditch School" in the 1892 report of the Architects Department by Edmund M. Wheelwright. The architect for the Bowditch School was Harrison Henry Atwood (1863-1954). Atwood had a long and distinguished career not only as an architect, but also as a politician.

Born in North Londonderry, Vermont, Harrison Atwood came to Boston as a young man and was educated in Boston schools. Before training as an architect, he began his career in the law offices of Godfrey, Morse and John R. Bullard. Deciding instead to pursue a career in architecture, Atwood apprenticed with the well-known New England architect, Samuel J.F. Thayer (1842-1893) for three and a half or four years. Richard Herndon, in his 1892 compilation, Boston of Today, states that Atwood was with Thayer for four years followed by "a year or more" with former city architect George Clough (1843-1916). Atwood left Clough to begin his own practice in 1886, when he was first listed under "Architects" in the Boston Directory, with an office at 22 School Street, where he remained through 1889. From 1891 through 1894 he rented space in the Stock Exchange Building at 53 State Street and was back on School Street at Number 13 in 1896. Atwood's name did not appear again in the Directory's classified section until the period from 1911 to 1920, when his home address at 61 Alban Street, Dorchester, was listed.

Harrison Atwood undoubtedly had thorough, high-quality training which, in combination with his own talent, enabled him to set up his own practice at a young age as well as to qualify for the prestigious position of City Architect in 1889 at age twenty-six. Before taking over as City Architect, Atwood completed the following solo projects: the First National Bank building in Chelsea (1888), for $100,000; a Baptist church on Woodlawn Avenue, Chelsea; a large warehouse on Friend Street, Boston; and a dozen houses in Ashmont between Dudley Street and the Milton line.

While establishing his architectural practice, Atwood was also involved in politics as a State Representative, serving his first full term from 1887 to 1889. He was the Republican Representative of Ward 8, West End. Atwood participated on the liquor, mercantile affairs, and building department committees. He continued to be active in local and state Republican politics until late in his life.

Building Description

The Bowditch School, 80-82 Green Street, at the corner of Green and Cheshire Streets, occupies a prominent position near the MBTA Orange Line Green Street station in Jamaica Plain, Boston, Massachusetts. Basically rectangular in plan, the free-standing, 3-story-plus-basement Classical Revival structure of sandy-colored brick with North River stone sills, lintels and string courses, rises from its high quarry-faced granite base with hammered granite coping, to a modillion block cornice of North River stone and a gray-slate-covered hipped roof.

The primary Green Street facade features a slightly projecting central pavilion rising from a dignified tripartite portico with pillars and pilasters supporting a granite and North River stone entablature. Paired stairways, flanked by heavy granite railings that rise from a granite monument in the center, lead to the recessed entry porch, from which two sets of double wood panel doors, surrounded by small-paned transoms and sidelights, lead into the building. Shallow windows with North River stone sills and lintels are grouped in twos on the central segment and threes on the flanking wings, with single windows immediately abutting the central pavilion. A stone string course forming the second-floor lintels encircles the entire building. Third-floor central windows are paired within masonry openings and are topped with small-paned, round-arched transoms. The entire central facade above the spring of the transom arches is of North River stone with voussoirs fanning out above each transom. The windows throughout the building with few exceptions contain 4/4 double-hung wood sash.

The rear elevation is similarly organized with a projecting central segment flanked by wings, but with less elaborate detail. Windows are paired on the first two floors of the center portion and united in groups of fours by continuous stone sills and lintels on all three levels of the wings. Unusual corner oriels with single windows join the three elements at the third level. There is no portico or significant rear entrance. Paired fire escapes, which are later additions, detract from the rhythm of the rear elevation.

The side elevations are without projecting elements, punctuated only by window groups and modest double-door entrances flanked by multi-paned sidelights. Rising from these entrances in continuous columns to the cornice are a series of paired windows alternately small-paned fixed sash and 4/4 double-hung sash. Groups of four and three windows with continuous sills and lintels at all levels flank the central column.

An iron picket fence along Green Street remains largely intact, giving the school a residential rather than institutional air.

Above the modillion-block cornice rises a hipped roof of slate in three parts, with the two wing segments butting into the slightly raised central section. Rising dramatically from the roof are two towering brick vent stacks with stone trim and wide hip-roofed metal canopies. These are joined by two smaller brick and stone chimneys plus a circular iron chimney with a conical top. The rear portion of the roof, which slopes only slightly, was originally of copper but is now of built-up tar and gravel. The gutters and flashing are of copper.

The lot area is 29,536 square feet. The front and rear dimensions of the building are 114.5 feet, side dimensions are 78.5 feet. The central portion is 92.4 feet deep. The ridge of the central pavilion is 62 feet above grade.

Vertically the interior is divided into four levels plus an attic. The three lower levels are each organized around a generous central corridor, with the third-floor top level bisected by a large auditorium, originally an "Exhibition Hall". Cast iron staircases, with ball-topped newels and twisted balusters, behind the vertical window columns on the southeast and northwest sides of the building connect all levels.

The basement, with its painted brick perimeter walls and partitions, is essentially utilitarian and without detail.

All rooms on the three main floors contain the same treatment of surfaces: narrow maple strip flooring, plaster walls and ceilings, beaded-board wainscotting over high baseboards, four-panel wood doors and casings, many with four-light transoms, horizontal moldings above the blackboards and at the ceilings in classrooms, and, in the first and second-floor central corridors, plaster arches with beaded corners. Central corridors on the first and second floors lead to all significant rooms. There are two entrance vestibules with marble floors on the first floor, flanking a reception room at the front of the building. There are large classrooms in all four corners, each with seven windows and each with its long narrow wardrobe, plus a fifth classroom in the center rear. Staircases can be seen through steel and glass partitions (later additions) at either end of the central corridor on the first and second floors. The second floor is similar to the first floor except that a classroom and master's room replace the vestibules and reception room. The ceiling height in classrooms is 13 feet.

Corner classrooms and staircases on the third floor are similar to those below, but the central pavilion contains a large open auditorium with a stage and proscenium, plus wardrobes beside the stage and small rooms to the rear. The 20.6-foot-high auditorium is entered through double doors from the staircase and classroom halls at the northwest and southeast ends of the building. The auditorium is relatively unadorned, with only the wainscot found throughout the building and some simple panel moldings on the walls. A sloping floor was added at some point after construction. The proscenium arch is flat with rounded corners. There is no fixed seating in the auditorium.

The attic is unfinished, with wood rafters, trusses, and collar beams exposed. The floor level rises over the auditorium. It is accessible only by ladder.

In addition to the moldings, wainscotting and other high-quality architectural details, interior items of note include cast iron newels on the staircases, cabinet work in the master's room, a plaster frieze in the second floor corridor, donated by the Class of 1904, and a plaster-cast reproduction of the Liberty Bell, donated by William A. Filene, of department store fame, and mounted in the first-floor entry vestibule ca. 1918. Mr. Filene generously commissioned twelve of these casts which were placed in public schools of the city.

The Bowditch School, declared surplus property by the City of Boston in July of 1981, has been vacant since that time. It has fared reasonably well, although suffering some water damage, graffiti inside and out, broken windows and minor vandalism.