Ghosts & Shadows of Automobile Row

If you missed my 9/15 conversation with WBUR’s Sharon Brody about Commonwealth Avenue’s Automobile Row in Boston and Brookline, the talk/slideshow is now available on the station's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYpoghQ1laU&t=1s

Ghost Building #4 Revealed

The gas station shown below, which began as an auto supply store in 1922, stood at 720 Washington Street, just north of Beacon Street behind what is now the Fireplace restaurant. (The auto supply business actually began in the space now occupied by the restaurant, in 1917.)

The building was torn down in 1998 and replaced by a parking lot. But the cupola from the gas station was saved through the efforts of Barbara Soifer, long-time owner of The Little Swiss House jewelry store.  (Soifer was know as "the mayor of Washington Square" for her efforts to reshape and promote the neighborhood.)

Soifer's dream to restore the cupola was not realized before her death from cancer in 2009. But friends and neighbors saw her idea through to fruition, and the cupola was installed in 2010 on the Beacon Street median, across from the Fireplace, and dedicated in Soifer's memory on First Light 2011.

• "Barbara Soifer, fierce advocate for Washington Square, dies." Wicked Local Brookline, May 18, 2009
• "Friends, neighbors to restore gas station cupola in Brookline merchant's memory." Wicked Local Brookline, October 15, 2009
• "A new icon for Washington Square." Brookline Patch, November 28, 2010

Ghost Building #4: Brookline Gas Station

This Brookline gas station began life in 1922 as the Daniel Carr & Co. auto supply store, selling tires and other automotive goods. It became a Beacon Oil gas station in 1930, then Colonial Beacon Oil and later a Gulf station. It is shown here as the Speedwell filling station and auto repair shop.

The building was torn down in 1998. But like the other "Ghost Buildings of Brookline" in this series, a piece of it remains behind.  

Do you know what and where it is? Check back next week for the answer.

Photo courtesy of Brookline Preservation Office. 

Boston Globe ad for Daniel Carr Co. auto supply store, June 16, 1929

Ghost Building #3: Brookline Baptist Church

The Brookline Baptist Church on Beacon Street was the fourth building to serve as home to the Baptists, Brookline's second oldest congregation. Designed by architect Julius Schweinfurth, the church was built in 1907.

It was demolished in 1973, a few years after the Baptist Church merged with two other congregations to form United Parish.

As with all of the "Ghost Buildings of Brookline" in this series, a part of the original building remains. In this case, there are two pieces of the building to be found: one on the original grounds of the church and another nearby.

Do you know where and what they are?

Ghost Building #2: Sights (& Sounds) of the Past

When NYNEX, successor to New England Telephone, replaced its 1916 building on Marion Street with a new one next door it left something behind.

The entrance to the old building was preserved and now serves as a gateway to the residences at 25 Marion Street.

History was made in the old building, the first automated exchange in New England. It was where the sounds of the dial tone, the ring signal, and the busy signal were first introduced to Brookline and the region.

The article below, first posted here in 2009, tells the story.  

Check back tomorrow for another "Ghost Building of Brookline."

Before smart phones, before cell phones, before keypads and answering machines and area codes, before much of what think of when we think of telephones today, Brookline played a part in the introduction of a major innovation in telephone technology.

At midnight on the night of July 14, 1923, some 1,800 customers of the Aspinwall exchange office on Marion Street become the first in New England to be able to make calls themselves without having to speak first to an operator.

The customers had been supplied with new dial telephones (like the one at left). Phone company representatives visited people's homes to show them how to use the new devices, and instructions were distributed in flyers and through the newspapers.

The method is very simple [according to instructions published in the local paper]. You remove the receiver from the hook and listen for a steady humming sound known as the dial-tone, which is the equivalent of the operator's "Number, please?" After hearing this dial-tone, which comes on the line almost as soon as you place the receiver to your ear, you place your finger in the hole through which the first letter of the central office designation appears and turn the dial around to the finger stop. Then remove the finger and let the dial return to rest.

The newsreel below shows how the dialing method was explained to customers in another city several years later.



Direct dialing was made possible by new automated switching technology installed in the Marion Street exchange office. Prior to the change, callers would tell an operator the number they wanted to call, and the operator, plugging jacks into switchboards, would manually make the connection for them.

Automated switching equipment was available as early as 1896, but the dominant Bell System resisted the change. Bell's first dial phones were installed in Norfolk, Virginia in 1919, four years before Brookline. The new equipment spread slowly to other parts of the country. The last non-dial phones in the U.S. were not converted to dial until 1978.

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Further Reading

• "New Aspinwall telephone exchange to be opened shortly." Brookline Chronicle, May 12, 1923.  (On microfilm in the Brookline Public Library)
• "Machine switching telephone system for large metropolitan areas." Bell System Technical Journal, April 1923.
• The History of AT&T
• The Evolution of the Dial Telephone

Ghost Building #2: Telephone Exchange Building

This building of the New England Telephone & Telegraph Company was constructed 1916-17. In 1923, it became the first telephone exchange in New England with automated equipment letting people place calls without having to speak first to an operator.

Brookline Chronicle, June 9, 1923

The building was torn down more than 20 years ago but a piece of it, visible in this 1923 newspaper illustration, remains.  Do you know where it is?

Check back next week for the answer and for another "Ghost Building of Brookline."

Ghost Building #1: What Remains Today

Last week I asked what part of the old Courthouse and Police Station, torn down in 1963, remains and where it can be found.

The remaining piece is the architectural element seen above the entrance in the black and white photo of the courthouse above. You'll find it today, a couple of blocks from its original location, in the little triangle at the intersection of Washington and Harvard Streets.

Tomorrow, another "ghost building" of Brookline, a long-gone edifice that's left a little bit of itself behind.

Ghost Buildings of Brookline: #1

You don't have to believe in ghosts to find specters from the past lurking in town, signs of things that are no longer here.

From Coolidge Corner to Washington Square to Whiskey Point and elsewhere, vanished buildings retain a presence (if only a small one) long after they're gone.

Once a week or so, we'll present a picture of a Brookline building that can be discovered only on old maps and in old photographs — and in remnants or fragments still here in town.

Do you know where the ghost of the building below can be found? We'll present the answer, along with another ghost building, next week.

Click for supersize view

Municipal Courthouse and Police Station

Washington Street, Brookline Village

Constructed 1900. Demolished 1963.

1913 map. Click map for larger view