JJ Gonson is a photographer known for her work documenting a variety of live music performances by punk and hardcore bands at various venues in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A Cambridge native herself, Gonson began photographing bands in the 1980s while studying photography at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. A chance meeting with Mike Gitter, the current Century Media Records’ vice president A&R and the creator of the fanzine xXx on Cambridge’s punk scene, led JJ to create a significant body of work focused on several local venues.
Descendents, performing at TT the Bear’s Place in Cambridge. Photo taken from the JJ Gonson Photograph Collection.fIREHOSE, performing at TT the Bear’s Place in Cambridge. Photo taken from the JJ Gonson Photograph Collection.Descendents, performing at TT the Bear’s Place in Cambridge. Photograph taken from the JJ Gonson Photograph Collection. fIREHOSE, performing at TT the Bear’s Place in Cambridge. Photo taken from the JJ Gonson Photograph Collection.
One of the most well-known was TT the Bear’s Place, formerly located at 10 Brookline St in Central Square, a prominent spot beloved by its patrons. TT’s hosted local bands as well as household names such as California punk rock band Descendents. TT’s thrived at the center of the local music scene during this time and was a local favorite up until its closure in July of 2015.
Photo taken in Ferranti Dege in Cambridge of JJ Gonson (left) and a friend. Photographer unknown. Photo taken from the JJ Gonson Photograph Collection.Photo taken in Ferranti Dege in Cambridge. Photo taken from the JJ Gonson Photograph Collection.Photo taken in Ferranti Dege in Cambridge. Photo taken from the JJ Gonson Photograph Collection.
As a Cambridge resident, Gonson’s work also features many of the city’s local businesses and prominent landmarks. The businesses in and around Harvard Square, as well as the university itself, appear in the collection alongside her punk and hardcore music subjects. The city’s famed Mount Auburn Cemetery, the earliest example of a garden cemetery in the United States, is documented as well. Gonson’s family and friends, as well as photographs of her home, also feature heavily in her work.
Hullabaloo, performing at TT the Bear’s Place in Cambridge. Photo taken from the JJ Gonson Photograph Collection.Hullabaloo, performing at TT the Bear’s Place in Cambridge. Photo taken from the JJ Gonson Photograph Collection.fIREHOSE, performing at TT the Bear’s Place in Cambridge. Photo taken from the JJ Gonson Photograph Collection. Hullabaloo, performing at TT the Bear’s Place in Cambridge. Photo taken from the JJ Gonson Photograph Collection.
The collection consists of primarily black and white photographic negatives, but also contains color negatives, photographic prints and contact sheets. A finding aid is available on ArchivesSpace, and the collection is open and available for research at the Cambridge Historical Commission.
Today’s post was written by CHC volunteer, Jordan Shaw.
John Muldoon, undated photograph. Image courtesy of Tracy (Halliday) Reusch.
John E. Muldoon, a furniture designer and self-taught architect, was born in East Cambridge in November 1864, the first child of William H. and Catherine (McKeever) Muldoon. William had been born in the neighborhood in 1840. When the Civil War began in 1861, the 21-year-old enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army; in 1864, during the long Siege of Petersburg, Virginia, William suffered a severe wound to his left arm, which was so damaged it had to be amputated. He was mustered out that same year and returned to Cambridge; he was home when John was born. The family lived on Fifth Street in East Cambridge; John’s only sister, Sarah, was born in 1866, his brother Samuel in 1872, and his youngest brother, William, in 1888. William the father worked at the nearby New England Glass Company, and later opened a tavern, “The Cosmopolitan,” on Cambridge Street, and even became a teacher. He died in 1898.
Advertisement for William Muldoon’s tavern, ‘The Cosmopolitan’, Cambridge Chronicle, July 1884.
John Muldoon attended local public schools and was apprenticed as a carpenter while a young man. In 1887, he married Margaret A. Fay; the next year, they welcomed a son, called Willie. John began work as a furniture designer for the esteemed firm of Irving & Casson and could walk to work from his home, a double house he rented with his parents on Fifth Street.
Example design by Irving and Casson – A. H. Davenport — Historic New England Collections. Flower Box of Mahogany c.1900.
John was hired by his landlord to design and oversee construction of a new double-house to replace the existing building there. This would be John’s first known foray into the architecture field. The double house at 41-43 Fifth Street was built with modest proportions but exhibits more detail than many surrounding tenements of the time. Today many of the building’s Classically inspired elements are covered in vinyl siding, yet Muldoon’s affection for Classical design is still apparent in the original pilasters in the Ionic style that frame the two entrances under deeply overhanging eaves. An image from the 1960s (below) shows the original pilaster detailing at the bay windows with swags in the entablatures. He and his young family would occupy one unit with his mother and father living in another unit. This first known building commission for John Muldoon would set off a short, yet significant career as an architectural designer in Cambridge.
Muldoon family home, 41-43 Fifth Street. Before covered with vinyl siding. CHC Staff photograph 1965.
In 1892 John Muldoon, with no architectural training or academic degree, submitted the lowest bid for a new firehouse in East Cambridge and was awarded the contract. The brick structure, described in newspapers as being in the “Doric style,” was built on the corner of Otis and Third streets across from the Middlesex County Courthouse. The station, with its 85-foot hose drying tower, space to accommodate six horses, and (ironically) a smoking room for the firefighters, stood for just three years: in 1895 it and the rest of the block bounded by Cambridge, Otis, Second, and Third streets were razed to make way for the new Middlesex County Registry of Deeds.
“New” Ward 3 Fire Station designed by John Muldoon in 1892. It was demolished less than three years later. Cambridge Chronicle, May 7, 1892.
Muldoon was then hired by the City to design another fire station just a few blocks away at the corner of Gore and Third streets. Architecturally, the second station shares many similarities with the earlier building with a stronger emphasis on Colonial Revival design with bold pilasters and pediment. Historically, the building also exhibited a Palladian window on the second floor. The former station stands today as a noteworthy institutional project in Muldoon’s early architectural career and is likely to have gained him important future commissions in Cambridge, despite his lack of professional credentials.
Engine 3, 29 Third Street, as completed. City of Cambridge Annual Report, 1896.Engine 3, 29 Third Street, 2017.
Muldoon’s first major project outside East Cambridge came in 1894 when a young couple James and Mary Heffernan hired him to design a large residence at the corner of Cambridge Street and Highland Avenue. The dwelling, while clearly Colonial Revival in its detailing, features a more traditional Queen Anne corner tower capped with a conical roof. Its prominent site and handsome design may have helped Muldoon attract the attention of affluent Mid and West Cambridge residents, who might otherwise have overlooked the work of a furniture designer from modest East Cambridge. Upper- and middle-class residents took notice of Muldoon’s high-quality designs, which were as good as those of major architectural firms—and cost a lot less.
Heffernan Residence, 81 Highland Avenue.
In 1895 while overseeing the construction of the second fire station, Muldoon was hired by Jeremiah W. Coveney, a former undertaker, Cambridge City Councillor, and State Senator, to design a dignified single-family home at the corner of Otis and Sixth streets. The design stood out in East Cambridge: a single-family detached house was a rarity in the dense neighborhood of tenements and rowhouses as were houses in the Colonial Revival style. The symmetrical design features two-story rounded bays flanking the central entry portico with a Palladian window above. Alterations in 1992, when the building was used as a funeral home, obscured some of the original detailing, but the Colonial Revival motifs largely remain intact.
Jeremiah Coveney House, 140 Otis Street, before renovations (1967).Jeremiah Coveney House, 140 Otis Street, after renovations (2021).
From 1895, John suffered a series of personal tragedies which put most of his projects on hold. In 1895 John and Margaret’s only child, Willie, died of diphtheria at age six. A year later, Margaret died while in Saratoga Springs, New York. After their deaths, John accepted a few small jobs in East Cambridge such as alterations to a neighbor’s house on Fifth Street, two renovations on Otis Street, and designing a stable on Gore Street (since demolished). In 1898 John lost his father.
During these somber years, John met Ellen Frances O’Connell (1875-1920), a first-generation Irish immigrant who lived with her father and mother in East Cambridge. Her father, John Patrick O’Connell, was for years the advertising agent for the Sacred Heart Review, a prominent Catholic publication that was active from 1888 to 1918. John and Ellen married in 1900 and would have six children together: five daughters (Helen, Catherine, Mary, Sarah, and Betty) and one son, John E. Muldoon, Jr.
The year before the marriage, Thomas J. Casey, the Chief of the Cambridge Fire Department, commissioned John to design a residence for his family on Lexington Avenue. The Casey’s stately, Colonial Revival double-house, a stone’s throw from the recently built Engine 9 Fire Station (1896), which was not designed by Muldoon. The Casey Residence exhibits Muldoon’s exceptional understanding on Colonial-inspired design with its rounded bays, a columned portico, and intricate trim detailing on the façade and dormers. Inside, five types of wood were laid as flooring in distinct patterns and colors.
Chief Thomas Casey House, 166-168 Lexington Avenue.
John’s craftsmanship (and low costs) impressed developers in Mid-Cambridge, who commissioned him to design multiple properties in the neighborhood. In 1901 he designed three adjacent double-houses at 27-29, 31-33, and 35-37 Highland Avenue for the owner-developer John Elston. The three unique residences are an eclectic blend of Queen Anne and Colonial Revival influences and today are in varied states of preservation. Elston also hired Muldoon that year to design a duplex at 14-16 Ellsworth Park, a short dead-end street.
During his career designing buildings all over Cambridge, John remained employed as a designer at Irving & Casson. Though he split his time between roles as architect and designer, his employers at Irving & Casson must have given him their blessing; as in 1903, John was hired by them to plan and design a four-story, four-bay addition to the company’s plant, that would be modest in size and located in the central corridor screened from Otis and Thorndike streets.
Irving & Casson Factory with Muldoon-designed addition from 1903 highlighted.
John Muldoon’s last known project in Cambridge was the two-family house he designed for himself and his family. In 1909 he purchased a house lot on Lexington Avenue from the heirs of his former client, Fire Chief Thomas J. Casey and erected the grand Colonial Revival style structure one sees today. The two-family house boasts a large, gambrel roof with its gable end facing the street, elaborate columned porticos surmounted by balustrades topped with urns, and bold corner quoins.
John Muldoon House (1909), 146-148 Lexington Avenue.
John Muldoon’s legacy in Cambridge cannot be overstated. He progressed from carpenter’s apprentice and furniture designer to a twenty-year career designing houses and buildings in Cambridge. Some of the city’s best examples of Colonial Revival-style houses were designed and built by Muldoon, the self-taught architect.
While he seemingly retired from the architecture profession following the completion of his own home on Lexington Avenue, he remained employed at Irving & Casson until his death in 1937. He was 72 years old.
Muldoon House (center left) and neighboring Chief Casey House (right) on Lexington Avenue.
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Ferdinand Friedrich (Frederick) Adrian Bruck was born on January 24, 1921, in Breslau, Germany (present-day Wroclaw, Poland) the son of Eberhard Ferdinand Bruck and Irmgard Jentzsch Bruck. At the age of 15, Ferdinand left Germany for England and enrolled at the Bootham School in York, England. As they had means to do so, Bruck’s family fled Germany due to the growing antisemitic ideology seen there. Ferdinand Bruck was listed as “Hebrew” in his immigration documents, and his father fled Germany as a “refugee scholar”, the latter finding work elsewhere in Europe and eventually landing in the United States accepting a teaching position at Harvard.
Bruck in his Harvard Freshman Yearbook, 1937.
In 1937, Ferdinand Bruck arrived in Cambridge to attend Harvard University, his freshman dorm room was in Matthews Hall in Harvard Yard. His education was interrupted by World War II when he was drafted. Before leaving for the War, he and his girlfriend attended the Cocoanut Grove Nightclub in Boston, the night where the infamous fire occurred, which claimed the lives of 490 people. Bruck helped people escape from the blaze. He was hospitalized as a result of the fire and ensuing panic, and his departure for war was delayed. From the hospital, Bruck applied to the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) and was accepted.
Aftermath of Cocoanut Grove fire, Boston, November 1942. Boston Public Library collections.
He attended GSD during the spring and summer of 1942 but had to leave soon after for the war. He served in the US Army’s Military Intelligence Service unit back in his home country of Germany. Mr. Bruck spent the end of 1942-1945 overseas. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1943 while serving.
Draft registration card for Ferdinand Friedrich Adrian Bruck. Ancestry.com
After the war, Mr. Bruck completed his time at GSD, where he learned Modernist design under Walter Gropius, a fellow German architect. During the summers, he apprenticed at the engineering firm of Stone & Webster, a major electrical engineering firm, designing power plants, dams, and other such structures along with the other estimated 800 fellow draughtsman at the company. Bruck would state in a later interview that it was not a good experience, but he learned something.
Ferdinand F. Bruck’s senior picture in Harvard yearbook.
After graduating from Harvard GSD, Bruck taught at the school part-time as an Associate Professor, a position he held from 1952-1963. Concurrently, he was hired by The Architects Collaborative under former professor Walter Gropius and assisted on designs with the firm as well as accepting independent commissions under his company, F. Frederick Bruck, Architect and Associates.
After his time at Harvard, Bruck was awarded the coveted Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship in 1954 and had the opportunity to travel the world, studying Modern architecture. Upon his return to the United States, Mr. Bruck married Phoebe Ann Mason (more on her later) and the couple purchased and moved into a new home at 77 Walker Street in Cambridge, a modest Queen Anne Victorian house built in 1885. Bruck’s Modernist sensibilities were toned down for his personal updates to his residence with a simple one-story porch and entry, new windows at the sides and rear, and a renovated interior. The exterior was largely maintained which likely made the neighbors happy at the time!
77 Walker Street, the home to Fred and Phoebe Bruck until the 1970s.
In 1959, Bruck received possibly his first commission in Cambridge by Peter Knapp, a psychiatrist at 77 Raymond Street, who sought an addition where he could hold meetings with clients. The house which was sited at the rear of the lot was reconstructed from an existing stable in 1938 on its existing site in the Colonial Revival style. F. Frederick Bruck envisioned an elongated Miesian-style one-story wing which would project off the side of the 1938 home. The glass addition and solid fence would create a private, inner courtyard which was landscaped to provide a feeling of solace and serenity to his patients when they visited the home. A meandering path was added to connect the driveway and detached garage to the house at the rear of the lot. Bruck was also commissioned to construct a new addition at the rear of the existing garage for Knapp’s wife’s art studio and storage space. The overall composition is not visible from the street.
Drawing by F. Frederick Bruck of “Knapp House Addition”, (1960) 77 Raymond Street. Cambridge ISD Plans.
Fred Bruck’s first major new construction project in Cambridge is a project that almost never was. When renovating a 1922 house on Gray Gardens East, the owners were heartbroken to learn a fire reduced their home down to the foundation. The owners, Harvard Professor I. Bernard Cohen and Frances Davis Cohen retained Bruck in 1962 to design them a new house. In rebuilding, Fred Bruck used the same foundation from the original house, but more vertical in a townhouse form. A requirement by the owners was for large expanses of side walls without windows to give the Cohens the space they needed for paintings and Professor Cohen’s large library, which was located on the top floor overlooking mature trees. A special design feature of the house in the front hall with its arched entrance, a nod to the Federal Revival fan light transoms, and on the inside, an 18-foot-high ceiling. The façade is dominated by an exterior chimney, further accentuating the verticality of the design.
22 Gray Gardens East, CHC Staff photograph.
22 Gray Gardens East front elevation drawing (1962)22 Gray Gardens East rear elevation drawing (1962)
About the same time Bruck designed the Cohen House, he was engaged in one of the largest design competitions in the country, the Boston City Hall competition. In October 1961, Mayor John Collins announced that the City of Boston would select the design for its new City Hall through an open, nationwide design competition. By the deadline, over 200 submissions were received, and eight finalists were selected, including one from the team of F. Frederick Bruck and Ervin Y. Galantay (a visiting architecture professor at Harvard GSD at the time). The duo’s design was a large, square building elevated on columns, with an expansive plaza surrounding. The building was on an elevated plaza which was connected to the larger open space by a bridge leading to a circular reflecting pool. The design was ultimately not chosen by the panel, who instead selected the design by the young team of Kallmann McKinnell & Knowles.
Proposed architectural model for Boston City Hall designed by “F Frederick Bruck and Ervin Y Galanty” (1962). Courtesy of Boston City Archives.
Within a year after he lost the design competition for Boston City Hall, Fred Bruck was commissioned by Alan and Claire Steinert to design them a new residence in the Reservoir Hill area of West Cambridge. Alan Steinert of the Steinert Piano family and his wife Claire were in their sixties and when they purchased the former Charles C. Little House on Highland Street, they decided it was too large and dated for their tastes. It was demolished and Fred Bruck was hired to design a one-story Modern house to accommodate the aging couple, their art collection, and allow for social gatherings. The couple insisted on having the latest technologies, including central air-conditioning, radiant heating, and low voltage lighting to highlight their artworks. The design was featured in Architectural Record’s annual Record Houses, highlighting the best residential project designs of the past year. Describing the construction of the house, Frederick Bruck said “the house is wood frame with dark brick veneer. Brick was chosen to blend with the substantial character of the surrounding houses, to reduce maintenance, and because it is a material which could meet the sloping terrain. Wood frame was chosen for economy and to facilitate construction during the winter months.” The building remains one of the best examples of 1960s residential designs in Cambridge.
64 Highland Street, 2016.
F. Frederick Bruck and his wife Phoebe moved from their Walker Street home to Coolidge Hill Road in the mid-1970s, modernizing a 1920s brick Colonial Revival house for their retirement. Other projects by Fred Bruck include the 1966 Bullfinch Office Center (remodeled in the late 1980s in the Post-Modern style by Graham Gund), the 1970 Charlestown Fire Station, and dozens of private residences all over New England. Fred Bruck died on May 14, 1997 and is buried at Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge.
Phoebe A. Mason Bruck
Phoebe Ann Mason was born in Highland Park, Illinois on November 26, 1928, the daughter of George Allen Mason and Louise Townsend Barnard. After attending Bard College from 1946 to 1949, she studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology’s (IIT) Institute of Design, which was founded as the New Bauhaus. There, Phoebe was introduced to Modern architecture and design, which would impact her taste and career for decades to come. She graduated from IIT in 1954.
Undated photo of Phoebe Ann Mason Bruck, Cambridge Chronicle 2004.
While in Illinois, Phoebe worked as a designer at Baldwin Kingree, a women-owned Modern design store established in 1947 in Chicago. Baldwin Kingree was founded by Kitty Baldwin Weese (wife of Modernist architect Harry Weese) and Jody Kingree. The store specialized in Scandinavian Modern furnishings to fill American homes with affordable, architect-designed furniture and objects. While in Chicago working at Baldwin-Kingree, Phoebe was spotted by Ben Thompson of The Architects Collaborative, who convinced her to move to Cambridge to serve as head of the design department for his new store.
In Cambridge, Phoebe worked as Head of the Design Department at Design Research, Inc., a home furnishing store in an old, mansard-roofed house on Brattle Street. In her capacity as head designer for Design Research, Phoebe worked often with The Architects Collaborative (TAC) and Sert, Jackson Associates Inc., on many of their projects providing designs and furnishings for interior spaces. While working with Design Research and TAC, Phoebe met F. Frederick Bruck, and they married in 1956. Phoebe, like many women in the design profession at the time, likely consulted and worked on dozens of projects where she is not credited, it is unclear as to how many projects Phoebe was involved with during her time at TAC or Sert, Jackson, Associates.
Original Design Research Harvard Square store, c.1968. CHC Collections.
Design Research, Inc. new Cambridge store, 48 Brattle Street, c.1972. UVA: Richard Guy Wilson Architecture Archive.
Early in their marriage, Phoebe earned a master’s degree in Landscape Architecture from Harvard University in 1963, and would join forces professionally with her life partner, Fred Bruck at his firm F. Frederick Bruck Architect and Associates, Inc. At the firm, Phoebe wore many hats consulting on furnishings and interiors for her husband’s projects as well as developing landscape plans and designs complimentary to Mr. Bruck’s Modern designs.
In 1968, Phoebe stumbled upon an advertisement in the Boston Globe, which marketed land in New Hampshire, suitable for a vacation retreat. The ad read, “…Strafford. 48 acres. Mountain top, excellent view. You can see for miles. Small log cabin. Timber cut off.” Phoebe and Fred Bruck travelled up to New Hampshire to find a formerly wooded lot littered with tree stumps, trees lying on top of each other, piles of empty fuel cans and exposed ledges scarred by logging operations. They had already purchased the lot and Phoebe began planning her regeneration of the devastated lot. By 1969, conditions were favorable for burning and much of the site was cleansed with a controlled fire to help restore the soil and forest. Within a year, low bush blueberries, aspen, young maples, birch, and oak trees began to sprout from the charred soil. Fred Bruck converted a former two-room (350 sq. ft.) log cabin into their summer house with decks and a detached out-house for rustic living when visiting their New Hampshire property. Phoebe restored the forest and developed natural gardens scattered throughout the property. The restoration of the forest here was featured in Landscape Architecture Magazine. Phoebe ended the article by writing:
“Ten years after logging, piles of rotting slash still remain in the far corners and along the edges of the property, a vivid reminder of the devastation and seeming destruction which once pervaded the entire site. The green tidal wave of vigorous young pines, birches, oaks and maples, which threatens the engulf the woodlot gives new meaning to the concept of regeneration, for the land as well for its owners.”
Phoebe was very busy in Cambridge architecture and landscape circles. She worked as a design critic for the Department of Landscape Architecture at Harvard GSD concurrently with her serving as a judge for the New England Flower Show from 1971-1979. She also served on various boards and committees including the Harvard Square Association, the Harvard Square Advisory Committee, the Quincy Square Design Committee, and served as President of the Boston Society of Landscape Architects (BSLA) from 1973-1975.
Phoebe was a force in her role as President of the Harvard Square Defense Fund and as chair of the Harvard Square Advisory Committee, where she pushed on architects, developers, and the City of Cambridge, advocating for high-quality design that maintained the character of the square. Phoebe was always firm in her positions and was very active in city life in Cambridge until she passed away in 2004. She was buried next to her partner, Fred, on Azalea Path in Mount Auburn Cemetery.
Grave memorial for Fred and Phoebe Bruck. Courtesy of Mt. Auburn Cemetery.
We are starting a new series on designers (architects, builders, landscape architects, and others) who have had a lasting impact on Cambridge’s built environment. For our first post in this series, we are featuring a lesser-known architect who lived and worked right here in Cambridge, William Everett Chamberlin.
William E. Chamberlin, 1907 Class Book courtesy of MIT Libraries
William Everett Chamberlin (1856-1911) was born in Cambridge on June 23, 1856, to Ann Maria Stimson (1822-1907) and Daniel Upham Chamberlin (1824-1898), a prominent Cambridgeport hardware dealer and president of the Cambridgeport Savings Bank. William Chamberlin (sometimes spelled Chamberlain) attended Cambridge public schools before enrolling at MIT, where he majored in Architecture.
William E. Chamberlin, Class of 1877 photograph, courtesy of MIT Libraries.
After graduating from MIT in 1877, the 22-year-old was hired as a draftsman by the esteemed firm of Sturgis and Brigham, architects in Boston. In February 1879, William moved to New York City, and began working as a draftsman at the internationally known firm of McKim, Mead, and White (MMW). Upon arriving in New York, William was quickly overwhelmed. Thinking there was a great deal he hadn’t learned, he was given permission by the firm to travel Europe for over two years to study in the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris, and to hone his drawing skills while travelling about the continent. He returned to the office of McKim, Mead & White in New York in early 1882, as the firm was receiving lucrative commissions with its Gilded Age clientele.
Sketch at Chaumont-Sur-Loire by William E. Chamberlin. Published in Catalogue of the architectural exhibition, Boston Society of Architects (1886).
Within a few months of arriving in the United States, William quit his job as a draftsman at MMW and returned to Cambridge, seemingly due to poor health – an issue which plagued him his entire life. Later publications explained that Chamberlin suffered from spinal troubles, which progressed enough that it left him confined to a wheelchair for much of his adulthood.
After a season of rest, William opened his own architecture office in downtown Boston, commuting from his parent’s house in Central Square. Recounting the early days of his own practice to former classmates in 1885, he sarcastically wrote: “I have started in business for myself here in Boston, though somehow or other, there don’t seem to be many ‘riche amateurs’ who want to build big ‘musees’ in parks as there used to be in the school programs. Still, I manage to get three meals a day, Voila”!
While Chamberlin joked about a slow start to his office, one of his earliest commissions was among his most important. In 1883, he designed an administration building and hospital wings for the new Cambridge Hospital (renamed Mount Auburn Hospital in 1947) in Cambridge. The building consisted of a main building of three stories and basement, which housed all departments of the hospital, including private rooms and two one-story wards, the whole forming three sides of a hollow square, with the opening toward the south and the river. Chamberlin worked closely with Dr. Morrill Wyman (1812-1903), an expert on the ventilation of sickrooms and public buildings and first president of the hospital, to orient the buildings facing the Charles River to maximize sun-exposure for south facing rooms and provide the full influence of southwestern breezes in the summer. Now known as the Parson’s Building (named after Emily Elizabeth Parsons a Civil War nurse who helped establish the hospital), Chamberlin’s first major commission in Cambridge set-off a prominent, yet largely overlooked career.
Parsons Buildingca.1955 aerial of Parsons Building and rear wings. The two rear hospital wings were truncated in 2006 for the present parking garage.
After receiving just a few commissions while running his own practice, Chamberlin entered into a business partnership with architect William Marcy Whidden (1857-1929). Whidden was a former classmate of Chamberlin, who’s career path mirrored much of his. They both graduated from MIT in architecture in 1877, they both studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, and both worked at the office of McKim, Mead & White. Whidden left MMW in 1885, when propositioned with the idea of running his own practice with Chamberlin. The duo established the firm of Chamberlin & Whidden that year.
The firm, led by a pair of thirty-year-old architects, was hired to design buildings all over the Boston area. Due to this success, they hired other young, promising architects to assist with drafting. One of those hires was Henry Bacon, who briefly worked for Chamberlin and Whidden before joining McKim, Mead & White. Locally, Henry Bacon could be known as the designer for the steps and walls of the Longfellow Monument in Longfellow Park, but he is best known for his design of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. (built 1915–1922), which was his final project. Within the first few years, the firm of Chamberlin and Whidden saw a lot of activity, including furnishing designs for a six-story commercial building in Boston in the Romanesque Revival style. Their major type of commission, however, was expensive, single-family suburban housing.
Stores on South Street, Boston, Mass. Featured in American Architect and Building News, February 1887.
The firm built beautiful homes including one on Highland Street for Robert Noxon Toppan (1836-1901) and his wife, Sarah Moody Cushing. The Colonial Revival style house was built in 1886 and is one of the earliest houses in Cambridge of the style, setting trends for its neighbors. The brick Toppan House exhibits a large Palladian window at the façade, with a rounded center bay and a full-length piazza overlooks the gently terraced landscape towards Brattle Street at the rear.
House at Cambridge, Mass. Featured in American Architect and Building News, February 1887.54 Highland Street54 Highland Street, rear facade.
When a design competition was announced for the new Cambridge City Hall, a few local firms were asked to submit designs following benefactor Frederick H. Rindge’s strict requirements. The advisory design committee suggested that Peabody & Stearns, Van Brunt & Howe, Longfellow, Alden & Harlow, John Lyman Faxon, and Chamberlin and Whidden all submit designs for consideration. Chamberlin and Whidden proposed a stately, symmetrical building with a strong Romanesque emphasis and a central clock tower, capped by a belfry and cupola. Their design was not accepted by Rindge, who selected Longfellow, Alden & Harlow instead. Undeterred, the young firm persevered.
Chamberlin & Whidden proposal for Cambridge City Hall, 1888. American Architect & Building News, June 1888.
A second time, Chamberlin and Whidden submitted in a design competition for the English High School in Cambridge, and won the design competition in 1889, securing that job. It would be their final project together in Cambridge. Their plans for the new High School called for a three-story masonry building of stone on the first floor with light-red brick above. The building was long and narrow, giving each classroom ample natural light and ventilation. Articles mentioned that there was little ornamentation as “the desire of all concerned was to construct a simple and dignified building expressive of its serious purpose”. The building was demolished in 1938 for the consolidated Cambridge High and Latin School.
English High School, photographed 1908. Detroit Publishing Company.
By 1890, William Whidden had moved west to Oregon and established his own firm. William promoted architect William Downes Austin (1856-1944) to partner of the firm, renaming it Chamberlin & Austin. The new firm kept busy with a steady stream of commissions, but it was clear Chamberlin’s health was preventing him from actively seeking out new projects as he once did. Many of the designs the firm completed as Chamberlin & Austin appear to have been from previous clients, showing their trust in Chamberlin’s quality designs.
One such projects was commissioned by Henry Endicott, whos large home at 151 Brattle Street was designed by Henry Bacon Jr. while working under William Chamberlin in 1888. Two years later in 1890, Endicott returned to Chamberlin to design a smaller residence on the newly laid out Brewster Street, at the rear of the Brattle Street property, for his daughter and son-in-law. The second house, much smaller in size, showcases Chamberlin’s attention to detail with the saw-tooth cut shingle and recessed porch at the entrance and gentle undulating form with continuous shingled siding.
151 Brattle Street as depicted in American Architect and Building News, May 5, 1888.151 Brattle Street, CHC photograph.
In 1891, William Chamberlin married Emily Douglass Abbott (1858-1916). The couple acquired a house lot on Clinton Street, at the rear of Emily’s father George Abbott’s residence on Harvard Street. That year, William designed his new house on Clinton Street and a renovation for his father’s new home on Harvard Street. The three houses were all direct neighbors. William Chamberlin’s new home on Clinton Street was the first of his own, after decades of boarding with his father and mother in Central Square. For his own house, William designed a modest, 1½ -story structure with prominent gambrel roof. The house, while altered, exhibits Chamberlin’s eclectic sense of design, which often blends styles into a single composition. William and Emily never had children. One year later, William D. Austin left the firm to partner with Frederick W. Stickney forming Stickney & Austin.
William E. Chamberlin House (1891), 27 Clinton Street, photograph taken 11-2022.1894 Bromley map showing location of William and Emily’s residence on Clinton Street (red); his father’s (blue); and his father-in-law’s (green).
William E. Chamberlin entered a semi-retirement due to his worsening health, which plagued him most of his life but could never fully step away from his passion for design. When he heard about the death of his beloved former professor at MIT, Eugene Letang in 1891, Chamberlin designed a memorial tablet of bronze set into a carved marble surround. This marker still stands in the Boston Public Library, Copley Square branch location. With this work, Chamberlin showed his skill beyond designing buildings. It is possible that he was the designer of many of his family memorial stones in the family plot at Mount Auburn Cemetery.
Eugène Létang tablet designed by W. E. Chamberlin. Ca. 1905 photograph, Boston Public Library collections.
He was hired again by the Cambridge Hospital (now Mount Auburn Hospital) in 1896, designing a Nurse’s Residence just steps away from the Administration Building and Hospital wings he designed over ten years prior. His design for the Nurse’s Residence, like nearly all his work, blends multiple styles effortlessly into a single composition. The brick building displays strong Classical features including the central columned portico and the belt course above the second story windows which reads as a frieze band with ocular windows. Soon after in 1898, he designed the Cambridge Homes for Aged People at 360 Mt. Auburn Street with former partner Stickney and Austin.
Nurse’s Home (1896)Cambridge Homes for Aged People (1898)
Nearly a decade later in 1904, Chamberlin and Boston architect Clarence Blackall completed designs for the new Cambridgeport Savings Bank (where his late father once served as president) in Central Square, Cambridge. The building is perhaps Chamberlin’s most recognizable and stately extant design where he could show-off his architectural versatility. The Cambridgeport Savings Bank is a monumentally scaled limestone-clad structure with a façade dominated by recessed central bays behind an engaged Corinthian portico. The ornate stone parapet which once capped the building was replaced in the 1950s. The Cambridgeport Savings Bank building is Chamberlin’s last known work in Cambridge before his death.
Cambridgeport Savings Bank Building, 689 Mass. Ave. CHC Postcard Collection.
At just 55 years old, William Everett Chamberlin died from a stroke on August 6, 1911, in Manchester Massachusetts, at his father-in-law’s summer house. When news of his passing spread, fellow members of the Boston Society of Architects memorialized of Chamberlin:
William E. Chamberlin was by nature dowered with great personal charm, a clear keen brain, debonair in its perceptions, just in its conclusions; a genius for his profession of architecture which was rare; and a fresh directness of expression tempered by a delicate humor. The active use of these qualities in the work of the great marketplace was first checked and then barred to him by a disease, which prevented his working outside of his home, and for over twenty years he made that home a center of intellectual stimulus to his friends…His noble character vibrated only perfect harmonies, but, unlike the harp in the wind, in him was the soul and the strong will which decreed always, as a duty to his fellow men, that no discords should mar the beauties of this life which, in spite of one great affliction, he found and made so blessed even to the last hour.
Last known photograph of William E. Chamberlin, ca.1910
William E. Chamberlin bequeathed nearly all his sizable estate, estimated at nearly $100,000, to several Cambridge institutions. His widow, Emily D. Chamberlin, received the income from his estate during her lifetime and that after her death. After which, it was distributed in seven parts. Two-sevenths went to the Cambridge Hospital, two-sevenths to the Cambridge Homes for Aged People, and one-seventh each to the Avon Home, the Holy Ghost Hospital, and to the Department of Architecture at MIT, which he remained engaged with throughout his life. Chamberlin’s legacy has lived on not only through his extant buildings, but his generosity, in the William Everett Chamberlain (sic) Prize for achievement in design at MIT and his generous gifts to Cambridge institutions.
William Everett Chamberlin is buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery on Bellwort Path in the family plot. His monument, like many of his family members, was likely designed by himself from his Cambridge home.
William E. Chamberlin’s monument at Mt. Auburn Cemetery. Much of lettering covered by lichen.
The Arts and Crafts Movement developed in England in the 1860s in response to the increasing industrialization of production. Factories were turning out everything from furniture and fabric to architectural elements and selling all cheaply. Advocates of the movement believed that these mass-produced items lacked style, beauty, and individuality and desired a return to the unique, high-quality goods made by artisans and artists using traditional methods.
Arts and Crafts ideals migrated to America beginning in the 1880s. In 1897, the first US exhibition of contemporary crafts was organized by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and sparked a design reform movement in the United States. Craftspeople, consumers, and manufacturers realized the aesthetic and technical potential of the applied arts. Architects, artists, and intellectuals were influenced by their studies of old English architecture and design; Gothic Revival and Tudor Revival buildings proliferated in Cambridge and across the country.
The brothers Bertram and Harry Goodhue were early practitioners of medieval Gothic design and helped transform American architecture and art for decades to come.
Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue
Bertram Goodhue, undated. Courtesy of Panama-California Exposition Digital Archive.
Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue (1869-1924) was born in Pomfret, Connecticut, to Charles Wells Goodhue and his second wife, Helen Grosvenor Eldredge. Bertram attended the New Haven Collegiate and Commercial Institute. He became enamored of the Gothic-style buildings on Yale’s nearby campus. He wanted to become an architect himself but could not afford university, so in lieu of formal training, at sixteen years old he moved to Manhattan to apprentice at the architectural firm of Renwick, Aspinwall and Russell. He later relocated to Boston, where he joined other young, artistic intellectuals to found Boston’s Society of Arts and Crafts. Through this group Goodhue met Ralph Adams Cram; the two men would be business partners for almost twenty-five years. In 1891, they founded the architectural firm of Cram, Wentworth and Goodhue (renamed Cram, Goodhue and Ferguson in 1898 after Wentworth’s death) and became proponents of Neo-Gothic architecture, accepting commissions from significant ecclesiastical, academic, and institutional clients. Their 1902 design of the United States Military Academy at West Point was a major milestone in the firm’s career.
Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue (left) and Ralph Adams Cram (center) in their Boston architectural studio with a client (and a dog). Courtesy of Cram & Ferguson archives.
Soon after, the company opened an office in New York where Goodhue would preside, leaving Cram to operate in Boston. At first, the men worked as a productive team, complementing each other’s strengths; later they began to compete, sometimes submitting independent proposals for the same commission. The partnership ended when Cram was selected as the architect of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan– on Goodhue’s supposed turf. When Goodhue left to begin his own practice in 1914, Cram had already created his dreamed-of Gothic Revival commission at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, and continued to work in the Gothic style mode for the rest of his career. Goodhue branched out from the Gothic mode which gained him such prominence, and designed notable Byzantine and Spanish Revival buildings all over the country. He died in 1924 at the age of fifty-four and at his request was interred in a wall vault at the Church of the Intercession, the building he considered his finest design. The centerpiece of the monument is a life-size effigy of Goodhue in the manner of those preserved in medieval English country churches.
Church of the Intercession, designed by Bertram Goodhue, the building he considered his finest design. Image c.1915 by Wurst Brothers.Bertram Goodhue Tomb in the Church of the Intercession, Image by Samuel H. Gottscho.
Harry Eldredge Goodhue
Harry Eldredge Goodhue (1873-1918), Bertram’s younger brother, was born in Pomfret, Connecticut, and attended the Holderness School in Plymouth, New Hampshire. In 1892, at nineteen, he joined the Boston Art Students’ Association and became an advocate for and expert in traditional stained glassmaking processes. Harry began designing stained glass for his brother’s firm and was sent to Europe to study, draw, and collect medieval stained glass. In 1900, Bertram Goodhue’s firm was chosen as the architect of Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Newport, Rhode Island; in 1902, Harry began designing their Brown Memorial Window, his first major commission. The window was the first in America to be made of antique glass in accordance with techniques refined in thirteenth-century Europe. From this, Harry became known as one of only three stained glass artisans then reviving the art of medieval glassmaking.
Harry Goodhue opened his own shop at 23 Church Street in Harvard Square, Cambridge, in 1903, soon after completing the memorial window. He was sought-after by church people and architects who were intrigued by the medieval quality of his translucent and richly colored hand-blown stained glass and preferred it to the opaque opalescent glass that was popular at the time. Opalescent stained glass was developed in the late nineteenth century by John La Farge and Louis C. Tiffany and presents a milky, streaky, and iridescent appearance. In 1903 Harry wrote a piece for the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts’ monthly publication, Handicraft, criticizing the opalescent “American” style as not really stained glass, for it is absolutely different from what has been understood by the term.” In a subsequent issue, the artist Sarah Wyman Whitman (featured previously on our blog) wrote in opposition to Goodhue’s opinion and praised the experimentations of La Farge and Tiffany in the development of the opalescent/American method and claimed that academics and experts varied in their preference.
Circa 1930 image of 23 Church Street with added fourth floor for Goodhue studio. Cambridge Historical Commission Photograph.
With additional positive press and commissions from churches and homeowners, Goodhue outgrew his studio on Church Street. When asked, the property owner obliged him by adding an entire floor to the building. The addition was completed in 1907, and Goodhue expanded his company. However, by 1916, Harry’s business was in decline, and he closed his Cambridge shop. 23 Church street would later be heavily altered in 1936 when the top three floors were removed and the building redesigned in the Art Deco style we see today.
23 Church Street (2019). CHC staff photo.
After closing his Cambridge shop, Harry became affiliated with Vaughan & O’Neill & Co. that had a studio on Sudbury Street. Harry’s brother Bertram felt that this company was beneath his brother and refused to order windows from them. Between 1903 and his death in 1918, Goodhue created antique stained glass windows for more than seventy buildings in twenty-one states and Canada. During fifteen plus years of perfecting his craft, he trained dozens of apprentices, including his wife, Mary, and their eldest son, Harry.
Mary Louise (Wright) Goodhue (1876-1965) was born in Cincinnati to Juliet and Daniel T. Wright. Her father was a judge on the Ohio Supreme Court, and her brother, Daniel, held an Associate Justice seat on the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. Mary married Harry Goodhue in 1904 and had three sons, Harry, Daniel, and William. The couple settled in Cambridge and first resided on Buckingham Place, soon after, relocating to a rental on Martin Street. By 1908 the family had bought a house lot on Fayerweather Street and hired the architectural firm of Newhall and Blevins to design an Arts and Crafts style house. Mary taught singing and violin at her home to young students and assisted her husband in his growing stained glass company.
Depiction of Mary Louise Goodhue, 1920. Boston Globe clipping.
Mrs. Goodhue was the president of the Cambridge Musical Club, as well as a suffragist. When Harry died in 1918, she took over the stained glass company; she fulfilled commissions and taught their eldest son the art of making antique glass. In a 1920 Boston Globe article, Mary explained her ability to take over the family business so quickly. “Having worked so much with my husband, it comes easy for me to carry on the business. I have hundreds of his designs to guide me and find little trouble in selecting portions of them for the work I get. I know all about his ideals and became so impregnated with his imagination and genius that I love the work, even as did he.” She continued, “when he [Harry] died, I simply had to take up the practical part of the work, but as I was well taught in the artistic part, I found no trouble in mastering the business part.” The article listed Mary as the only female, stained glass maker in America and highlighted her winning proposal for a memorial window to be placed in Pilgrim Hall in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in celebration of the Massachusetts Bay Tercentenary. She had bested dozens of male artists to win the commission.
Mary Goodhue is credited with stained glass windows in churches in the Boston area and as far as Providence and Detroit. Her memorial windows at Pilgrim Hall and the First Parish Church of Brookline are her most notable. When Harry, the oldest, came of age, he took up the family business, and Mary returned to her other passion, music. In 1935 she wrote “Stagefright and its Cure“, to help musicians and public speakers understand the psychological reasons for stage fright and ways to overcome it. Mary lived at the family home on Fayerweather Street until her mid-80s. After the Great Depression, when her children had left home, she converted the single-family to a duplex and rented out one side for income. She died in Braintree, Massachusetts, at eighty-eight years old.
56 Fayerweather Street, built in 1914 for Harry and Mary Goodhue. CHC photo 11-2021.
Harry “Wright Goodhue
Harry Wright Goodhue (1905-1931) closely followed his father’s footsteps in medieval stained glass artistry, but in order to distinguish himself from his father, he went by Wright Goodhue, his middle and mother’s maiden name. Growing up in Cambridge, Wright spent most of his free time in his father’s studio, learning how to make stained glass windows the old way. Wright’s “studio” was described in a newspaper account published when he was 11 years old. “In a corner of the roomy studio where his father works, young Harry set up his easel and his drawing board. Here he spends long hours depicting the deeds of the Round Table knights, the battles of biblical heroes…”
He attended the Russell School before attending the Cambridge Latin School, leaving after two years. Instead of a conventional education, Wright attended evening classes at the Boston Normal Art School and worked as a draftsman at the architectural firm of Allen & Collins during the day at just 16 years old.
His first two professional projects were executed in 1921 at just sixteen years old. He designed the ornamental details for the wooden doors at Lindsey Memorial Chapel (an addition designed by Allen & Collens to Emmanuel Episcopal Church on Newbury Street, Boston, and he designed his first stained glass window – the chancel window for his uncle Bertram’s First Cong. Church, Montclair, New Jersey. Soon after, while working as a draftsman under Allen & Collens, Wright was asked to design 36 stained glass medallions for the Teachers’ College at Columbia University, a commission the practice was working on. This commission allowed Wright and his mother to purchase a studio space in Boston, when Wright was just eighteen.
Soon after, when his employer received the contract to design the Second Universalist Church (now St. Clement Eucharistic Shrine) in Boston, he was asked to provide windows for the Gothic style building. Together with his mother, the artist, in his teens, furnished designs and made the windows. Soon after, stained glass commissions came in rapidly. Window commissions overwhelmed the small operation included an 18-foot rose window for the Sacred Heart Church in Jersey City. Wright completed three commissions in Cambridge. He designed six circular clerestory windows as part of Allen & Collens’ 1923 restoration of Bigelow Chapel at Mount Auburn Cemetery, the Josephine Peabody Marks window for Radcliffe College, and the Martha and Lazarus Window at St. James Church in North Cambridge. Wright began to regret his lack of formal education, and even as his workload grew, he began to study for the entrance exam for admission to Harvard. He was admitted to Harvard in 1927 at the age of 22. Spread thin between his work and schooling, he left at the end of two years, without a degree.
1924 passport application photo of Wright Goodhue, then 19 years old.
As his prominence in the field grew, the young man became consumed with work. His career hit a crescendo when Allen & Collens were selected to collaborate on the design of the 22-story Riverside Church in Manhattan, with Wright asked to design and make some of the windows for the massive edifice. The Riverside Church was modeled after the 13th Century Gothic cathedral in Chartres, France, a building Wright understood well from his earlier trip to Chartres and other medieval towns and cities in Europe. Wright’s 1924 passport application explained he would be visiting France and England to “study”. This trip was possibly inspired by the Riverside Church commission and from his father’s writings about the Chartres Cathedral and it’s renowned 12th-century stained glass windows.
Clipping of Wright Goodhue with his mother, Mary Louise Goodhue, designing the Mercy window for Riverside Church, NY. Photo courtesy of Riverside Church Archives.
In 1930, Wright married Cornelia Evans, an academic and writer, who studied at Lasell Seminary for Young Women and Wellesley College, both in Massachusetts, and later Columbia University, New York City. The couple resided in Greenwich Village. Tragically, in 1931 just one month after his 26th birthday, Wright Goodhue died by suicide at a hotel in Providence. He was buried in the family plot in the Old North Cemetery in Pomfret, Connecticut. After his death, the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard, featured his work in an exhibition. His mother also donated some of his works to the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. In his 1936 autobiography, Ralph Adams Cram, an architect who worked with Wright on numerous commissions, recalled Wright’s “great, unhappy, and unique genius”. Cram reminisced about Wright’s genius in a 1932 piece in Stained Glass Magazine, where he mentioned Wright’s final completed piece, a wood sculpture “Madonna and Child”. Cram writes, “There is something mystical about this last work of his which, in a way, links it with the shadow that came heavily and increasingly upon him during the last years of his life…”
Photograph of Wright’s final completed work, “Madonna and Child”. From Stained Glass Magazine 09-1932.1929 photograph of Wright Goodhue, less than two years before his death. Photo courtesy of Albert M. Tannler.
The Commission seeks a full-time Archivist to organize and maintain its public archive and create in-person and online programming that promotes the archive and highlights Cambridge history. The archive is founded on an architectural inventory containing survey forms, photographs, and documentation on all 13,000± buildings in the city that is currently being digitized. Other collections include both historic and contemporary materials, such as atlases, papers and manuscripts, books, objects, and ephemera. The photograph collection is estimated to contain more than 60,000 images in all forms. These unique resources are used daily by staff, residents, researchers, and building professionals. The Archivist will oversee the Digital Projects Archivist, who also coordinates the Commission’s social media presence, and supervise relevant interns and volunteers.
Click here to view the full job posting and application instructions.
It’s #TornDownTuesday (or is it #TransferredTuesday)! Today’s Gund Hall is located on the site of multiple buildings on Quincy Street, with the original 48 Quincy Street structure being relocated in 1968.
To start, 42 Quincy Street was a wood-shingled square house with a rear ell that was built in 1844. In July 1844, the President and Fellows of Harvard College granted Henry Greenough the land known as the “Delta”.
Daniel Reiff image, before fire, ca. 1968
Henry Greenough of Boston (1807-1883) was a merchant and amateur architect who was brother to Horatio and Richard Saltonstall Greenough, both sculptors. Henry attended Harvard from 1823-1826 and then studied architecture in Italy. 42 Quincy St, also known as the Greenough House, was built by Greenough for his mother, Mrs. David Greenough (Eliza Ingersoll). This pattern-book Italianate style house is the earliest known house designed by Greenough. He also designed the First Church in Cambridge (1830) and the Cambridge Athenaeum (1851). After his Italianate on Quincy St, he made houses in 1854-1856 with low mansard roofs. Greenough designed his mother’s home with a brick basement, 4 wooden risers for the front stoop, and an unusual canopy with arched openings. It was originally painted brown.
Daniel Reiff images, 42 Quincy Street after fire and demolition, ca. 1968
Greenough House was passed down through the family until 1891 when it was sold to the Corporation of the New Church Theological School, who used it as offices. In 1966 it was obtained by Harvard for its Economics Department offices. Unfortunately, on January 8, 1968 the house was destroyed by a major fire likely caused by a defective boiler. The house was scheduled for demolition later that year to make way for Gund Hall.
48 Quincy Street
Next door was 48 Quincy Street, which has a more pleasant conclusion. Built in 1838 by William Saunders for Prof Daniel Tredwell, 48 Quincy was a Regency Greek Revival style house. It featured wide, flat pilasters on flush boarded walls and a square, hip roof. In 1847, it was bought by Jared Sparks who started living at the address in 1849 when he became president of Harvard. Sparks is considered one of the earliest modern historians. Subsequently known as the Jared Sparks House, it was purchased by the New Church Theological School and in 1901 was moved on the site to make room for the Swedenborg Chapel. However, in October 1968 it was again moved, but around the corner to 21 Kirkland Street, to make way for Gund Hall. You can still see the home today at its new address!
Daniel Reiff image, 48 Quincy Street, now 21 Kirkland Street (“Sparks House”), undated
Many of the images from this post come from our newly available Dudley Borland Card Collection. Keep an eye out for future posts featuring this collection! Would you like us to make it a weekly or biweekly feature?
For more information on these buildings, email us at histcomm@cambridgema.gov.
We have recently processed a collection donated last year by William B. King and his daughter, Rachel King. Its finding aid is now available on ArchivesSpace. Currently, the Historical Commission is offering limited research assistance. Please see our main webpage for the most up-to-date information. If you would like to research this or any other collections, please email us at chcarchives@cambridgema.gov.
The William B. King Collection contains textual records collected by William B. King related to his contributions to local Cambridge organizations, including Harvard Law School, Cambridge Civic Association, Buckingham Browne & Nichols School, and the Cambridge Historical Commission. It also holds external reports, newsletters, maps, and ads from other local institutions as well as the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The collection consists of approximately 100 folders of written records ranging from official typed forms, handwritten notes, draft documents, and printed publications.
King at Memorial Hall, 2000, CHC photo
A bit of background on Mr. King: he was born in Boston in 1932; he married the Cambridge native Sheila Malone in 1955, and the couple would go on to participate in civic and social activities in Cambridge. For more information on Sheila M. King, see her obituary here. They had three children, Stephen in 1960, Rachel in 1963, and Christopher in 1965.
After graduating from Harvard College in 1954, King received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1959. After passing the bar that same year, he became an associate and in 1968 partner at Goodwin, Procter & Hoar, a position he held through 1999.
Harvard University 1954 Class Album
More pertinent to this collection, King served in many positions with the Cambridge Civic Association (CCA), including advisor, director, vice president, and finally president between 1965 and 1966. The CCA was a merger among the Committee for Plan E, the Cambridge Citizens Committee, and the Cambridge Taxpayers Association in 1945. Joining the organization in the 1960s, King participated in the “Save Magazine Beach” petition to defend a recreation and playground area from a planned highway extension along Memorial Drive.
In 1970 King became a trustee of the Buckingham School, an independent school in Cambridge that was coed through 6th grade and all-girls through 12th grade. He was actively involved in its 1974 merger with the Browne & Nichols School, an all-boys independent school (grades 7 through 12).
King at the Boys & Girls Club, 2015, holding the just-published oral history collection, We Are the Port, recollections of Area 4/The Port.
In 1973 King was appointed the lawyer member of the Cambridge Historical Commission and in 1986 became its chair. During his time at the Commission, he advocated for and helped develop operating procedures under Cambridge’s two precedent-setting, home-rule ordinances relating to Demolition Delay and the designation of Neighborhood Conservation Districts (NCD) and Local Landmarks. He sat on the city’s first NCD study committee that eventually led to the establishment of the Mid-Cambridge NCD and served on study committees establishing and/or revising the Avon Hill, Half Crown-Marsh, and Harvard Square Conservation Districts. In 2017, King retired from his Commission position.
The William B. King Collection is divided into six series comprising correspondence, drafts, legal and financial statements, memos, personal notes, newsletters, maps, reports, articles, and a recipe. The series are as follows: Series I: Harvard Law School; Series II: Cambridge Civic Association; Series III: Buckingham Browne & Nichols School; Series IV: Cambridge Historical Commission; Series V: External correspondence, publications, materials; Series VI: Personal.
We have recently processed a collection that was donated in October, and its finding aid is now available on ArchivesSpace. Currently, the Historical Commission is offering limited research assistance. Please see our main webpage for the most up-to-date information.
The Gooch Family Photographs (P029) contains 49 glass plate negatives that we have digitized so that the collection is available from the safety of your home. The items are available for viewing on our Flickr page here. If you would like to research this or any other collection, please email us at chcarchives@cambridgema.gov.
The Gooch Family Photographs comprises images related to 11 Fayerweather Street in Cambridge; Harvard University buildings; Mt. Auburn Street in Watertown, Massachusetts; and non-Cambridge locations. The collection was donated by the wife of a photographer who bought and sold photography related items on Ebay and specialty photographic sites. While cleaning out her basement, she found the boxes and explained that “thought the negatives might be important to the history of an area.”
11 Fayerweather Street, front facade, ca. 1900.
Initially the content of the glass plates were unidentified, but through research the CHC staff has determined that the images are likely connected to the Gooch family, who were lived at 11 Fayerweather Street (no. 3 Fayerweather at the time of their residency). The negatives include images of family members, but the names of individuals have not yet been determined.
The Gooch Family
The story of the Gooch family in Cambridge starts with Nathan Gooding Gooch (1835-1919), a descendant of the colonial settler John Gooch. In the 1850s bachelor Nathan Gooch boarded with John Bridge Dana at 3 Fayerweather Street (renumbered 11 Fayerweather by 1930). Dana (1800-1888) worked for the Charles River Bank and later became a Harvard steward. His daughter, Ellen Coolidge Dana, married Nathan Gooch on June 14, 1860. Both generations lived in the house, presumably with the house divided by the partition shown on a 1900 remodel plan.
Woman and dog on front porch of 11 Fayerweather Street during winter, undated. The woman may be Ellen Coolidge Dana, who married Nathan Gooch
Nathan Gooch initially worked as a bookkeeper for W.T. Richardson near Harvard Square and became a lumber dealer in Brighton in 1857. Nathan worked with his brother at their lumber firm, J.G. & N.G. Gooch; he also became a coal dealer on Kilby Street in Boston in 1865. During the Civil War he served in the Massachusetts 12th Company from November 12, 1863, to August 15, 1864. Nathan Gooch was also a Cambridge City Council member from 1865-1866 and a deacon of the Old Cambridge Baptist Church, a position he occupied until 1908. In 1906 he worked for Cox Bros. & Co., anthracite coal dealers in Boston.
A man holding a toddler next to a dog at 11 Fayerweather Street, undated. This could be Nathan Gooch and his granddaughter Margaret.
Nathan and Ellen Gooch had two children, William D. Gooch and Ellen M. Gooch. The family moved to Watertown in 1900 to a house that was once part of the Adams estate. Built in 1900, 35 Adams (or Fairlawn) Avenue was designed by F. Bryant & Co. It would continue to be the family’s home until the 1930s.
Aerial view taken from the Oakley Country Club showing Shattuck Avenue in Watertown before Adams Avenue was laid out.
The Gooch family also owned a summer residence in Marblehead on Marblehead Neck (sometimes called Nanepashment). Their first summer home was at the corner of Harbor and Harvard streets (formerly Spring Street). In 1892 Nathan Gooch had the house moved 25 feet. He later sold the property to Maria M. Stone and in 1901 moved the family to Ocean Avenue (likely located is now 372 Ocean Avenue). His brother, Johnson G. Gooch, also had a summer place in Marblehead on Atlantic Avenue.
A child holding a doll in a field with a man behind in the middle-ground. Beyond is the sea. The man may be William D. Gooch and the toddler his daughter, Margaret. This location could be in Marblehead. The image is undated.
The Gooch’s daughter, Ellen, married G.F. Rouillard, and they had sons Robert G. and Clarence D. Their son, William, worked as a bookkeeper before becoming an auditor for a drug and chemical company. He owned a motorboat named Dixie and continued to summer in Marblehead for a few years after his father’s passing in 1916. At some point William married Mary A. Pearce, and they had two children, Dana Appleton Gooch (1897-1972) and Margaret Caroline Gooch. Dana worked as an office clerk but was unemployed by World War I; his subsequent occupations are unknown. He was married in Beverly, Massachusetts, in 1934 and died in Florida on March 6, 1972.
A woman holding a baby on the porch steps of 11 Fayerweather Street. The woman is possibly Mary A. Pearce Gooch, William’s wife, and the baby may be Margaret or Dana.
Margaret Caroline Gooch (1891-1988), William’s daughter, is likely present in this collection since one of the original glass plate boxes was labeled with her name. While employed as a teacher, she married Eugene Judson Barney on December 10, 1917. Eugene was a refrigerator electrical engineer from Dayton, Ohio, and by 1920 they had moved back to his hometown. According to census records, they lived at 12 Seminary Avenue in 1920; 1438 Catalpa Drive in 1930; and 1827 Harvard Boulevard in 1940. Eugene and Margaret were the parents of Edward Barney.
Dana Gooch with a dog in a sandbox in Marblehead, ca. fall 1900. According to the Marblehead Messenger, Dana caught his finger in a bicycle spool on September 3, 1900, and had to get it sewn and bandaged; the bandage is visible on his left hand.
11 Fayerweather Street
Side entrance of 11 Fayerweather Street facing the road. A dog is on the pathway and three children sit on the front stairs. 5 Fayerweather is visible beyond. At the time of this image, ca. 1900, the houses were numbered 5 Fayerweather and 3 Fayerweather.
In 1850, 3 Fayerweather Street was built as a 2½ story house for John B. Dana. After the Dana and Gooch families moved, the house was purchased by Mrs. Archibald Howe (Arria Sargeant Dixwell) in 1900. Mr. Howe (1848-1916), a lawyer and former member of the House of Representatives, ran for Vice-President in 1900 on the “National Party” ticket. His cousin Lois Lilley Howe (1864-1964), a pioneering female architect, remodeled 3 Fayerweather Street that year. The new design removed the interior partition (mentioned above), extended the house by four feet, and added three dormers to the front façade. It is likely that Lois Howe was the photographer of image G-2161: it is strikingly similar to photographs she took on April 30, 1900. (For a lot more information on Howe, get in touch with the Historical Commission.) The house was renovated by Lois’s architectural firm, Howe, Manning & Almy, in 1916. (No. 3 was renumbered 11 some time between 1916 and 1930.) The house was later owned by Louise McLennan, who altered it again, in 1939.
The collection includes images of beaches, fields, and mountain landscapes, possibly at Marblehead Neck and in New York state. There are also photographs of Harvard’s Memorial Hall, the Washington Elm, and the Old Cambridge Baptist Church after the fire of 1897.
As the year draws to a close, it is nice to reflect on personal and professional accomplishments. The staff at the CHC has been working hard to make its archival collections more easily accessible for you this year. From home, we have been uploading our finding aids to ArchivesSpace to make your searching, finding, researching, and learning easier. You can search our ArchivesSpace here to find out what we hold in our collections. To give you an idea of what is available, here are short blurbs from all ten of the collections recently updated and newly available (listed from most recent uploads to oldest).
Currently, the Historical Commission is offering limited research assistance. Please see our main webpage for the most up-to-date information. If you would like to research any of our collections, please email us at chcarchives@cambridgema.gov.
A collection of 49 glass plate negatives related to the Gooch family, the former residents of 11 Fayerweather Street in Cambridge. The family lived there from the 1850s to 1900, when the family moved to 35 Adams Avenue in Watertown. The Gooch family also owned a summer residence in Marblehead on Marblehead Neck. All three locations are shown in the collection, which you can see on our Flickr page.
Black and white drawing of 11 Magazine St, ca. 1847, and matchbook covers advertising the Watson Funeral Home. Watson Funeral Home Collection
A collection of photographs, certificates, blueprints, clippings, and ephemera related to the Watson Funeral Home, a 20th century Cambridge business. The funeral parlor was at 11 Magazine Street, a Greek Revival house near Central Square.
A collection of maps, correspondence, development studies, town reports, and traffic studies for the City of Cambridge with the bulk of the materials dating from the 1950s to the 1970s. Researchers interested in viewing the Alan McClennen Collection will be engaged by topics on community development in the city during the mid-twentieth century. McClennen served as the Planning Director for the City of Cambridge. During this period, he was also clerk of the Urban Renewal Coordinating Committee, a member of the Traffic Board, clerk of the School Building Advisory Committee, member of the Council on Aging, and secretary of the Cambridge Historical Commission. He assisted the Cambridge Housing Authority with site selections for elderly housing projects.
Alfred West, clock business ledger page, 1916. West Family Collection
A collection spanning 1885 to 1926 that includes a ledger from the family’s clock business; blueprints and contracts for work done on the two West properties at 115 Pearl Street and 6 Cottage Street; school material for Alfred, George, and Gertrude West; and a photograph album. Alfred West emigrated from Bristol, England, in the early 1900s and settled in Cambridge. His five children maintained the two Cambridge properties, the former as a rental unit and the latter as their home, until 1987. Of particular interest are the essays composed by George, which describe the experiences of a schoolboy in the early 1900s.
A collection of papers from Alfred B. Wolfe’s tenure as chair of the Cambridge Historic Districts Study Committee (1961-1962) and chair of the Cambridge Historical Commission (1962-1973). The records kept by Wolfe on the work of the Cambridge Historical Commission are the primary focus of this collection.
The papers within this collection represent several decades of Sheila Cook’s activism and civic involvement in Cambridge, composed primarily of her personal and organizational correspondence, as well as relevant newspaper clippings and government documents. Materials span the years 1830 to 2012 but focus primarily on the years between 1990 and 2002. The records offer an important glimpse into the development and preservation of historic and ecological aspects of the greater Cambridge area.
Exeter Academy hockey team, ca. 1915. George “Tubber” White Collection
This collection may be enjoyed by those of you with an interest in Cambridge’s sports history. It includes hockey, football, and baseball team photographs featuring Tubber White during his time at Rindge Technical School and Exeter Academy from 1912 to the 1920s. It also has eleven photo postcards featuring members of the North Cambridge semiprofessional baseball team. (White became a dentist.)
In this collection you can find nine record books detailing militia records for the City of Cambridge for the years 1846 to 1886. Each book contains lists of names and marginal notes recording those enrolled in the Cambridge Militia.
This collection consists of an assortment of books from the Cambridge Office of the City Engineer that cover a period from about 1860 to 1908. Contents include plot drawings, measurements, transcribed land deeds and abstracts, field notes, newspaper clippings, mathematical calculations, and copied legal documents.
This collection is composed of five boxes and two flat files containing Edwin F. Bowker’s professional correspondence as a civil engineer and surveyor in Cambridge. Included are surveyor’s notes and records, draft sketches, manual calculations, notes on markers, drawings, plans, transcripts regarding property boundaries from deeds, and correspondence from mid-1886 through 1919.
Other collections uploaded this year:
Here is a quick list of the other finding aids uploaded to our ArchivesSpace this year.
