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CATHEDRAL OF THE HOLY CROSS
1400 Washington Street
Built between 1866 and 1875. Designed by Patrick C. Kelley, who designed many churches in the United States. English Gothic in style, made of Roxbury pudding stone, Quincy granite and sandstone. The largest church in New England, it is 46,000 square feet, similar in size to Westminster Abbey in London.
CYCLORAMA
539 Tremont Street
The name means “circular view” in Greek. Built in 1887, designedby Cummings and Sears, the domed building was designed to display a 360 degreepainting of The Battle of Gettysburg that is 400 feet long and 50 high. The painting is now in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in a new Cyclorama. In later years, the Cyclorama was used for roller skating, fairs, a garage, and the Boston Flower Exchange. Since 1970 it has served as a multi-purpose space for the Boston Center for the Arts.
UNION PARK
Created in 1851, along with Chester Square (on Massachusetts Avenue) and Worcester Square. These garden squares were designed to enhance the beauty of the South End and attract middle and upper class residents, so they would not leave Boston for the new suburbs. Today is the best preserved of the South End’s historic squares.
BOSTON TOWN GATES
Corner of E. Berkeley and Washington Street
The corner of Washington and East Berkeley Streets is the site of the first fortifications of Boston, which included the town gates. Soon after Boston was founded in 1630,the colonists chose the narrowest point, only 100 feet wide, on the “Neck” that connected the new town and the Shawmut Peninsula to the mainland.
BLACKSTONE AND FRANKLIN SQUARES
Blackstone and Franklin Square (green parks)
First laid out by architect Charles Bullfinch in 1801, Blackstone and Franklin Squares are the oldest garden squares surviving Boston. Originally designed as a single large oval square known as Columbia Square, the two were fenced andcreated as separate squares in 1847. The original cast-iron fountains, each supportedby four dolphins, survive today.
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THE ALLEN HOUSE
1682 Washington Street
Saved and restored after decades of abandonment, the Allen house is one of Boston’s most ornate Victorian townhouses. Built in 1859 for furniture dealer and real estate developer Aaron Hall Allen, the house originally had a garden and carriage house at the rear, facing Worcester Square. The elaborate brownstone carving is unmatched in Boston.
The WILLIAM PORTER HOUSE
1724 Washington Street
Although it appears to be one house, this elegant Federal-style structure is actually two mirror-image townhouses that share a party wall. Built in 1806-1807for William Porter, they are the oldest surviving houses in the South End.
THE HOTEL ABEMARLE
282 Columbus Avenue
This early apartment building was completed in 1876, with spacious flats forthe new South End middle class. Its style is known as “Ruskinian Gothic,” with gothic arched windows, and a multi-colored façade of red and black brick,sandstone, and red and black slate on the roof.
THE BANCROFT AND RICE SCHOOLS
Appleton Street
Architect Louis Sullivan, best known for his remarkable work in Chicago, was raised in Boston during part of his youth, where he graduated from the Rice GrammarSchool. He praised the “light and joy of the new school house” in his autobiography. The handsome French Second Empire-style Bancroft and Riceschools were designed by Emerson & Fehmer and completed in 1869. The Bancroft was damaged by fire and closed in 1976. Both schools were restored as condominiumsin 1984/1985.
HOME OF MARTIN LUTHER KING
397 Massachusetts Avenue
During the early 1950’s, civil activist Martin Luther King lived in thisVictorian brick bow-front townhouse while he was attending the Boston University School of Theology. At the time, the house was divided into apartments. While living here, he began dating his future wife, Coretta Scott King.
397 Massachusetts Avenue, the Victorian brick bow-front townhouse Dr. Martin Luther King resided in while he was attending Boston University—is owned by Tenants Development Corporation (TDC).
Excerpts from information provided by
John Neale, Historian of the South End Historical Society.
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