When Northeastern University went shopping for a president’s residence — something the institution had never had in its 100-odd years of existence — university officials snapped up 34 Beacon Street, a property next door to the Parkman House and across from the Boston Common. Why Beacon Hill, when Northeastern is closer to the Fenway? University spokespeople and leadership said it was Beacon Hill’s unique intersection of past and present, of current politics and historic charm, that sealed the deal. University President Joseph Aoun and his wife, Zeina, will live in Cornelius Coolidge’s five story, 14-room 1825 mansion at the corner of Joy and Beacon. They will hold small university functions at the address, said a university spokesperson.

But the purchase itself bucks the trend for buildings on the swath of Beacon Street that runs from 25 Beacon to King’s Chapel’s parish house at the foot of the Hill. Many of the stately homes in the two-block area were converted from private residences into business offices, non-profit headquarters or private clubs in the early to mid-20th century. But the trend in the 1990s and early 21st century has been for building owners to sell their real estate to developers who return them to high-end residential use, in some cases putting them back on the tax rolls. The Women’s City Club building at 39-40 Beacon Street and buildings at the corners of Spruce and Joy streets are prime examples.

Northeastern’s president’s house was also a building that once held commercial space. It was the long-time home of the Little, Brown & Co. publishing house. Real estate developer Rosalind Goren bought the building and transformed it into a single family home in the 1990s.

So while it is an institutional use, it is still a family home — a new hybrid for Beacon Street.


CAPTION: Beacon Street includes this one block of houses all owned by institutions.


SIDEBAR



While several Beacon Street buildings have recently reverted to residential use, others still maintain their institutional or commercial character.

At 25 Beacon Street, on land once owned by John Hancock and lateR the site of the William Endicott mansion, now stands the national headquarters of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. A six-story building that was constructed in 1927 to be the headquarters of the American Unitarian Association, the building houses a bookstore that is open to the public, as well as meeting spaces and a chapel. The building’s interior is designed in the 19th-century Neo-Georgian style — also known as the “merchant prince” style, for the many traders who made their fortunes through trade with Asia. The 20th century house blends in appropriately with many of the older houses on Beacon Hill.

Next door to the new Northeastern University president’s residence, the Parkman House stands at 33 Beacon. One of the first sensational “trials of the century” involved the murder of its owner, the wealthy Dr. George Parkman. He was bludgeoned to death in 1849 by Dr. John Webster, a Harvard medical professor who allegedly snapped, having lived beyond his means on a then-meager professor’s salary, when Parkman insisted that he repay a personal loan. (No worries about the Parkman house being haunted; the murder took place elsewhere.) Parkman’s son lived in seclusion in the house until his death in 1908. The building now is owned by the City of Boston, which uses it for civic functions and events.

At 42 Beacon, the Somerset Club’s handsome façade is currently a little less so, due to construction. Built in 1819 for entrepreneur David Sears from designs provided by Alexander Parris, the architect who designed Quincy Market, 42 Beacon was also the site of painter John Singleton Copley’s residence. In 1852, the residence was converted into a private club — the Somerset — and in a famous 1865 political schism, about 70 members quit the Somerset to form the Union Club, which was staunchly anti-slavery. In 1988, the Somerset broke with tradition and opened its doors to minorities and women — no doubt because licensing entities said that no liquor licenses would be allowed at institutions discriminating on the basis of race or sex.

Currently under renovations that include updating sprinkler systems and installing handicap access within the building, the Somerset is expected to reopen October 1, according to Dennis Michel, the club’s general manager.

At 45 Beacon, some 40-odd scientists and American Meteorological Society staff members enjoy one of the toniest offices on the street. Built in 1806 for Boston’s third mayor, Harrison Gray Otis, the house was the third designed by architect Charles Bulfinch for Otis. It is widely regarded to be the famous architect’s most successful Federal-style town house design.

Otis resided in this house until his death in 1848, and after a succession of three other owners, the American Meteorological Society purchased and renovated it in 1958. There are 37 rooms in the historic house—which is one of the 44 great houses listed in the book Great Georgian Houses of America — including 10 bathrooms, 15 fireplaces, a wine cellar, and a carriage house that has now been converted into additional office space.

While their neighbors are studying one kind of climate, the occupants of 46 Beacon are concerned with a more spiritual atmosphere. Since 1977, the Holy Spirit Association has owned the large, brown edifice that was once lived in by Elijah Jordan, the founder of the Jordan Marsh department store. Affiliated with the Unification Movement founded by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the building’s occupants hold “lots of student and interfaith activities” as well as a Sunday service at which guests are welcome, according to James B. Edgerly, state director of the Family Federation for World Peace, a movement-within-the-movement that Edgerly characterizes as “a young movement with a vision behind it that’s broader than a church.” Worldly charm still pervades the building’s interior, where a music room with 40-foot ceilings and Symphony Hall-quality acoustics is the site of concerts and coffeehouses. Function rooms occupy two floors of the mansion, with the top floors reserved as living space for students, families, and full-time missionaries, Edgerly says.

Down the street at 55 Beacon Street, The Boston chapter of the National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts now owns and operates the William Hickling Prescott House as a museum open to tours and researchers from May though October. Built in 1808 for the Boston merchant James Smith Colburn by architect Asher Benjamin, the home takes its name from its most famous resident, the American historian who was one fo the first English-speaking historians to write about the Spanish Empire. The partially blind Prescott lived in the house from 1845 to 1859.

The Colonial Dames purchased the house in 1944, which was designated a National Historical Landmark in 1964. The home is furnished with period-appropriate furniture and decorative arts, and a lavish collection of clothing dating from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century is on display and available to researchers by appointment.

The King’s Chapel Society's parish house occupies the two townhouses at 63 and 64. Originally built by Ephraim Marsh in 1824, the twin townhouses are now home to the offices, library, church school and minister’s residence for King’s Chapel itself, the first Unitarian Church in North America. While King’s Chapel up the road is imposing, with a Georgian sanctuary completed in 1754, the interior of the parish house is decidedly unimposing. In addition to school rooms, a reading room and office space, it has a tiny chapel used for children’s and family services. Enter the Little Chapel and what strikes you first — apart from the sense of peace — is the strange sense of scale. Created in 1999 as part of a renovation effort, the pocket-sized house of worship boasts a small organ, scaled-down pews, and an informal atmosphere where kids and their parents can worship together. Even the stained-glass altar panels, including an impressive rendition of Psalm 121 in fused fragments of glass, are the work of students at the King’s Chapel Church School.

Many of Beacon Hill’s most imposing buildings may no longer be private residences, but they form the landscape that many of us feel is home.

Many residents have complained about noise emanating from four speakers installed at the intersection of Beacon and Charles streets, according to the Beacon Hill Civic Association, and they feel the Boston Transportation Department has not amended the problem quickly enough.

Over Labor Day weekend, the city set up new walk signal speakers on each corner of the intersection. The indicators, meant to aid the blind in crossing the street safely, give off several chirping noises before beginning their 13-second visual countdown.

Corner apartment residents immediately flooded the Civic Association with phone calls, complaining the noises were too loud and went on all day and night regardless of traffic on the street, said Executive Director Suzanne Besser. “This has been the most complaints [about a specific issue] we’ve gotten in awhile, because people are being kept awake from it,” she said.

The head of the association’s traffic and parking department wrote a letter to the BTD asking that the volume be reduced, at least during the night, she said. Several staff members also worked with the offices of City Counselor Mike Ross and the mayor to try to fix the problem.

BTD spokesperson Tracy Ganiatsos said the department has begun to address the problem. “We’re going to make some modifications in stages,” she said. “We’re hoping we don’t need to get to the last stage [of completely removing the speakers].”

The BTD planned to send someone to the intersection Wednesday night to see if the pedestrian push-buttons were working, she said, and will change the sequencing of the system in the following few days. From 1 a.m. to 6 a.m., she said, the system will be set so that no audible signals can go off. Eventually, between 6 a.m. and 1 a.m., the noise will only go off if someone presses a button.

Resident James Barondess, who has contacted several city offices about the issue, said he was told the push-button system would be implemented over a week ago. “It seems progress is being made,” he said, “but given how disruptive [the speakers] are to people who live here, it shouldn’t take this long. This is 15 feet from people’s windows.”

Speakers were placed on all four corners because of the island in the middle of the intersection, said Ganiatsos. “Greenery tends to buffer noise,” she said. “It’s great for residents but it can also buffer the ability of people with disabilities to hear the audible signals.”

Another issue is that nobody seems entirely clear on whether this corner needs a device for visually impaired people, said Barondess. In the 20 years he has lived on the corner, he said, he has not noticed anyone blind crossing the street.

"There is newer technology, especially for residential settings, using an audible signal right near the push button,” said Meg Robertson, director of the orientation and mobility department of the Massachusetts Association for the Blind. “It’s very precise and localized. You only hear it within a few feet of the pole.” The signals at these corners are instead mounted at the “ped heads,” or tops, of cross signal poles, she said.

Robertson wrote a letter to the city several years ago, she said, listing intersections where blind residents may find audible signals most helpful. As of that time, she said, there were 52 registered, legally blind residents in the zip code of the intersection, and 4,000 in Boston as a whole. “The list itself is many years old,” she said.

“The Transportation Department never came back and asked what type [of signals] should be installed, what type would also be accessible for neighbors.” Any type of audible signal should adjust its volume to the volume of traffic in the area, she said.

According to Karin Mathiesen, Counselor Ross’s director of constituent relations for Back Bay, Beacon Hill and the West End, other residents have also continued to complain even since the BTD revisited the intersection.

Ultimately, the BTD should consider removing the speakers on the two corners with residences, said Mathiesen. “That’s what [Ross] says he’d like to see happen.”

The Beacon Hill Times follows the progress, or lack thereof, on Cambridge Street through direct observation and interviews with the project’s supervisor John Lepore.

Progress during the week of September 10-14

Traffic signals: No observable progress.

Street paving: No observable progress.

Street lights: Still not working properly.

Trash barrels: Not in.

Commissioner Richard K. Sullivan of the Department of Conservation and Recreation said last week he will recommend that the Storrow Drive tunnel between Arlington and Clarendon streets be rebuilt as is. He anticipates that construction would begin in 2010 and last for up to two and a half years.

He also said his formal recommendation will include four ways to manage traffic during construction, one of which is a plan the former DCR officials promised wouldn’t be used — a 1,200 foot temporary pavement built on the Esplanade itself.

Neighbors said, “No way.”

“We will not allow this to happen,” said Linda Cox, a member of the landscape and transportation committee that has been studying construction options for about 18 months in cooperation with DCR. “The protection of the park land is more important than a temporary inconvenience to motorists.”

“This is incredibly stupid,” said Tony Pangaro of Charles Street, another committee member. “It’s not thought out. It’s engineering run amok. It doesn’t respect the context of the park.”

Neighborhood leaders say the commissioner tells them they must choose between nighttime construction with the noise that entails and paving the Esplanade — a false choice, they say.

“I can’t believe that in 2007 we can’t come up with a better solution,” said Patrice Todisco, executive director of The Esplanade Association.

Committee members are also annoyed that after putting in considerable time vetting possible schemes, their opinions are ignored. One committee member called it insulting that the commissioner is recommending plans that committee members found either wanting or unacceptable. Pangaro called it disrespectful and a breach of the public process.

“What had been a model of collaboration between a community and a government agency has wholly failed,” said state Representative Marty Walz, who represents the downtown neighborhoods along Storrow Drive. She also said the commissioner misrepresents the community process when he claims that the plans he is presenting arose from that process.

Committee members see DCR now using a divide and conquer strategy they abhor. “Even worse is that I sense an attempt to pit the interests of commuters against city’s park advocates,” said Pangaro. “I haven’t seen that divisive political tactic since the pro-highway advocacy of the 1960s.”

Put it off, say neighbors
Pangaro said he now believes DCR should repair the tunnel to last for ten years as department officials have said they plan to do. Then they should fix the rusting Longfellow Bridge — another project that promises to create traffic problems — and go back to Storrow Drive when a better plan can be crafted for both permanently fixing the tunnel and handling traffic during its construction.

Sullivan said, however, that Storrow Drive is important to the businesses and the institutions along its corridor.

But at least one institution believes delay is better than the current plans. John Messervy, the director of capital and facility planning for Partners Health Care, which owns both Massachusetts General Hospital and hospitals in the Longwood Medical Area — facilities that attract a large proportion of Storrow Drive users, said Storrow Drive reconstruction brings no added traffic benefits and is less important than fixing the Longfellow Bridge, which carries autos, large delivery trucks and the Red Line.

“We’d like to see the priority be addressing bridges first,” he said. “The more we read and the more we hear the more concerned we are about the river crossings.”

He also proposes that the tunnel be repaired to last at least 10 years as planned. By that time, he said, the Charles River crossings could be repaired. Steps such as building new ramps in the Back Bay connecting to the Mass Pike could also be taken. Those and other traffic solutions could provide drivers with better options than Storrow Drive and could mean that a better solution could be found for the roadway’s configuration. Moreover, said Messervy, a longer time-frame will give DCR time to test such intriguing but worrisome ideas as closing the Berkeley Street west-bound entrance to Storrow.

The Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay could support a delay, said NABB chair Jacquelin Yessian. John Achatz, chair of the Beacon Hill Civic Association, called “interesting” the idea of delaying Storrow Drive’s full reconstruction until after the bridges’ reconstruction is complete. “It’s something we should explore, and see if we can rally around,” he said.

Linda Cox said, no matter what happens, this matter has taken on an urgency of opposition she didn’t forsee. The DCR commissioner’s stance in this matter reminds her of the 1970s proposal real estate developer Mort Zuckerman made for a high rise in Park Plaza that would have shaded the Boston Public Garden and compromised some of the plants, she said. This proposal was eventually scuttled.

“Commissioner Sullivan could be to the Esplanade what Mort Zuckerman was to the Public Garden,” she said. “He’s posing a threat that galvanizes people to protect their beloved park.”

Keep the towing

The war on street cleaning has begun. Disgruntled scofflaws who didn’t move their cars for the street cleaner and got towed are grousing louder and louder. There are a lot of them — 21,000 cars have been towed by last count since April 15 when towing began, according to City Councilor Michael Flaherty.

A Globe columnist held forth last week about all the beleaguered Bostonians who are missing work and paying big fees because the city towed their cars on street cleaning day.

At-large City Councilor Michael Flaherty is now on the case. He has responded to complaints to his office about towing by announcing a hearing, to be scheduled in the next couple of weeks, to learn more from disgruntled parkers who did not read the street cleaning warning signs. He’s also worried that the tow companies are cleaning up in fees, while the city gets little. We urge those of you who like the clean streets that the towing brings us to get to that hearing to support the towing program.

We understand the aggravation, since over the years we have been towed ourselves a few times. But we have a hard time sympathizing with those who don’t move their cars. The towing has made an enormous difference since the street cleaner now enjoys a clear shot along the curb. No longer are the cigarette butts, dog poop, stray pieces of paper, leaves and general dirt laminated to the pavement. It’s a big change, and it is worth some aggravation on the part of Bostonians to change this city’s ranking as the filthiest in America to perhaps only second or third or fourth filthiest.
Flaherty says that people who don’t move their cars don’t purposefully leave their cars. He says they just forget. In theory, having one’s car towed make one remember in the future.

He says people tell him it’s hard to remember which street gets cleaned on which day. We say that anyone who is concerned about the quality of life in their neighborhood will use their noggin and read the signs, which are pretty clear in our neighborhood.

Flaherty says he wants to make sure each neighborhood gets tagged and towed equitably. He wants to see how the city can get more of the revenue that is now going to the tow companies — about $4.4 million. He wants to redress grievances such as the one from the man whose car was towed while he had stopped to pick up a suit in which to bury his recently deceased brother. He wants the contractors to refrain from towing cars that are parked after the street sweeper goes by. He wants signs that inform drivers when street cleaning takes place to be easy to read and posted in visible places.

Those goals are fine with us.

But don’t let up on the towing.

The Beacon Hill Civic Association held its annual block party on Sunday, dishing out about a thousand hot dogs, sponsoring a dog look-alike contest and coordinating with Hill House for a pancacke breakfast.

The Bike Parade drew about 25 young riders.

Paul Reich and his dog Izzy, Myrtle Street, won the dog/owner look-alike contest.