South End District | |
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  Location in Boston metro area Show map of Greater Boston area Location in United States Show map of the United States | |
| Location | Boston, Massachusetts |
|---|---|
| Architect | Multiple |
| Architectural style | Greek Revival,Late Victorian,Italianate |
| Website | www |
| NRHP reference No. | 73000324[1] |
| Added to NRHP | May 8, 1973 |
TheSouth End is aneighborhood inBoston,Massachusetts, United States which is bordered byBack Bay,Chinatown, andRoxbury. It is distinguished from other neighborhoods by itsVictorian-style houses and the parks in and around the area. The South End is the largest intact Victorian row-house district in the country, covering over 300 acres (120 ha).[2] It has eleven residential parks. In 1973, the South End was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[2] Much of the neighborhood was originally marshlands in Boston's South Bay. After it was filled in, construction began on January 7, 1849.
It is home to diverse groups, including immigrants, young families and professionals, and it is popular with Boston's gay and lesbian community.[3] The South End has been characterized by diversity since the 1880s, with substantial Irish, Jewish, African-American, Puerto Rican (in the San Juan Street area), Chinese, Italian, and Greek populations. Its 2010 population was 55.2 percent white, 13.3 percent Hispanic, 12.5 percent Black, 16.2 percent Asian, and 2.7 percent "other". 55.2 percent of South End residents had a bachelor's degree or higher; median household income was $57,699, and the median age was 36. 65.6 percent were primarily English speakers, and 12.9 percent primarily spoke Spanish.[4]
The South End is south of theBack Bay, northwest ofSouth Boston, northeast ofRoxbury, north ofDorchester, and southwest ofBay Village. Despite the name, it is not directly south of downtown Boston.
Land belonging to the South End has been part of the city of Boston since its founding, although it was smaller when first settled and surrounded by largetidal flats.[5] The neighborhood was expanded and developed by filling in the marshlands, part of a larger project of filling Boston's Back Bay andSouth Bay between the 1830s and the 1870s.[5] Fill was brought in by train as gravel quarried inNeedham.[5] Nineteenth-century technology did not allow driving steelpiles intobedrock, and a system of submerged timbers provided an understructure for most South End buildings.[6][7] Groundwater levels in Boston had been dropping for years by 2006, damaging some wood pilings by exposing them to air.[7][8] A series ofmonitoring wells have been drilled; the water level is checked by the Boston Groundwater Trust,[9] and can be raised by introducing water.[7]
The South End was bordered on the north and west by theBoston and Providence Railroad,[10] which terminated at the B&PRR station bordering the Public Garden. The rail line is now covered bySouthwest Corridor Park.[11]
The primary business thoroughfares in the South End areColumbus Avenue,Tremont Street, andWashington Street. Washington Street, the original causeway that connected Roxbury to Boston, experienced reinvestment during the 1990s. The street was once defined by theWashington Street Elevated, an elevated train that was moved below Southwest Corridor Park in the 1980s.[12][13] Part of theSilver Line, Boston's firstbus rapid transit line, runs along Washington Street.[14] TheMBTAOrange Line rapid-transit train runs along the partially-coveredSouthwest Corridor.[12]
TheBoston Redevelopment Authority identified several subdistricts in the neighborhood's southeast portion:[15]
The South End has elevenresidential parks, varying in size and inspired by English-style residential squares first laid out downtown byCharles Bulfinch. The neighborhood also has newer parks, including Peters Park, and a series of sixteen community gardens and pocket parks operated bythe Trustees of Reservations.
As the South End expanded with fill north and west of "the Neck", Boston envisioned a large inner-city residential neighborhood to relieve the crowded downtown and Beacon Hill neighborhoods and hoped for a large, stable tax base. ArchitectCharles Bulfinch laid out some of the first filled land.[16] He designed a large residential park called Columbia Square[16] located at the presentFranklin and Blackstone Squares.[17] Bulfinch's plan was to route traffic around the square. His plan was abandoned, and Washington Street was allowed to again divide the square (creating separate squares).[16]
Many rooming houses on the Back Bay side of the South End had no bathing facilities, and roomers bathed in public showers. Filled land in the neighborhood was originally eight feet above sea level, but has settled to four feet. The original shoreline of Boston Neck crosses in front of 40 St. George Street, and tapers to the narrowest point of the Neck at East Berkeley St. (formerly Dover Street). Blackstone and Franklin Square is solid land on the original neck, but clam and snail shells are just beneath its surface because high seas would occasionally overrun the Neck.
Middle-class people moved to the South End, including business owners, two mayors, bankers, and industrialists, but the neighborhood's wealthy status was relatively short-lived. A series of nationalfinancial panics such as thePanic of 1884, combined with new residential housing in Back Bay andRoxbury, fed a steady decline of whites ofEnglish Protestant ancestry.
By the close of the nineteenth century, the South End was becoming atenement district; it attracted immigrants and, during the 1940s,gay men. The neighborhood also became a center ofBlack middle-class Boston life and culture. The largest concentration ofPullman porters in the country lived in the South End, primarily between Columbus Avenue and the railroad.
The firstsettlement houses in Boston were in the South End: the South End House, Haley House, Lincoln House, the Harriet Tubman House, and the Children's Art Centre. In 1960, these settlement houses merged to formUnited South End Settlements.[18]
The South End was one of many large-scale Boston landfill projects to create new residential districts.[2] Construction began in 1849, on tidal marshes that surrounded Boston Neck.[2] The street plan for the South End was patterned on 18th-century English models, with blocks of townhouses overlooking small parks in the centers of residential streets.[2] The parks were built to make the neighborhood feel more like a community.[2] Townhouses quickly became the predominant form of housing, and builders produced blocks of houses for middle-class families.[2] The townhouses were built from 1850 to 1880, typically in a mix of architectural styles.[2] The South End became a popular hospital district; the first wasBoston City Hospital, which attracted other hospitals to the area.[2] One was theMassachusetts Homeopathic Hospital, built in 1875.[2] The hospital used fresh-air cures and home remedies on patients, and surgical cases were sent to theBoston University School of Medicine.[2] The medical school came to the South End in 1874 with the New England Female College, the first college in the region to accept women.[2] By the late 19th century, the South End was becoming increasingly populated by African Americans from the South.[2] Although City Hospital admitted Black patients, they were not allowed in their training programs or hired as professionals.[2] Cornelius Garland, a Black physician from Alabama, opened Plymouth Hospital and Nurse's Training School by 1908.[2] By 1929, Plymouth Hospital was closed because City Hospital had begun to accept people of color into its medical and nursing programs.[2]
The connection of Boston andAlbany by railroad (by some of the various companies that would later merge into theBoston and Albany Railroad) was celebrated in 1841 as a way to keep Boston competitive with New York City as an Atlantic port. The New York Streets district, a residential area of the South End whose streets were named after cities on the route to Albany, arose south of the Boston and Worcester Railroad (the present-day Massachusetts Turnpike) over the next decade. Albany Street still exists, although it now ends at the turnpike instead of Kneeland; connecting it with Harrison Street from north to south were Seneca, Oneida, Oswego, Genesee, Rochester and Troy Streets. Troy is the present-day Traveler Street.[19][20][21]
Nearly all the buildings in New York Streets began to be bulldozed in 1955 as part of anurban renewal project to clear slums and make room for industrial activity during a period characterized by urban decline. The resultingsuperblock was redeveloped into the headquarters of theBoston Herald.[19] The Herald-Traveler Corporation extended from the new Herald Street to Traveler Street until 2012, when it moved to theSeaport District inSouth Boston.[22] It was redeveloped as a mixed-use area known as the Ink Block, with apartments, a grocery store, restaurants, and other retail businesses.[19] Other populated sites in the South End received similar treatment, particularly the early high-rise, high-density Cathedral Housing Projects adjacent toHoly Cross Cathedral and high- and low-rise redevelopments such as Castle Square, from 1964 to 1966.[23]
The South End is residential and commercial. Since it is near access to railroads and port facilities, it attracted a number of manufacturers.[2] Albany Street, along the Roxbury Canal, became occupied by warehouses and factories and was the center of Boston's furniture and piano-making industry by the 19th century.[2] The South End has new developments that will add residential and commercial space. According to the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), a new project will be built on Albany Street which will "include two hotels: a 16-story select service hotel, which will have a restaurant on its first floor; and a 9-story extended-stay hotel. The hotels together will have approximately 408 rooms. While the split between the two types of hotels has not been finally determined, current plans anticipate approximately 210 rooms in the select service hotel and approximately 198 rooms in the extended-stay hotel. The select-service hotel will include an approximately 4,000 square-foot (approximately 267-seat) restaurant on its first floor. A 3-level, above-ground parking garage with approximately 137 parking spaces will serve both hotels."[24] The project was expected to provide about 200 new jobs for construction workers and "employ approximately 200 employees (full-time equivalents) in management, operations, customer service, retail, and food service functions."[24]
Until the 1950s, the South End and nearby Roxbury was ajazz mecca with clubs such as the Royal Palms, Eddie Levine's, the Pioneer Club, Handy's Grille, Tic-Toc, Connolly's, Estelle's, the Hi-Hat, The Savoy, The Cave, Basin Street, Louie's Lounge, andWally's Paradise; Wally's is the only club still in operation. TheAmerican Federation of Musicians Local 535 was the top black musicians' union in the country from 1915 to 1970, with local and national musicians includingDuke Ellington,Cab Calloway,Chick Webb,Earl Hines, andJimmie Lunceford. Its offices were originally aboveCharlie's Sandwich Shoppe (whose walls are lined with photographs of jazz musicians who ate there), but moved to 409 Massachusetts Avenue around 1930. Local 535 and Local 9 (the white union) were ordered by the courts to merge into Boston Musicians Association Local 9-535 in 1970, and most of the Black musicians left.[25]
The South End has five primary and secondary schools, providing education from kindergarten through grade 12 as part ofBoston Public Schools. The McKinley South End Academy is four schools, a special-education school that focuses on behavioral, emotional and learning needs.[26] The Josiah Quincy Upper School teaches grades six to 12, balancing core-subject requirements with world languages, the arts and physical education.[27] Blackstone Elementary School has over 500 students from diverse backgrounds from pre-kindergarten to grade five.[28] Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology, established in 1908, is a four-year South End school for students desiring a technical degree.
The South End is served by three public libraries, and the South End Branch has a diverse collection of popular and scholarly materials for adults and children.[29] It has local-history documents, DVDs, CDs and audiobooks for adults, and recurring programs for children.[29] Programs for adults include monthly book-discussion groups and a weekly English conversation class.[29] The Blackstone Community Center, on West Brookline Street, is one of 35 community centers for youth and families and the only one serving the South End and lower Roxbury.[28] Blackstone's mission is to enhance the quality of life for Boston residents by "supporting children, youth, and families through a wide range of programs and services",[28] and it has a number of programs for children and adults.[28] Two major hospitals in the South End areBoston Medical Center andBoston University School of Medicine.[3] The South End Community Health Center, a board-governed non-profit "comprehensive, health care organization for all residents of the South End and the surrounding communities", is "committed to providing the highest quality, culturally and linguistically sensitive, coordinated health care and social services to every patient, regardless of their ability to pay".[30] Services include adult medicine, behavioral health, dental care and nutrition to name a few.[30]
Other community organizations include South End Baseball, Youth Enrichment Services, theSouth End Lower Roxbury Open Space Land Trust,Mytown (an organization training youth to lead walking tours on neighborhood and Boston history), theSouth End Historical Society, Inquilinos Boricuas en Accion, and United South End Settlements. The Animal Rescue League of Boston, founded in 1899 by Anna Harris Smith, is at 10 Chandler Street. The league has an animal shelter, an animal-cruelty investigation and prosecution law-enforcement department, a rescue department, an animal-behavior department and Boston Veterinary Care, an outpatient veterinary facility.
The South End's population has been diverse since the 1880s whenIrish,Lebanese,Jewish,African-American,Puerto rican,Italian, andGreek people began to settle in the neighborhood. A number of immigrants fromCanada'smaritime provinces found economic opportunity in Boston, and homes in the South End, during the 1930s.
In the 1940s, particularly after the end of World War II, the South End's rooming houses became home to a growing number of gays and lesbians; single-sex rooming houses provided a home and social cover for LGBT people. Late in the decade, the Hispanic population began to grow; at first, much of this settlement was centered around theCathedral of the Holy Cross. The neighborhood remains diverse, with people of nearly every race, religion, and sexual orientation.[31]
Income levels are anecdotally reported as stratified, with concentrations of wealth and poverty, but neither the U.S. census or the city of Boston reports the neighborhood's income. Althoughgentrification is sometimes cited as a reason for the flight of poorer, non-white residents, the neighborhood has maintained racial and income diversity due to its subsidized, publicly owned, or otherwise low-income housing units and a homeless shelter. Subsidized, below-market-rate housing developments such as Methunion Manor, Cathedral Housing (apublic housing project), Villa Victoria, Tent City, Lenox Street Apartments, Camden, Camfield Gardens, 1850 Washington St, and Mandela Homes and represent evolving attitudes to public-housing design and governance.
Although all neighborhoods in Boston experience crime, the city has a comparatively low incidence ofstreet crime. Some parts of the South End are known for street crime, and others arefamily friendly. The neighborhood has more publicplaygrounds per square foot than other Boston neighborhoods. The South End is known as an increasinglyupper middle class neighborhood, although it is still home to many lower income residents. Some long-time residents are being pushed out by rising rents and property taxes.
The South End has been known as agay, artistic, and cultural neighborhood, although costs in the neighborhood are rising. Unlike cities such asNew York andLos Angeles, there are no city policies to help artists keep their long-term studios. Existing art galleries, however, are flourishing. GardenMoms, one of Boston's most popular online parent groups with over 2,500 members citywide, was founded by several South End mothers in 2002.[32]
According to the 2010 census, the South End's population was 24,577 (a 12.2-percent increase from 2000).[4] The neighborhood was 55.2 percent white, 13.3 percent Hispanic or Latino, 12.5 percent Black, 16.2 percent Asian, and 2.7 percent other groups.[4] As for age, 33.8 percent of the population was between 20 and 34 years old and eight percent were under age nine;[4] 5.9 percent of South End residents were 10–19 years old, 31.2 percent were 35-54, 10.5 percent were 55-64, and 10.6 percent were 65 or older.[4] The median age for the South End is 36.[4] About 55.2 percent of the population hold a college degree; 29.2 percent have a bachelor's degree, and 26 percent hold a graduate degree.[4] The primary language spoken in the neighborhood is English (65.6 percent), followed by Spanish (12.9 percent), Chinese (10.4 percent), French (2.7 percent), Portuguese (one percent), and other languages (7.4 percent).[4] The median annual South End income is $57,699, with 10.9 percent of the population earning $50,000 to $74,000.[4] There are 12,831 households in the South End, with 23.3 percent living in a family that includes a wife and a husband; 47.4 percent live alone.[4] In 2010, 45.2 percent of residents did not own a vehicle.[4] Thirty-four percent of residents use public transportation, excluding taxis.[4] The South End has 58.1 percent of its population working in the management, business, science, and arts sectors, with 79.1 percent of the labor force between the ages of 20 and 34.[4] According to the 2010 census, 72.6 percent of the South End has lived in the same place for the past year; 12.8 percent moved to a different location in the same county, 7.5 percent moved from a different county, and 5.9 percent moved from a different state to the South End.[4]
The South End is nearMBTA subway stops, includingCopley,Symphony, andPrudential stations on theGreen Line; andRuggles,Massachusetts Avenue, andBack Bay stations on theOrange Line.[33]Commuter rail service on theFranklin/Foxboro,Needham, andProvidence/Stoughton lines is available at the Ruggles and Back Bay stations. Back Bay is also served by theFramingham/Worcester Line. These commuter rail lines continue toSouth Station.
Thebus rapid transitSilver Line routes SL4 and SL5 betweenNubian Square and downtown Boston run on Washington Street through the South End, with several stops betweenLenox andHerald Streets. The neighborhood is also served by local MBTA bus routes. Major routes include route43 onTremont Street and route1 onMassachusetts Avenue.
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