Here they are, from top left to bottom right:
The Boston Consolidated Gas Company Building, a "twin tower" built in 1927 from a Classical Revival / Renaissance Revival design by Parker, Thomas & Rice (who included J. Harleston Parker, the namesake of the Boston Society for Architecture's Harleston Parker Medal) for the 1903 consolidation of multiple local gas companies, including the city's first and only coal-gas company for 30 years prior, The Boston Gas Light Company, founded in 1823. A big gas conglomerate required a big building, and a visually distinctive one at that: it follows Classicism's base, shaft and capital hierarchy to the letter and is clad in carved and dressed limestone, with a first-floor arcade and arched top-floor windows. And what better place to locate it than on the fringes of one of the company's main beneficiaries, the Back Bay (note that neighborhood's gaslamps). The building was converted to luxury apartments in 2014.
The Castle at Park Plaza, formerly the Armory of the First Corps of Cadets, was built of rocky granite from 1891 to 1897 from a Richardsonian Romanesque / Medieval Revival design by William Gibbons Preston as an ammunition storage and drill-hall facility for the First Corps of Cadets of Massachusetts, founded in 1741 and renowned for graduating officers for regiments ranging from the Revolutionary War through World War II. It was structurally engineered to withstand mob violence, owing to the political and civil unrest going on then. After various uses – including UMass Boston's first library, a banquet facility for the Boston Park Plaza Hotel (see below), and a Smith & Wollensky Steakhouse – it is now an event venue known as the Saunders Castle & the Tower. Public spectacle events it has hosted in its vast drill hall include Discovering King Tut's Tomb, Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition, The Moonwalkers: A Journey with Tom Hanks, and Immersive Monet & the Impressionists.
The Liberty Mutual Tower, built from 2011 to 2013 from a design by CBT/Childs Bertman Tseckares Inc., may be Boston's major revival of the turn-of-the-century masonry skyscraper style that produced the likes of New York's Flatiron Building and Times Tower (sadly shorn of its Renaissance Revival granite/terracotta façade, and now masked in bland marble and LED advertising) at very narrow street intersections, which molded them into acute triangles. This tower is clad in Indiana limestone mounted on architectural precast concrete, with some granite used on the lower podium to blend with historic Back Bay buildings. The many awards it won (and deserved) include the Boston Preservation Alliance's 2014 Preservation Achievement Award. So if you're sick of those goofy "Liberty, Liberty, Liberty" ads on TV, the Internet or your car radio, have a look at the tower to see how tasteful the company can be when it wants to.
The John Hancock Tower, aka 200 Clarendon Street, is another geometric oddity that fostered a radical transformation of the Boston skyline – for better or for worse – when built from 1968 to 1976 a from a design by the late Harry Cobb of I.M. Pei & Partners.
The Old John Hancock Building, aka The Berkeley Building, is the John Hancock Tower's most immediate ancestor. Built in 1947 from a design by Cram & Ferguson, this Ohio sandstone edifice brought the streamlined Art Deco style of the Empire State Building into Boston, at the same time blessing it with the iconic weather beacon that is still used today as a predictor of the elements:
10 St. James Avenue, though hard to see in the top photo, is significant for its transitional style, bridging the generation gap among the Miesian modernism of the John Hancock Tower, the masonry revivalism of the Liberty Mutual Tower, and the limestone antiquity of their century-old neighbors. Built in 2000 from an eclectic design by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, this 20-story office building alternates a blend of limestone and buff-colored brick with reflective mirror glass, blending nicely with all neighbors from all eras, and referencing the Berkeley Building's spire with a vertical antenna of its own. Its glass galleria unites it with the Paine Furniture Building next door and provides a covered but sunny passage to Stuart Street, with cafe seating that lets you stop and rest in safety from any kind of weather Berkeley's beacon predicts.
The Paine Furniture Building, aka 75 Arlington Street, was built in 1914 in a Classical Revival design by Densmore & LeClear as showrooms, offices and manufacturing facilities for the Paine Furniture Company, which explains its large, light-giving Chicago windows and tall, wide entries and display windows. Structured in steel and faced in limestone with carved brackets, capitals, modillions, festoons and a balustrade, it is notable for its cropped corner entrance, easing its accessibility from both crossroads. I had the privilege of studying interior design when Suffolk University's New England School of Art & Design was housed there, and its large windows and cylindrical load-bearing columns comprised the perfect studio ambiance for such a pursuit.
The Hilton Boston Park Plaza, originally The Hotel Statler Boston, is another triangular cropped-corner power-presence on this corner. Built in 1927 by hotelier Ellsworth M. Statler from a Classical Beaux-Arts design by the New York firm of George B. Post and Sons, it furthered the wave of Roaring '20s New York glitz into Boston, touting it proudly in every festooned arch, crystal chandelier, ceiling medallion, gilded balcony, and white-glove valet throughout its city-within-a-city. Notable guests included President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Katharine Hepburn, and Judy Garland.
Statler Park was a gift to Boston from Ellsworth M. Statler in 1927 in exchange for Mayor James Michael Curley's approval of the hotel's construction at the desired height. Statler later donated The Fountain Figure, the bronze statue atop the park's central fountain, sculpted by Ulysses Ricci around 1912 (below).
The Motor Mart Garage, built concurrently with the Hotel Statler Boston from a Stripped Classical / Art Deco design by Ralph Harrington Doane, was the world's largest garage upon its opening in 1927, timely with the growing prevalence of the automobile in Park Square, and certainly made to order for the Statler's influx of hotel guests, especially with its innovative double-ramp circulatory system for 2,000 cars. Publicized as "more than a place to park your car," the garage also offered a car wash, an auto body shop, and a pumping station. The angel-winged circular shields along its cornice trumpeted the quality of service offered therein. It received the Harleston Parker Medal as Boston's "finest new building of 1927."
Which is a good reason not to build on top of it, as CIM Group had hoped to do upon acquiring it for $162.5 million a decade ago. Had they gotten their way, another skyscraper would have grown on this corner, but one that would have completed rather than cooperated with its neighbors, standing out like a stalk of shards looped into an oblong footprint, in the latest attempt at a loopy skyscraper sculpture since The Gherkin, The Shard, and The Cheesegrater shook up London's skyline. The COVID pandemic dashed hopes for a Motor Mart Mountain, and The Boston Globe reported that the garage was sold to Related Beal at a 45% markdown from the sale price. Which means it can once again enjoy being part of a dynamic city block (left), at least for now, until Related Beal President Kimberly Sherman Stamler's statement that the garage "holds great possibility for future residential and commercial development" comes true.
This corner of Boston is symbolic of the city's growth from an aggregate of low-rise villages and narrow streets to an upwardly mobile metropolis out to compete with New York for livability and commerce, those ambitions expressed in the diverse styles and materials of their eras, but all sharing the common attribute of being on the up and up in architecture. But so as not to become too cavernous as they soared to new heights, they were careful to reserve space for one of Boston's first pocket parks, for the new wave of office workers and hotel guests to enjoy their lunch outside.
And something else New York-esque occurs in these parts of Boston: Bostonhenge, the Hub's version of Manhattanhenge, when the sunset aligns axially with Stuart Street, as it did toward the end of last month on October 27, 2026. That effect richly colors the sky and the buildings in a way that unifies their diverse styles and eras into one common eye-dropping spectacle, just as Manhattan's rectilinear street grid and urban canyons do twice a year, at the summer and winter solstices when sunsets align around May 28 and July 13 and sunrises align around December 5 and January 8. Because this is one of Boston's best urban canyons, this is the place to view this once-a-year occurrence.
 |
| Photo by Thomas Kelley. |
 |
| Photo by |
Inspired by a skyscraper concept proposed by Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe in 1922, the Hancock broke every Boston architecture rule in the book for its minimalist mirror-glass International Style, its twisted parallelogram shape, its accurate reflections of cloud formations, its status as New England's tallest building (a record it still holds), and especially its reputation as the "Plywood Ranch" or "Plywood Palace" because many of its windows popped out due to expansion and contraction of air between each window's inner and outer glass panels, necessitating their boarding-up until all 10,344 panes could be replaced with single-paned, heat-treated panels, which have held firm ever since.
To make matters worse, the tower swayed in high winds, giving occupants motion sickness. This forced Cobb to send for Swiss engineer Bruno Thurlimann to install a tuned mass damper near the top to counteract the swaying and to add 1,500 tons of diagonal steel bracing to the building, following the model set by the tower's precursor, the John Hancock Center in Chicago (1969).
At first reviled by many as a blemish on the Boston skyline, the Hancock Tower is now one of the city's most recognizable and revered icons, easily spotted miles away from multiple directions, and an ever-popular Facebook/Instagram photo-op subject.
 |
| Photo by Kenneth Grant. |
Steady blue, clear view.
Flashing blue, clouds due.
Steady red, rain ahead.
Flashing red, snow instead.
(It also flashes red when a Red Sox game is rained out.) I had the privilege of singing in its beautiful John Hancock Hall with the Bretton Woods Boy Singers to close our (final) summer concert season with one last hurrah.
 |
| Photo by James Woodward. |
 |
| Photo by Mark N. Belanger. |
 |
| Photo by Brooks Payne. |
 |
| Photo by Dalila Rodriguez |
 |
| Photo by Kevin Stewart. |
 |
| Bostonhenge, October 27, 2026. Photo by Sam Carruthers. |
 |
| Photo by Luis Torres. |
This enclave attracts me because I'm a native New Yorker, and when my family relocated to Boston I couldn't help but count its New York-styled buildings as my favorites. Among them were the Old John Hancock Building, the Hotel Statler Boston, and the Armory, which brought back memories of New York's Seventh Regiment Armory, where I had witnessed my neighbor Andrew advance in the ranks of his Knickerbocker Greys military club.
This hodgepodge of high-rises and mid-rises, stone and steel, glass and glitz, certainly brings the Big Apple home to the Hub, in a way that is uniquely Bostonian.
Thank you for visiting. I welcome your comments!
Sources:
"Armory of the First Corps of Cadets," Wikipedia, last edited on 2 September 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armory_of_the_First_Corps_of_Cadets
"Berkeley Building," Docomomo US, 2026, https://www.docomomo-us.org/register/old-john-hancock-building-now-berkeley-building
"Berkeley Building," Wikipedia, last edited on 29 July 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Building
"Boston Consolidated Gas Company Building // 1927," Buildings of New England, March 17, 2021, https://buildingsofnewengland.com/2021/03/27/boston-consolidated-gas-company-building-1927/
Carlock, Catherine, "Boston parking garage, once the world’s largest, sells at 45 percent discount," The Boston Globe, updated October 14, 2026, https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/10/14/business/motor-mart-boston-parking-sale/?event=event12
Carruthers, Sam, "The Boston Calendar's Post," The Boston Calendar, October 27, 2026, https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1459614846313554&id=100067951585192&post_id=100067951585192_1459614846313554&rdid=pAIifX7XnO9kngow#
"Domestic Goddess 603 is at Statler Park," Facebook, September 6, 2026, https://www.facebook.com/DomesticGoddess603/posts/in-the-middle-of-bostons-constant-motion-statler-park-offers-a-small-pocket-of-g/1738023211237123/
"From the Record Archives: Some Reflections on the John Hancock Tower," Architectural Record, May 28, 2025, https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/17555-from-the-record-archives-some-reflections-on-the-john-hancock-tower
"Hilton Boston Park Plaza," Wikipedia, last edited on 9 September 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilton_Boston_Park_Plaza
"Hilton Boston Park Plaza Debuts in Boston's Back Bay Neighborhood," Hilton for the Stay | Stories from Hilton, October 31, 2023, https://stories.hilton.com/releases/hilton-boston-park-plaza-debuts
"John Hancock Tower," Wikipedia, last edited on 1 October 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hancock_Tower
Jones, Devry Becker, "The History of Statler Park," HMdb.org, The Historical Marker Database, February 6, 2023, https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=215825
Kaplan, Aline, "Boston's Fountains: The Art Deco Statler Fountain," The Next Phase Blog, June 14, 2019, https://aknextphase.com/art-deco-statler-fountain/
"Liberty Mutual," CBT, https://www.cbtarchitects.com/project/liberty-mutual
"Liberty Mutual Tower," Wikipedia, last edited on 22 March 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Mutual_Tower
"Manhattanhenge," Wikipedia, last edited on 7 October 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattanhenge
Morgan, Keith N., "Armory of the First Corps of Cadets," Massachusetts, Society of Architectural Historians Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsly, Charlottesville, UVaP, 2012—, https://sah-archipedia.org/node/14212
Morgan, Keith N., "John Hancock Tower," Massachusetts, Society of Architectural Historians Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsly, Charlottesville, UVaP, 2012—, https://sah-archipedia.org/node/13336
Morgan, Keith N., "Motor Mart Garage," Massachusetts, Society of Architectural Historians Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsly, Charlottesville, UVaP, 2012—, https://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/MA-01-TD20
"Motor Mart Garage," Boston Preservation Alliance, May 10, 2019, https://www.bostonpreservation.org/advocacy-project/motor-mart-garage
Osinski, Stan, "Armory of the First Corps of Cadets in Boston," Boston Mass, Vintage, Facebook, July 9, 2024, https://www.facebook.com/groups/513744017561133/posts/698704362398430/
"Paine Furniture Building // 1914," Buildings of New England, May 13, 2021, https://buildingsofnewengland.com/2021/05/13/paine-furniture-building-1914/
"Paine Furniture Building," Wikipedia, last edited on 1 September 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paine_Furniture_Building
Sanna, James, "Motor Mart Garage Sells. Will Development Follow?", Banker & Tradesman, October 15, 2026, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/motor-mart-garage-sells-development-follow-oct-15-iqq1c/
"10 Saint James Avenue," Marketplace VTS, https://marketplace.vts.com/building/10-saint-james-avenue-boston-ma
"The Armory: The Story Behind a Unique Boston Landmark," Vita Brevis, February 7, 2023, https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2023/02/the-armory-the-story-behind-a-unique-boston-landmark
Tourgee, Heather, "The John Hancock Tower | Up Close," New England, June 1, 2016, https://newengland.com/today/john-hancock-tower/
"Where Historic Character Meets Modern Business," 75Arlington.com, https://75arlington.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment