Richardson's railroad relic

Photo by Cervin Robinson, Historic American Buildings Survey, June 1959.

Recognize this? You might spot it if you look to your right about 500 feet after leaving Woodland Station on the MBTA's Green Line trolley heading to Riverside Station. Yet it might not look quite like this, because of the sad shape it's fallen into since this photo was taken in 1959 as part of the U.S. Government's Historic American Buildings Survey.

1886 photo courtesy of the Houghton Library at Harvard University.

Historic, indeed. This happens to be the original Woodland depot, designed by the great architect Henry Hobson Richardson as one of a string of stations on the Boston & Albany Railroad, which in 1958 became the Highland Branch of the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), now the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA).

Photo by Cervin Robinson, Historic American Buildings Survey, June 1959.

Built by the Norcross Brothers in June-September 1886 (beginning two months after Richardson's death), the station typifies the architect's Richardsonian Romanesque style of rock-faced granite trimmed with Red Longmeadow sandstone, a mountainous medieval gable, and a horizontal, earthbound spread across the land. Richardson and his style were chosen to craft the station as a landmark in a largely unspoiled tract of bucolic boondocks in Newton, in the hope that its Romanesque regality would entice more people to settle in that back country and bring in new revenue for the railroad whenever they traveled on business or vacation.

Photo by Cervin Robinson, Historic American Buildings Survey, June 1959.

Yet this station eschews Richardson's trademark Roman arches, carved ornament and Arts-and-Crafts décor for a simpler, crisper structure and interior, as if inviting riders from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds to wait inside for their train in an atmosphere that would feel like home to all, without the pretension of his Trinity Church, public libraries and homes for the rich.

Today it caters to the rich, but in a plebeian way as a storage "caddyshack" for the Woodland Golf Club. While the club is kept clean, Richardson's railroad relic is relegated to grungy groundskeeper status, its original use and architect spat on (and likely unknown) by those who exploit it for an ace-in-the-hole...

Photo by Pi.1415926535 (CC BY-SA 3.0).

...particularly with a loading-dock door that has made a hole where one of the original double windows that provided views of incoming trains from either side once was. Once a gracious gateway to future wealth, H.H. Richardson's original Woodland Station is now an onlooker onto a staid wealth it cannot partake of, on the lookout for an angel who will restore it to its former glory.

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Richardson's Resurrection

Easter's occurrence on April Fool's Day happened only twice in the lifetime of Trinity Church's sexagenarian Interim Rector William W. Rich, as he mentioned in his sermon that Sunday. 

And this uncommon convergence of the sacred and the profane wasn't entirely jarring. Mary Magdalene, James' mother Mary, and Salome were arguably April-fooled by Jesus' absence from the tomb when they arrived to anoint his body with spices (Mark 16:1-8). 

But regardless of whether "Happy Easter!" or "April Fool!" dominated my celebratory impulses that day, I thought the best way to observe this rare hybrid holiday was to suspend my agnostic disbelief and attend an Easter service at one of Boston's greatest architectural manifestations of the Resurrection: Henry Hobson Richardson's Trinity Church in Copley Square.

As I stood in line for the noon service, the 1877 granite-and-sandstone landmark seemed to take a new form, as a transformation of the stone rolled away from Jesus' tomb into something richly symbolic, robustly everlasting, romantically upward-tending. Its pyramidal form emphasized the mass of its stone, while its grand central tower, flanking turrets and pedimented arches evoked a transcendence of the heft of the material from heavy to Heaven, "rising out of Copley Square like a mountain of stone," as a 19th-century Boston writer observed.

And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of
wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. (Isaiah 25:6, KJV)

This phrase from that service's First Lesson describes Trinity to a T—not merely alluding to the fat figure of original pastor Phillips Brooks that necessitated wider doorways in the church, but denoting the decorative equivalent of the "feast...of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear" (the actual words from that Sunday's lesson) that was in store for the parishioners upon entering the mountainous megachurch. The offerings of opulence include opalescent stained-glass windows and egg-tempera paintings by John LaFarge, painted-glass windows by Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris, a painted suter window by Charles Mills, sculpture by Daniel Chester French and Augustus Saint-Gaudens, glass mosaics on the altar, and intricate stenciling throughout. These, coupled with the use of Red Longmeadow sandstone to create bands of color and carvings of the Apostles, Saints and vegetal capitals on the exterior, manifested Brooks' goals for Trinity: "to create as perfect a place of worship as possible, and to create a place of worship as beautiful as possible"—in short, to express the Heaven of Jesus' ascension.

I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord. Our feet shall stand
within thy gates, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together... Peace
be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces. (Psalm 122:1-3, 7, KJV)

The newcomer to Trinity might well be April-fooled by the interior's unconventional layout and circus of color, with the dramatic wingspread of its transepts, the soar of its quadruple-arched central tower, and the boisterous bulge of its apse, and its prosperity of rich décor. But the balanced equilibrium among all of these elements—courtesy of the compact Greek-cross configuration—democratizes the sanctuary with proper Athenian aptitude to make everyone feel more welcome than overwhelmed. The spatial effect is more like a squared-off meeting-house ambiance than the nave-apse hierarchy of the typical church's Latin-cross form. This immaculate blend of art and architecture extols Jesus' earthly all-inclusiveness and heavenly omnipotence simultaneously.

The tower's central squareness affirms the balanced equality of all parts, and its soar emphasizes the Resurrection's supreme centrality to Christianity. The clerestory windows extol the heavenly light of Jesus' ascent, bookended by images of him from Clayton & Bell's English Medieval apse windows depicting stages in his life and John LaFarge's Christ Preaching over the organ loft.

Roman arches are not only central to Richardson's trademark Richardsonian Romanesque style. They are the load-bearing structure of the central tower, bolstered by iron ties to prevent buckling and to distribute the weight evenly. The ties are decoratively covered in carved wood to blend them with the artful elegance of the church, which also includes...
 

...John LaFarge's egg tempera painting
of David in the central tower...
  And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that
David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed,
and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him. (I Samuel 16:23)

...LaFarge's painting of Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus...

There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto 

him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God 

be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see 

the kingdom of God. (John 3:1-3)

...LaFarge's image of Jesus instructing a Samaritan woman...

There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink... Then saith the woman of Samaria 

unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings 

with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give 

me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water... Whosoever drinketh of this water 

shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give 

him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. (John 4:7-14)

...The Adoration of the Shepherds, The Adoration of the Magi, and The Flight into Egypt by
Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris...

And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go
even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with
haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the
saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them
by the shepherds. (Luke 2:15-18)

And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped
him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh. And being
warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way. (Matthew
2:11-12)

And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the 

young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child 

to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt: And was there until 

the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called 

my son. (Matthew 2:13-15)

...and Eugène Oudinot's French Renaissance triptych of events surrounding the Resurrection.

And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not 

here: for he is risen, as he said. (Matthew 28:5-6)

Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I 

ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. (John 20:17)

Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God. (Acts 2:11)

Richardson's regression...and reinvention

Photo by Tim Engleman (CC BY-SA 2.0).

The Richardsonian Romanesque style of the Newton Corner Worship Center, originally Immanuel Baptist Church (1886), in Newton Corner, Massachusetts, was unmistakable from the moment I first noticed it from the bus window. All of its features were straight out of Henry Hobson Richardson's much-emulated pattern-book: random ashlar rock-faced walls, thick-arched windows and doorway, stocky columns, pointed but squat lantern tower, cruciform configuration, and heavyset massing that stresses structural solidity and earthen solidarity. Yet it never crossed my mind that this was a work of the Master himself, due to its scarce mention in books on him, due in turn to its simplified and clunkily proportioned design.

An apparent reworking of a proposal for Pittsburgh's Emmanuel Episcopal Church (1886) rejected for its $25,000 price tag in favor of a simpler $12,000 job, Immanuel Baptist shows its share of cost-cutting, hence corner-cutting (as a recycled design built in brownstone to save money), that renders it less complete and coherent than its Pittsburgh predecessor (right).

Though it may suggest a fire station with its triumvirate of large front arches and red-brick uniformity, Emmanuel Episcopal is more unified as one composition. Its apse gently semicircles around the rear, carrying the peaked roof with it in a conical fashion. At the front the roof forms a spire-like gable, with a slot window and stone finial emphasizing its heavenward verticality.

By contrast, Immanuel Baptist pops out all over the place, as if assembled from a kit of parts derived from a patchwork of patterns. The "witch's hat" spire thrusts up pompously from the lantern's crowning pyramid. The tapered structure below the lantern is too self-expressive, making the adjoining stone mere filler. The west front's unfinished stonework protrudes as if pining for carving. Its central window dwarfs the window-pairs with over-authority. The transept wings frame their window trinities agreeably but lack side-wall definition. 

Photo by Tim Engleman (CC BY-SA 2.0).

In fact, the nave and transept's side walls form a prison-like presence as they cross, which is more foreboding than inviting—or should I say more purgatorial than ecclesiastical, as if making a pact with the witchy tower.
 

Photo by Tim Engleman (CC BY-SA 2.0).

The side entrance adds to the bulk, interrupting the continuity of the transept-to-apse transition with a wart-like protrusion. It clearly expresses its function as a circular stair-shelter, but in a way that knocks the building's symmetry lopsided and, with its oblong shape, lacks the grace of the cylindrical turret that enriched many of Richardson's buildings. Yet its conical roof is somewhat redemptive, and it is hidden from view on the church's main street, preserving the symmetry from there.

 

Photo by Tim Engleman (CC BY-SA 2.0).

The apse has no clear exterior expression, being a hierarchy of diverse window carousels that lend few clues about what goes on inside. The chimney jarringly transitions from brick to stone (unless the brick part is a reconstruction) and sticks out like a smokestack, further reminding us of the cohesion the church lacks. 

 

In short, the church doesn't seem to know whether to grow up or out. Richardson's work as a whole is marked by an earth-bound attachment to the ground, occasionally contrasted with a sky-borne tower. But Immanuel Baptist is just as vertical as horizontal, as if the forward-thrusting, steeply gabled nave is competing with the tower and transept for street prominence rather than working in concert with them to form a Holy Trinity. Also, the walls are more fortress-like than church-like—an agreeable nod to Martin Luther's hymn "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," but one that lacks the exuberance of...

Trinity Church, Detroit Photographic Company, c.1897-1924, courtesy
of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University.

...Trinity Church in Boston (1872-77), Henry Hobson Richardson's masterwork of masonry majesty, where quarried, striped, checkered and carved stonework and statuary augment the articulation of each individual part in a way that logically cohere the parts together into one massive whole that celebrates God's works on earth in form, finials and fine art. Even the stair steps lively, being cloistered, not closed.

Immanuel Baptist's main entrance is its fullest realization of the Richardsonian Romanesque ideal (despite the uncarved column capitals and the 2011 removal of the original oak doors for replicas) for its stone sunburst of concentric semicircles, the lower one recessed to guide you inside, offering you a radiant invitation...

...into a surprisingly well-kept sanctuary with a swooping proscenium arch, vaulting hammer-beam trusses and a Roman-arched altarpiece that all appear to fall mathematically in line with the entrance as its axially logical destiny and open welcome to all. What's more, this boldly theatrical gesture acts as the symbolic genesis of...

...diverse congregations of Arabic, Brazilian, Filipino, Greek and Russian Jewish origin, as the home of the Arabic Baptist Church, the New England Brazilian Baptist Church, the Philippine International Church, the Hellenic Gospel Church, and the Beth Yeshua Messianic Congregation. According to Rachel Lebeaux of The Watertown TAB, this interfaith tradition began when a Greek fellowship acquired the church, by then known as the Newton Corner Baptist Church, for $1 in 1990 and renamed it the Newton Hellenic Gospel Church, agreeing to open it to parishioners of other faiths lacking home places of worship. Rechristened the Newton Corner Worship Center in 2007, it is a gathering place for faiths of all forms, each congregation holding a service on a different day but many of them coming together at Christmas and Easter. 

This image from Lebeaux's article shows not only how well a diversity of congregants from a broad spectrum of faiths bond with each other in this universally sacred space, but how well the congregations have cooperated to preserve the artistic stained-glass windows, a hallmark of a Richardson church, simple or sublime. 

Which means I ought to cut the Newton Corner Worship Center some slack, even though it isn't considered exemplary of Richardson. After all, he was serving a congregation not as deep-pocketed as Trinity's, with a budget that reduced the architecture to the bare-boned basics of nave, transept, apse, tower, stairwell and chimney. Also, as these archival images show, Immanuel Baptist Church did have more distinction in its heyday, thanks in part to ivy, which will raise any masonry edifice to a high academic level. Perhaps this rejected church proposal might have been better reinvented for a university. Yet its interfaith reincarnation has given its simple towered cruciform design a universality that people of many faiths can relate to, whether from Brazil, Greece, the Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, or whatever corner of the Earth they came from to come to Newton Corner.

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