19 Nov Calf Pasture Pumping Station soon to be a Boston Landmark
On November 12th, the Boston Landmarks Commission voted to designate the historic Calf Pasture Pumping Station in Dorchester’s Colombia Point neighborhood a Boston Landmark! Now the measure needs to be voted on by the Mayor and City Council and if approved, the Calf Pasture Pumping Station will be protected with Landmark status.
The pumping station complex is comprised of three buildings– the Pumping Station, Gate House/ Filth Hoist, and the West Shaft Entrance– all of which were built in 1883 in the Romanesque Revival style. The three buildings serviced a once-innovative public sewerage treatment system that operated for nearly 85 years.
The buildings stand as a unique outlier amidst the present-day campus that has been built up around it, its predominant significance lying in its role as an early foundational example in the development of a modern and comprehensive sewerage system in Boston, across the region, and nationwide. It is also a significant remnant of 19th century civic architecture, and the design of Boston’s first City Architect, George A. Clough.
Nestled among the Massachusetts Archives, the JFK Library, and UMass Boston, as a soon to be Boston Landmark the Calf Pasture Pumping Station will remain a protected fixture in the Colombia Point landscape for generations. We look forward to the historic building’s eventual rehabilitation and reuse.
Read more on the Calf Pasture Pumping Station here:
The Most Endangered Building in Boston
UMass Boston Readies Calf Pasture Pumping Station for Redevelopment
All of the photos used here are from the 1990 National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, thoughtfully captured by HBI’s former Executive Director Kathy Kottaridis in February 1988.