When Harvey Parker opened the School Street hotel in 1855, a gathering of literary luminaries — including esteemed authors published by Ticknor and Fields out of the Old Corner Bookstore: Longfellow, Emerson, and Hawthorne — began holding festive monthly meetings there known as the Saturday...
HBI made it out to Worcester for Preservation Massachusetts’s annual Historic Preservation Conference on September 27th. While it has been several years since Preservation Massachusetts held an in-person conference due to the fallout from Covid, it had been nearly ten years since the organization had...
Mayor Michelle Wu announced this week that Kathy Kottaridis will serve as the new Director of the Office of Historic Preservation, responsible for leading the City of Boston’s efforts to steward and celebrate Boston’s rich and diverse historical assets. “I am thrilled to welcome Kathy Kottaridis...
Earlier this month, HBI hosted Mass Design Group and a handful of Historic Preservation experts from across the city to engage in a discussion about the future of the Old Corner Bookstore (OCB). Mass Design Group's Jonathan Evans, Chris Scovel, Chris Hardy, and Brian Sandford...
The Jewish Advocate Building was built in 1888 and stands adjacent to HBI’s Old Corner Bookstore complex on School Street. Our neighbor Rabbi Korff had recently undertaken some façade work to maintain and preserve this building into the future. Here Rabbi Korff kindly pulls back...
72 years ago in September of 1952, Ernest Hemingway published his acclaimed novel The Old Man and the Sea, which he wrote from his beloved home in Cuba. Architect Henry Moss recounts the mid-2000s effort to restore Finca Vigia - the Hemingway Estate in Havana...
After a two-year restoration process carried out by Skylight Studios, the Old State House’s venerable gilded eagle has returned. The Old State House was constructed in 1713 under British rule, and the distinctive lion and unicorn that adorn it- which represent Britain and Scotland respectively -...
Last month, Historic Boston was invited to tour a gorgeous Spanish Renaissance-inspired building in what is known as Boston’s Commercial Palace National Register Historic District. Located at 100 Bedford Street, the Proctor Building, a tiny triangular terra cotta commercial building, continues to steal breaths away...
HBI made a trip out to St. Luke’s Chapel earlier this summer, a beautiful little 1903 structure designed by acclaimed architect Ralph Adams Cram, tucked away on the grounds of St. John St. Jame’s Episcopal Church in Roxbury, to check in on the progress of...
Provisions stipulated in the Massachusetts Affordable Homes Act are a powerful reminder of the potential for historic preservation to help relieve the current housing crisis. On August 6th, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey and Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll signed the wide-ranging $5 billion measure into law...