28 Sep City Transfers Upham’s Corner Comfort Station
Historic Boston is pleased to announce our official ownership of the former public restroom: the Upham’s Corner Comfort Station. The City of Boston transferred the historic building to HBI in anticipation of construction starting later this month for the Sip and Spoke Bike Kitchen.
Side elevation blueprints of the Comfort Station
The Comfort Station was built next to the Dorchester North Burying Ground in 1912, and it served as public bathrooms for commuters traveling on an expanding streetcar network radiating from the crossroads of Columbia Road and Dudley Street. Even though the streetcar has long since disappeared, the Comfort Station is a rare surviving structure from that era that also underscores the neighborhood’s geographic importance to Boston and exemplifies the public infrastructure important to American cities at that time. The building has been vacant since it closed in 1977.
Front entrance of the Comfort Station
The building has been designated to become Sip & Spoke Bike Kitchen, a nonprofit bicycle and coffee shop, which brings two underrepresented services to Upham’s Corner through local entrepreneurship while also preserving the history of the long-neglected historic building.
We’re also grateful for the patience and commitment of our community partners, The American City Coalition, and our future tenant, Noah de Amor, who will own and operate The Sip & Spoke Bike Kitchen at the Comfort Station. The project has been in the planning and fundraising stage for its redevelopment for several years. HBI often calls itself a patient developer, and the Comfort Station is a prime example of the patience that our projects typically require.
The rehabilitation of the Comfort Station is anticipated to wrap up in late winter and Sip & Spoke will be opening just in time for spring biking season.
Rear and side view of the Comfort Station