Phillips Brooks Memorial Reading Room (1896)
About This Project
The 1896 Phillips Brooks Memorial Reading Room was built adjacent to the 1889 Queen Anne style Blue Hill Evangelical Society Chapel, that is today home to the Blue Hill Community Church. In the 1897 deed, Mrs. Ellen Stetson granted the church permission to use her land with the requirement that a small building be kept in perpetuity as “a free and public reading room” in honor of the rector of Trinity Church, Phillips Brooks, who had given one of his final sermons at the chapel next door prior to his death. For several decades the Brooks Reading Room was operated as a branch of the Boston Public Library (BPL) enjoyed by residents of the Readville neighborhood. The BPL stopped operating at the Brooks building in 1956, and the church used the building for other purposes until the 2010s. When the Evangelical Society dissolved in 1991, the property was transferred to the Blue Hill Community Church. After being vacant for several years, the reading room fell into a state of disrepair.
In 2023 Blue Hill Community Church sought permission from the City of Boston to build housing onsite. Neighbors shared the charitable gift restriction from the original 1897 Stetson conveyance, which halted the pending request for redevelopment. HBI’s Director of Real Estate Development, Tony Lopes, intervened on Historic Boston’s behalf and successfully negotiated mutually agreeable terms of sale to preserve the modest reading room for the future.
Thanks to Community Preservation Act funding support for acquisition, in September of 2026 Historic Boston Incorporated purchased the building in partnership with the Hyde Park Historical Society and the Southwest Boston Community Development Corporation to reactivate the historic space for future generations of Bostonians. In the autumn of 2026, we will replace the roof to protect the structure from another destabilizing winter. Window and portico restoration are planned for the Spring of 2027 as the future of the Brooks Reading Room continues to take shape.
Consider a gift to the Brooks Library’s CITC Roof Fund to aid in this effort today.
More about the Phillips Brooks Memorial Reading Room:
Historic Boston Inc. acquires the 1896 Phillips Brooks Reading Room in Hyde Park
A history of the Phillips Brooks Memorial Reading Room in Hyde Park
HBI’s Annual Celebration; Raising the Roof for the Phillips Brooks Memorial Reading Room