PerfectHandle
Active Member
- Joined
- May 25, 2006
- Messages
- 230
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Hey, Ron Newman, I have the answer to your query: "I'm curious how this came to be a parking lot, and how long ago that happened."
This open lot was the location of St. Mary Grammar School run by the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). It was next to my Aunt Mary and Uncle Jimmy's tiny apartment on Stillman St.; her kitchen window used to look out on the back of the school. After the church was closed, the school became defunct and was torn down. There was great rejoicing in my aunt's building that day. For the first time, she had daylight coming into her cramped, four room apartment that shared a toilet with their neighbors (conveniently here sister's family). There was no shower or bathtub in the building; the ladies took sponge baths in the kitchen and Uncle Jimmy went to the nearby public bath house. In the 1970's they took a small hallway and closet and converted it into the tiniest bathroom/shower in existence. Their's was one of the surviving tenements in the North End. Four rooms all opening into each other, no closet space to speak of, a dank stairway, and a light well in the center of the building that provided some light and ventilation into the hallways (and a convenient way for residents to yell for each other, rather than use the party-line phone.) The rent was dirt cheap for years and years.
About 10 years ago, there was a terrible fire in this building. The owner was storing flammable tanks or some such in the former retail area on the first floor and the whole building went up (Duh!!). No one was hurt, but Uncle Jimmy lost everything and had to move out. The building's been rehabbed, but I don't know what the interior now looks like. Now those kitchen windows are going to lose the light of day once more!
This story is a great example of why it's worth coming back to this forum every day.