I imagine the streetcar line directly outside one's front door probably fostered development of middle/upper class development on those arteries first. Notice how West Fenway developed with townhouses and grand French flats along the main parkways and then stalled with lower middle class housing on the interior streets.
If it weren't for rent control and apathetic landlords starting in the 1950s the original buildings would still be every bit as grand as the apartment hotels on Commonwealth Avenue.Take a look at 114 the Fenway's interior (the executive oversight committee of financial decisions aka the wife won't let me buy an investment unit there as a project......grrrr, so what if the rent isn't going to recoup the investment in 25-30 years) if you don't believe that. It's one of the few buildings which haven't been trashed by cheap or utterly tasteless ownership in the neighborhood over the years.
Loss of parapets, cornices, porches, balustrades, ornamental cast stone, ornamental security iron, brass fixtures, lighting fixtures, mosaic flooring, marble, windows & grilles, balconettes, original elevators, ornamental plaster, millwork, terracotta, faux finishing, etc. has destroyed most of what was considered upper class in the character of the neighborhood buildings. Every bit as bad at the SRO partition and gutting of townhouses in the Back Bay/South End and the moron landlords destroying all the lovely Victorian houses in Mission Hill and Jamaica Plain.
It's infuriating that architectural commissions will allow wholesale destruction of the integrity this stuff, and even more prominent buildings like Shreves, but will come down on me like flies on manure if I dare tint the mortar to match the brick on a facade being repointed without written consent first.
