Brigham Circle

Shepard

Shepard

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I've been curious for a while about Brigham Circle. Two questions.

First, specifically about when the circle in the streetscape was integrated into the intersection, and why it was?

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sou...z_NHUWRAkd1UmnrnU4JzAQ&cbp=12,341.16,,0,10.12

Is it meant practically as a traffic calming measure or for pedestrian enhancement, or is it meant (literally) as "street art" giving the intersection a sense of place? In any case, it seems pretty unique to the region - something you're more likely to see in Amsterdam or Copenhagen.

Second question: Wigglesworth and Worthington Streets. Obviously very different housing stock than the surrounding area. What's the story? Was this once a larger brownstone district that was largely demolished? And if not, how did these isolated South End style streets end up in Mission Hill?

(A few other brownstone-style streets exist in the area, including Delle Ave, with this amazing park entrance http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&s...esult&ct=image&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBUQ8gEwAA )
 
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That was done in 2006-07 IIRC. As far as I know it was just done to liven up the place. Brigham Circle has certainly changed a lot in the last 10 years.
 
Thanks Van. I think you answered me while I was editing my OP to include a second question - any knowledge about those brownstone streets also? Just curious...
 
Roxcross1874.jpg

Worthington and Wigglesworth are on Tremont St above the giant W15. Huntington Ave had not been cut yet. Notice how Worthington and Wigglesworth used to run from Tremont to Longwood.

I live on Worthington St. and it really is my ideal locale for living in this city. The South End feel (with South End prices, might I add) is really great. The Back Bay Manor cut up Smith St into that awkward stub (Il Mondo/the Squealing Pig) and then the more cohesive road on the other side of Back Bay Manor. It completely ruined the grid and is very annoying to have to walk around.

The Brigham Circle area used to be a gridded mix of brownstones and wood-framed houses. Essentially what happened with Brigham Circle was buyouts of land and then razing for development.

From Wiki:
In the early 1960s the Boston Redevelopment Authority razed several homes in the Triangle District section of the neighborhood to make way for the Whitney Redevelopment Project, which are three high-rise towers along St. Alphonsus Street. The include Charlesbank Apartments (272 unit co-op), Back Bay Manor (270 units) and Franklin Square Apartments (formerly Back Bay Towers - 146 units). Across the street is Mission Main, one of the nation's oldest public housing developments. The original thirty-eight 3-story brick structures built between 1938 and 1940 were demolished in the mid-1990s and replaced with 535 new apartments with a mix of subsidized and market-rate units.
...
In the late 1960s, Harvard University bought the wood frame and brick houses along Francis, Fenwood, St. Alban's, Kempton Streets, and part of Huntington Avenue, and announced plans to demolish the buildings. Most were replaced with the Mission Park residential complex of towers and townhomes in 1978 after neighborhood residents organized the Roxbury Tenants of Harvard Association convince Harvard to rebuild. The tower sits on the site of the House of the Good Shepard, once a large and prominent orphanage. The gates to the complex and the brick wall along Huntington survive from this era.
Click to expand...

One Brigham Circle was the icing on the cake when it was redeveloped and opened in 2002.
 
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That Harvard School of Public Health sure is a street-killer. Ditto, the Citizens Bank.

I know, I know: it beats whatever devastation was there before...
 
Thanks - I wouldn't have thought the wiki article would have as detailed architectural information as it does. Very interesting.
 
Here's the area in 1884. The development of brick row houses was just an accident of who owned the land. There were similar South End-type housing built in Jamaica Plain. Remember - no zoning, no community meetings, no BRA/City Hall leaning on you. Just whatever the developer thought would make money.

cirlce1884.jpg
 
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