Hi Everyone,
We have what I understand to be a final public hearing with the BPDA this Monday, October 22, at 6 pm. The meeting will be held at 565 Commonwealth Avenue.
I need to strongly encourage any of you who can attend to please do, because both Alison Pultinas and I have conflicts Monday night and can’t attend. This is frustrating, but I don’t think I can move my other commitments.
To update you, we have been working on pressuring Related Beal and those involved with their project’s approval to push for the preservation and adaptive reuse of 541 Commonwealth Avenue. There are creative approaches the development team could undertake to integrate the beautiful facade of 541 Commonwealth in a way that would augment their proposed development; Boston Preservation Alliance and members of the Boston Landmarks Commission have amplified our call to Related Beal for integration of the existing 541 Commonwealth facade.
So far we’ve generally received a “silently listening” response, which means they are just waiting it out. Boston Landmarks did not accept our petition (over 30 people signed, mostly Kenmore residents) because the building, in their view, did not meet state standards for regional or national significance. Never mind that “The Westgate”, as the building is called, is the western gateway to both Kenmore Square and the Commonwealth Avenue Mall, bookended on its other end by the Boston Common.
This is going to take more pressure than we’ve been able to exercise so far with our limited resources (including time). It’s necessary for your to act, if you are able. Katherine Greeenough has been rallying the Audubon Circle Neighborhood Association, but we need your help.
I would strongly encourage all of you to attend and speak at the meeting, if you can. Furthermore, if you can make time, please consider doing any (or all) of the following:
- Reach out to your city councilors
- Write the Globe
- Contact the BPDA; Tim Czerwienski is the contact, tim.czerwienski@boston.gov
- Contact Boston Preservation Alliance, Alison Frazee (afrazee@bostonpreservation.org)
- Contact other local media to bring attention to this story
- Contact Related Beal
Make noise!
I’ve attached below my grouping of key talking points about this building. Let me know if I can answer any questions or take your suggestions. Thank you so much for your efforts, they shape the city we share.
Appreciatively,
Derek Rubinoff, AIA, LEED AP, NCARB
inquiries@derekrubinoff.com
Important notes re: 541 Commonwealth, “The Westgate”
• Many of the letters of support to the BPDA shown in the Request for Supplemental Information Document are form letters signed by people in communities far away from the square.
• Architect Arthur Vinal
o Was the Boston City Architect from 1884 thru 1887
o Designed this and the Belvoir at 636 Beacon are the two oldest buildings in Kenmore Square
The 6-storey scale of the Westgate is echoed in the Buckminster Hotel diagonally across.
o Chestnut Hill Pumping station (Boston) and Fisher Hill Gatehouse (Brookline) are both protected by preservation easement and the pumping station is a Boston Landmark
Fisher Hill won a preservation award in 2017 from the Massachusetts Historical Preservation Commission
o Dennis De Witt wrote a book about the Pumping Station and Vinal’s work
o Back Bay Fire and former Police Station on Boylston St., (formerly ICA, now BAC Annex)
o Dorchester Temple Baptist Church
o Globe Theater, 690 Washington St.
o Ashmont Hill mansions
o Back Bay Houses
o Also designed several significant buildings elsewhere in New England
Methodist Church; Farmington, ME
Bangor Opera House; Bangor, ME
Mt Kineo House Hotel; Moosehead Lake, ME
Calais Free Library; Calais, ME
Franklin Buildings; Portsmouth, NH
• Significance of 541 Commonwealth
o The Westgate acts as both a bookend and a gateway to the square, and is identifiably Bostonian, which the proposed replacement is not.
The character of 541 Commonwealth is particularly significant given the loss of other Victorian buildings for the Hotel Commonwealth
A bookend to Back Bay architecture, as well as the square and the terminus of the Commonwealth Avenue Mall, one of the most beautiful civic masterpieces in America
Highly visible to both a local and tourist audience due to its proximity to Fenway Park transit
o An excellent example of Victorian Bostonian multifamily architecture
Innovative use of copper bays integrated with stone and yellow brick
Building is beautiful both the scale of the square and the pedestrian
o One of the first multifamily buildings in Boston with an elevator
o Originally residences for important doctors and attorneys
o BAA and Olympic runner Lloyd Hahn was living there as of 1927
• Concerned citizens
o Audubon Circle Neighborhood Association is concerned
Kathy Greenough and others
o Several other individuals
• Issue of deterioration
o BU, which owned the block from 1987-2016, was required by the Massachusetts Historical Commission to create a preservation plan and to proactively protect significant historical properties
The 2006 plan recommended NRIND status for 541 Commonwealth Ave.
MHC recommended a National Register District including this building
Boston Landmarks Commission historian Roysin Younkin, in a letter, concurred with the MHC and including the Kenmore NRDIS in that recommendation as well.
The state’s MOA with BU required proper maintenance for the historic properties
• Instead, at 541 Commonwealth, BU left the interior upper floors abandoned. BU’s neglect is the reason for their deterioration.
• Proposal
o Related Beal should find an innovative way to preserve the façade and integrate it into their proposed building.
Derek Rubinoff, AIA, LEED AP, NCARB
