Then and Now: Chester Square
When engineers for the City of Boston laid out plans for the newly-created Back Bay and South End, they drew inspiration from Europe: long Parisian boulevards and narrow parks dominate Back Bay, while narrow streets and neighborhood parks dominate South End. In 1852, Ezra Lincoln designed Chester Square, a park to lure the wealthy from Beacon Hill to the South End.
According to the Chester Square Area Neighborhood Association:
[T]he park was landscaped lavishly by the city while developers and property owners began building the seventy townhouses that surround the park. The handsome houses are a combination of flat fronted central buildings and stepped forward, bow fronted buildings at the curved ends and “are more grant and opulent in style and influence” than any other South End houses.
The plan worked for a while, but by 1950, the South End had fallen into sad shape:
Within a few decades, the handsome houses of the […]
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