Part I:  Introduction and History:



            Although the city of Boston itself was founded in 1630, Kenmore Square was not constructed until the end of the nineteenth century.  Before then, the majority of the region was under water at the intersection of the Charles and Muddy Rivers, ¹  with the northwestern portion sitting on a salt meadow known as Sewall’s Point.  Bordered on the northwest by the emerging “railroad suburb” of Brookline, the development of Kenmore Square is closely linked to the growth of Brookline and to the adjacent construction of the Back Bay area of Boston.  According to Kenneth Jackson in Crabgrass Frontier,

In 1845, Brookline was a rural town near Boston, with some suburban and urban features; by 1885, though much underdeveloped land remained, Brookline had become an integral part of a greatly enlarged city. ²

By 1820, the Mill Dam was built which connected the Boston Commons to Brookline via Sewall’s Point.  Although the dam allowed new mills to be constructed, it also created a pool of stagnant water in the enclosed section of the Charles River which gradually became filled with sewage.  In 1849, the public health department required that the area be filled creating what is now known as the Back Bay.  The proposed location of streets in the area to be filled can be seen in H.F. Walling’s map from 1860 below. ³   Notice the proximity of the Mill Dam, located along the Charles River, to the intersection of several rail lines in the red area labeled “Site in 1860.”



These railways which passed through Boston and Brookline significantly influenced the early development of Kenmore Square.  They intersected at acute angles with each other and the Mill Dam, providing the basis for the layout of streets in the future Kenmore Square.  The plan for Kenmore Square in 1897 shows the thoroughfares in the vicinity crossing in exactly the same way, which represents the movement away from symmetrical city blocks joining at right angles by prominent landscape architects and urban planners including Frederick Law Olmsted and H. W. S. Cleveland.  This is illustrated in the following quotation:'

Criticism of the grid focused on the overcrowded tenement conditions that were seen as an inevitable result of rectangular blocks in cities.  One solution to such objections that became common … late in the nineteenth century was patterned after the grand, tree-lined boulevards of Baron Georges Haussman in Paris. … Extraordinarily wide, these elaborate roads were seen as extensions of the developing park system. ⁴

The section of Beacon Street in Brookline was an example of one of these “boulevards” which mimicked those in France.  Since the beginning of its construction in the late 1800s, the location and layout of the streets of Kenmore Square has remained the same.  Nevertheless, the buildings that fill the square have continually changed ownership resulting in shifts of land use from primarily residential in the early twentieth century to the mixture of residential, commercial, and institutional land use present today.  The most likely causes of this change include the growth of the surrounding areas in Boston and the expansion of Boston University.