INTRODUCTION

Although the area we now know as Kenmore Square was used in the early 1800's as a railway junction, it wasn't until the second decade of the 20th century that Kenmore saw any sort of real development. Over the course of the next thirty years the square blossomed into a thriving commercial district, and though the businesses and buildings have changed since then, the Kenmore we see today still shows a lot of the same traits. In order to examine these constants and changes I took a chronological look at Sanborn fire insurance atlases from 1897, 1914, 1951, and 1981.

1897-1914

The first thing I noticed in tho 1897 atlas is that all the buildings were built about ten feet back from the street, in contrast to many older parts of Boston where the buildings are flush with the edge of the sidewalk. Even though the original buildings on the south facing side of Comm ave. offer access to basement businesses today, I don't think those houses were originally built with basement access from the street. Firstly, all the houses in Kenmore were built that way, not just the ones that were later converted to stores and businesses, so it makes more sense that those spaces were originally small front yards. Although the row house doesn't exactly fit the description of the ideal home as provided by Jackson, this still would have been popular in the suburbanization era. (Jackson, 1985, 58) Additionally, the houses built around the same time farther up Comm ave. don't have basement stores like Kenmore does further supporting the argument that these small open spares were originally front lawns.

1914-1951

One of the oldest buildings in this area is an apartment building called the "Belvoir," which occupies the corner of Beacon and Raleigh. When it was first built in the 1890's, it sported windows along its western facade, which provided an uninhibited view of the undeveloped land. By 1914 however, an auto dealership, auto repair shop, tire dealership, and numerous other auto-related businesses sprung up to the west and the view was destroyed--ironically, belvoir means "beautiful view" in French. Given the land use history of Kenmore, it's curious that the Belvoir was one of the first structures built, and that for over one hundred years it has remained a residential apartment building. This was not a common fate for many other buildings. While nearly all the structures built by 1914 were single family dwellings, by 1951 over 50% had been converted to doctor's offices! What could have brought about such remarkable change?

One possible explanation is the transportation revolution. As the electric streetcar and later the automobile replaced the horse drawn carriage as the primary mode of transportation between the 1890's and 1910's, cities became much more flexible in the segregation of land use. Workers no longer needed to live within walking distance of work, as it was perfectly practical to live a fifteen or twenty minute car ride away. As Ken Jackson states, factories could only be built where railways or steamships offloaded their goods, since that was the only way to obtain coal to power the plants. While the streetcar did not change this fact, it did allow workers to live farther away, resulting in more favorable conditions in factories. (Jackson, 1985, 113) This phenomenon wasn't only happening in Boston, but across the country. Suddenly the limitations of the traditional "walking city" were dropped and space turned from a rare commodity in the densely populated cities to a readily available resource that could be found just a short ride away. In fact by 1903 America boasted 30,000 miles of track, proving the success and popularity of the streetcar with the American people. (Jackson, 1985, 111)

Boston in particular was, and still is to an extent, very limited in its ability to expand. It was founded on the Shawmut peninsula, and though there was ample land southward, it was much too far from the city to be any use to a city-dweller. Without speedy transportation, the city of Boston had no choice but to fill marshes and ponds and to expand radially so that all areas would be within walking distance of downtown. As a result, around 30% of Boston is actually filled land. What this means is that Kenmore may have been originally slated as a residential district, a sort of continuation of the upscale Back Bay, then people realized that this new area could be better used as a concentrated business district. Since it is likely that most residents of the Back Bay owned automobiles by the 1920's Kenmore would have been an ideal location for new businesses to prosper on the growing population. This could explain why a fire insurance company, a life insurance company, a bank, two undertakers, numerous auto-related dealerships and repair shops, not to mention the doctors offices, all found homes there. It was fortunate for them that the invention of the streetcar and the automobile coincided with growth west of the Back Bay, making Kenmore such a convenient location. This hearkens back to observations I made in previous essays that Kenmore's situation first near a railway split then later at the intersection of the major roads, greatly aided in its development and continuing success as a bustling commercial center.

Or perhaps the population wasn't growing fast enough to fill all the large new homes, and as a result many of the homes became offices. Or, while it's unclear in the Sanborn fire atlases, it's entirely possible that the offices were joint office/dwellings. It's still not uncommon for couples and families to run a shop or business on the first floor of their home and live upstairs. This might explain why so many buildings became doctors offices, but it seems highly unlikely that so many doctors would have bought so much property in such a relatively small area. At the same time, it's hard to believe that all the people who happened to live there suddenly became doctors, or that so many doctors happened to buy property in the same area which they then converted to private offices.

During the same time that all these mysterious offices were springing up along Bay State, the facades along Comm Ave also changed drastically. Along the 400 block all but five of the 28 dwellings present in the 1914 atlas were converted to offices, stores, or apartments. In addition, two large hotels, Hotel Kenmore and Hotel Braemore, sprung up on either end of the block in previously vacant land. Today hotel Kenmore is a home for the elderly called the Kenmore Abbey, and the Braemore has been converted to condominiums. I wonder why both of these hotels changed their functions over the years. I know today the two hotels in Kenmore are the Hotel Commonwealth and the Hotel Buckminster, both of which did not exist in the 1951 atlas, so two possible explanations are that either these hotels became condos and other ones took their places, or they were forced out of the hotel business by the two newcomers. Since I couldn't find any strong supporting evidence one way or another, I went back to the library hoping that I had missed the newer atlases the first time around. Fortunately I had, and I found one dating to 1981. At this time the hotels Commonwealth and Buckminster hadn't been constructed, but the two older hotels had already gone out of business. Having uncovered the story of Kenmore's hotels I was still interested in how the hotels came to be, so I considered the economic factors that may have influenced their lives.

In 1914 both the plots for the Kenmore and the Braemore had been purchased, but were still vacant. We can tell this because all the smaller plots between the two had already been built up and inhabited by then. It is in fact not uncommon in newly developing communities for large lots to be purchased early on but left vacant for many years while the land around it is built upon. This makes a lot of sense, since usually these large lots are commercial pursuits, such as hotels and other businesses, which require a local population to prosper. And judging by the land usage in the 1951 atlas, Kenmore seems a likely place for them to do so. There are a number of businesses and offices in the area, and the journey to downtown Boston would have been made easy by public transportation. Not to mention there would have been tremendous business on account of the newly built Fenway park, which is a quick five minute walk down the street. It is reasonable to conclude then that the area was not unhealthy, and as a result, multiple investors were willing to finance the risky business of constructing hotels right next to one another. Contrary to the Kenmore and the Braemore, the Commonwealth was not built on a vacant lot. There originally stood 10 or so row houses in its place. Based on the atlases alone I would have surmised that the walls between the houses would have been torn down and the insides reconstructed, but looking out my window at the building it's plain to see that the old brownstones were in fact demolished and an entirely new structure erected. This process is much more involved than simply obtaining a vacant lot and building upon it. First all the houses had to be purchased from the original owners, then demolished, then finally the hotel could be built. However, there is a slight possibility that a single owner had developed it early on and was willing to sell. The previous use of the land was not surprisingly doctors' offices, which makes me think that those brownstones could have been some sort of medical center and consequently under a single owner or association of owners. As for the three or four shops that were also in the area, I can't imagine that they were displaced since today the street and basement levels of the hotel are lined with various shops and restaurants. Perhaps this profitable hotel/store/restaurant combination which is so popular today helped the Hotel Commonwealth thrive in its early years. The structures of the older hotels don't support the same type of street and basement level shops, which may have been a factor in their demise.

1951-1981

Another important factor in the shaping of Kenmore's image is Boston University. Chartered in Boston in 1869, it began its eastward expansion into Kenmore Square sometime in the 1940's. By 1981 it had purchased the Sheraton hotel on Bay State Rd. and converted that into a dormitory to complement the women's dormitory and its collection of brownstones, all on Bay State. Today, BU quite nearly owns every brownstone on Bay State, save for a few doctor's offices, homes, and MIT fraternities. In addition to all its property on Bay State, BU also owns the Barnes & Noble bookstore on Comm ave. That particular set of buildings in that area has served many purposes over the years. It was originally a car dealership and repair complex, then in the 1951 atlas it looks like only the dealership remained while the other parts of the building are designated as shops. In 1981 the shops are joined by a bank and theater, and the dealership completely gone and lastly the buildings became the Barnes & Noble that sits there now.

Looking at the latest atlases of Kenmore and the surrounding area I'm reminded of the phrase "Institutions make bad neighbors." From the time it first showed up on the fire insurance atlases it has grow steadily into Kenmore Square, and shows no sign of stopping even today. While this may mean that someday BU will own all of Kenmore Square, at least we can say that its economic impact on this area has been positive. With so many BU students living in brownstones, where a meal plan is not required, they will inevitably travel to the 7-11 or McDonald's or to any one of the twenty or so restaurants in Kenmore for a meal every now and then. The health of Barnes & Noble is also guaranteed, since most of its business comes from the tens of thousands of BU students who buy their books there. I could go on at length about the benefits and drawbacks of the university but I would only be repeating myself, so suffice it to say that as long as BU continues to be a healthy university, it will continue to grow and support the Kenmore economy.

The last thing I found interesting was the two highways that were constructed both north and south of Kenmore. I would have expected them to have a large impact on the site, but the building functions don't seem to change between the 1951 and 1981 atlases any more than they did between the 1914 and 1951 atlases. In fact, there is less change. After thinking about it for a while though, it doesn't seem too odd after all. The majority of Kenmore's growth happened between 1914 and 1951, and by that point, all the land had been built upon. The reason that the Federal Highway Acts of the fifties and sixties had such an impact on the suburban American lifestyle is that it took people far out into the country where there was plenty of land on which to construct massive shopping malls. (Spirn, 3/21/07) The purpose of the highway was not to allow better transportation within the city, but to provide better transportation out of the city. By the 1950's Kenmore was already an established neighborhood of Boston and wouldn't have been considered the country or suburban by any stretch of the imagination; the highways weren't meant to serve these types of neighborhoods. While Storrow Drive may have increased traffic through the intersection, there's no reason for it to have an impact on the land use in the already strongly commercial Kenmore Square. It seems the most direct effect these highways had was the demolition of the buildings south of Newbury Street to make way for the Massachusetts Turnpike. As a result the post office was moved from Brookline and Newbury to the Loyal Protective life building on Deerfield St., where it remains today.

CONCLUSIONS

When Kenmore was first being developed at the end of the 19th century, it was planned to be another residential neighborhood like the rest of the Back Bay. Fifteen years later the first businesses set up shop and soon after the row houses of Kenmore were turned to row offices. Since then it has remained a strong commercial district in the core, with residences on the sides. Over the years this clientèle has changed, from tourists and businessmen from the hotels, to Fenway fans and college students, and with it some of the stores and attractions, but the fact remains that Kenmore has and almost certainly will continue to be a thriving commercial district.

Ryan Luersen, 2007. 4.211J/11.016J, The City

mit