Never forget

Today is National Vietnam War Veterans Day, and we are remembering Cpl. Scott Frederick Andresen.

Scott grew up on the East Side of Melrose, living first at 219 East Foster Street, later moving around the corner to 28 Larrabee Street. He attended the Washington School. When he was in fifth grade, his class wrote letters to Nikita Khrushchev, and his was one of several selected to be printed in the Boston Herald. He ended his letter with “Goodbye, and I hope there isn’t war!”

The next year, his mother, Edith, died of cancer at age 38. His father, Fred, was soon remarried, to Susan Abruzzese, who became a new mother to Scott. She would later recall that he enjoyed reading, sports, and “just loved his home.”

Scott graduated from Melrose High School in 1967. After spending a year working at the First National store in Malden, he decided to sign up for a three-year tour of duty with the army. He passed the qualifying exam to enter West Point, but volunteered to go to Vietnam. His father said “He felt it was his duty.”

He deployed on April 20, 1969. At Logan airport, he told his mother “You wait, someday I’m going to make you the proudest mother in the world.”

Three weeks later, at 7:20 AM on May 13, he was killed. He was 20. Two days later, at 6 AM, his parents were informed of his death by a knock on their door at 28 Larrabee. He was their only child.

His mother told the Boston Globe “I think it is a big waste. I don’t believe he had a chance. They should have trained him before they put him out there. He wasn’t trained as a machine gunner. He was in Vietnam two weeks. Two weeks.”

Fred died in 1981. Susan died in 2016, at age 94.

In 1973, following the signing of the Paris Peace Accords, reporter Jeremiah V. Murphy of the Boston Globe, who had for years covered the deaths of Vietnam War soldiers and sailors, assessed the war in an op-ed titled “The Price Was Too Awful.” One of his supporting arguments was “the grey despair on the faces of the parents of Army Pfc. Scott Andresen of Melrose.”

Never forget.

The first Passover Seder in Melrose

Why is this house different from all other houses? This house, 62 West Emerson Street, is quite possibly where the first Passover seder in Melrose history was celebrated.

In 1870, a clothing store owner named Jacob Bornstein and his wife Minnie, immigrants from Prussia, moved here from Boston with Jacob’s brother Henry, their four children, and two domestic servants. They rented their home, and Melrose did not have street numbers at the time, so identifying the house involves a degree of uncertainty. An 1870 directory lists Jacob and Henry at “Emerson, corner Myrtle,” and as you can see by the 1875 map image, the other corners did not contain residences, making 62 West Emerson the best candidate for their home. The Bornsteins did not stay long in Melrose, no more than a couple of years, before they moved back to Boston; the next identifiably Jewish families in Melrose would not arrive until the 1890s. The lack of a Jewish community in Melrose was likely a major reason for the Bornsteins’ early departure.

Starting in 1860, a Jewish community could occasionally be found gathered at 38 Linwood Avenue for funeral services. In that year, Congregation Beth Eil purchased land for a cemetery there. Now known as Netherlands Cemetery, it was only the third Jewish cemetery in Massachusetts. As the name implies, the congregation was made up of a tightknit community of Dutch Jews who hailed mainly from Amsterdam. Their synagogue was located in the South End. Newspapers reported that in 1890 over 500 people came to this cemetery to pay their respects to Mark J. Hamburger, the congregation’s longtime rabbi.

Not everyone who has come to this cemetery has shown respect. In 1943, as Melrose was awash with news of Nazi atrocities against Jews, numerous headstones were toppled by unknown vandals. In 1996, a teenager toppled about twenty headstones here; in 2017, a group of three teenagers toppled a half-dozen more. This history of vandalism and the sign by the cemetery gate make clear that, 150 years after the Bornsteins first moved here, an undercurrent of Antisemitism remains in Melrose.

Elizabeth George Speare

Born in 1908, Mary Elizabeth George grew up in this house at 69 Laurel Street. Her parents, Harry and Demetria, would often take her on jaunts in the woodlands surrounding Melrose, and that landscape, decades later, would serve as a creative inspiration. In 1958, writing under her married name of Elizabeth George Speare, she published the children’s novel “The Witch of Blackbird Pond,” a work of historical fiction which would go on to win the Newberry Medal and become the bestselling book ever written by a Melrosian, enjoyed by generations of children and adults alike.

Speare graduated from Melrose High School in 1926. In her junior year, she helped to found the MHS Girls’ Club, an extracurricular organization created to provide a forum for young women’s issues. While “Blackbird Pond” was set in the 17^th century, its teenage heroine, Kit, might best be understood in light of Speare’s own suburban adolescence in Melrose. The novel’s major theme of an individual in conflict with a social order that expects a high degree of conformity from young women would not have been alien to Speare’s youthful experience.

As part of the city’s Wayfinding and Creative Placemaking initiative, local artist Sheila Farren Billings has painted an electrical box at the southwest corner of Main Street and the Lynn Fells Parkway in honor of Speare. This is the first time the city has memorialized its most widely read native daughter.

Melrose spotlight: the Gothic Revival building style

For a century, Classical ideals dominated Melrose architecture. Starting in the 1840s, the whimsy, emotion, and subjectivity of Romanticism broke that mold, and gave us the eclectic architectural styles of the Victorian era.

There was no more explicit rejection of Classicism than the Gothic Revival. Gothic Revival architecture began in Europe, but it took on a unique form in America in the house style sometimes called Carpenter Gothic. Taking the intricate stonework of European cathedrals as their models, housebuilders translated them into carved wood, a material that was ever cheap and plentiful in America. Now Melrosians could enjoy the sophistication and beauty of old Europe in their own home.

While there were a number of patterns for these homes, in Melrose one form predominated, a center entrance model with three prominent dormers. The most well-preserved example is 49 Lake Avenue, which retains its original vergeboards and finials. Note the steep pitch of the dormers and the delicate Gothic tracery under the eaves. The center Gothic window is likewise a rare survival, as in most cases changing tastes and cheaper costs have caused homeowners to replace them with square sash windows.

 The brick walls of the house are definitely not in keeping with the Carpenter Gothic aesthetic, and are in fact a later addition; originally the house was sheathed in board and batten, which would have contributed to a sense of verticality. Altogether, the house is designed to give the feeling of entering a medieval chapel, suggesting that the owner is a person of great moral rectitude.

Other examples of Gothic Revival homes in Melrose include 17 Youle Street, 75 Vinton Street, and 36 North Cedar Park, which, like 49 Lake, are all within five minutes’ walk of the Melrose Depot. By the time the Civil War ended, tastes had changed and Gothic Revival was out of vogue, so it is no surprise that our surviving examples of the style are all from the first wave of suburbanization in Melrose. While Carpenter Gothic was a short-lived movement in Melrose, the values behind its expression were adapted to other styles, as we shall see in later installments of this series.

Lost Melrose, Volume Three

In this episode of Lost Melrose, we examine the Aaron Green house, one of the more unfortunate demolitions of the past twenty years, which was located at 160 Green Street.

Aaron Green was a significant transitional figure in the history of Melrose. The son of one of the old English settler families who had been here since the 1640s, he lived during the transformative mid-19th century period when the railroad brought so many newcomers to Melrose. Green was one of the old guard who welcomed the changes the railroad wrought. He stood among the townspeople who successfully petitioned the Commonwealth to create the new town of Melrose in 1850, served as the town assessor for decades, and was a member of the Melrose School Committee. In addition to farming and owning a small shoe factory, he was also active in the local real estate market.

Green’s house was built around 1810. Shortly before it was destroyed in 2005, it had been nominated for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. The Massachusetts Historical Commission concluded that the house was “significant as a rare and unusually intact surviving example of a Federal period, rear wall chimney cottage, a building form that was probably once typical in Melrose, but of which this appears to be the only surviving example.” The nomination also noted that Green’s diary survives, and gives a description of the construction of the house’s kitchen ell in 1849.

Unfortunately, the person who purchased this property in 2004 became concerned that the historic value of the house would slow down or prevent development of the site, so he requested a permit for demolition and used it before any final documentation of the house could be made. As a result, this black and white photo is one of the only visual records of the existence of this house.

Had a demolition review law been on the books—as had been part of Melrose’s Master Plan of 2004—this commission would have been able to prepare a full documentation of the house. Fifteen years later, despite inclusion in the Melrose Forward Master Plan of 2017, we still have no demolition review law, and the number of demolitions has increased dramatically.

Demo Review + Affordable Housing = Success

There's a strong correlation between communities that are meeting the 10% Affordable Housing benchmark and demo review. Demo review can be wielded as an effective planning tool to encourage responsible development. At a minimum, any argument that demo review makes reaching 10% prohibitive is both baseless and without merit. Here are two images for your consideration:

• A map that illustrates which municipalities in the Commonwealth have demo review laws; and,

• A map that shows which communities have met the 10% affordable housing benchmark (note: Brookline should be there as well).

Why is that important? Because there are false narratives being circulated that demo review is a hindrance to development. If so, one must wonder how Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Arlington, Belmont, Winchester, Andover and countless others do it. How do they manage to have a demo review law and remain highly desirable to developers?

Demo review is embraced by all of our comparable neighbors and nearby municipalities.  Demo review is an important part of any Smart Growth strategy.  Demo review goes hand in hand with Affordable Housing. Demo review is the environmentally sound thing to do in a community that cares about sustainability. Demo review is the socially just thing to do in a community that cares about people.

Getting a demo review ordinance in place was a part of both the 2004 and 2017 master plans for the City of Melrose. It hasn't happened yet, but eventually it will; we can be the ones who make it happen. We can get on the right side of history. Contact us at MelroseHistComm@gmail.com to learn how you can help support affordable housing and historic preservation in Melrose.

Mary Livermore Barrows

When women gained full voting rights in 1920, one phase of their struggle was at an end, but another was just beginning. No one in Melrose history exemplified that new struggle more than Mary Livermore Barrows, who lived nearly her whole life at 20 West Emerson Street.

Barrows’ maternal grandmother was the famed fighter for abolition and suffrage, Mary Livermore; her father, John Norris, was the longtime chairman of the School Committee. Barrows herself graduated from Wellesley and returned to her hometown to become a politically engaged citizen. Given her pedigree and aptitude, she no doubt would have been elected to office at a young age had she been a man.

Her chance to run came in 1926, when a group of her female supporters got her name on the ballot for Ward 4 Alderman while she was away in Maine for the summer. Barrows had good reason to be reluctant to run; in 1915, when the men of Melrose had voted in a referendum on women’s suffrage, only 41% had favored it. Nevertheless, Barrows worked with women from across Melrose to put together an impressive election machine, and won Ward 4 by nine votes. For her accomplishment, the Boston Globe ran an article that foregrounded her baking skills.

Two years later, Barrows set her sights on the state house. At that time, each state house district elected two representatives. In a field of six, Barrows managed to beat out four men and came in second, becoming one of five women elected to the state house in that year.

Joining that boys’ club would be a frustrating experience. During a hearing on temperance in 1930, Barrows made a joke about the opposition drinking during debate; the men feigned insult, and Barrows was made to apologize to the entire chamber lest she face censure. In 1935, she was forced by her colleagues to go through a mock marriage ceremony during one of their raucous all-night sessions, an especial insult since she had sponsored a bill to allow married women to keep their maiden names.

Women in Massachusetts would only be granted that right in 1973. After Barrows left office in 1938, Melrose would not return a woman to the state house until Katherine Clark’s election in 2007.

Melrose spotlight: The Greek Revival building style

Continuing our tour of Melrose architectural styles, we visit Cottage Street, the premier place in the city to see the Greek Revival. Cottage Street was Melrose’s first suburban development. The neighborhood was laid out in 1846, just one year after the railroad came to town, and the houses were built according to a standard Greek Revival model.

Take a look at 72 Cottage Street. Unlike the houses we have seen so far, this one is oriented with its gable facing the street, a choice which has major aesthetic and practical advantages. The gable-front orientation recalls the look of a Greek temple, with the part of the decorative pediment played by a fully functional second story living space. Like the Parthenon, you enter this house by passing through a row of fluted columns, which takes you to a full front porch on which you can take shelter from bad weather or loiter on a pleasant day. Above the columns rests a substantial architrave that adds visual interest to the house, and below them sits an exposed foundation that adds height to the structure. The windows are symmetrical and well-proportioned, with the first-floor fenestration nearly floor to ceiling.

The practical advantages of the gable-front orientation can only be fully appreciated in the full context of the rest of the property. These houses are much longer than they are wide and were built right at the edge of their property lines, which allowed the owner to lay out a driveway leading to stables. Much as modern Melrosians may take the subway to work but use a car for other journeys, these Melrosians of the 1840s took the train to work but otherwise relied on a horse and carriage. One advantage of moving to Melrose was that they now had a property large enough to accommodate that private mode of transport. Because access to the stables was of such critical importance, owners of these houses over the past 150 years have continually made additions back from the property line rather than to the side, which has preserved the integrity of the original Greek Revival design.

#historicpreservation #melrosema 

St. Patrick's Day in Melrose

500-504 Main Street is a historic commercial building that is now home to Edward Jones Investments and Jeff Carbone Insurance. Unlikely as it may seem, it was also the site of Melrose’s first St. Patrick’s Day celebration.

There are occasional references to Irish immigrants in Melrose going back to the 18^th century, but only in the years after the Civil War did a community take shape. In the 1870s, a new generation of young Irish people born in America and raised in Melrose began to assert their Irish and Catholic identities. One of them was Patrick J. Murphy, who grew up at 12 Dell Avenue. In 1870, at the age of 19, Murphy organized the first Catholic Sunday School in Melrose, renting space for lessons  at Masonic Hall.

In 1874, he organized the first St. Patrick’s Day celebration at what was then known as Unity Hall; only a few years later, in 1880, would the building’s owner, Joseph Boardman, reconfigure the building in its current retail and residential arrangement. At that first St. Patrick’s Day, Irish young people gathered at Unity Hall to sing Catholic hymns, perform religious plays, and raise money for the poor in a scene that was a far cry from our modern stereotypical green beer-soaked mayhem.

In fact, the very next year the celebration was moved to the new Town Hall, and this time money was raised for uniforms for a new Catholic boys’ alcohol abstinence group, the Loyola Temperance Cadets of Melrose. One of the lieutenants of the new group was John H. Dowd, Murphy’s next-door neighbor at 14 Dell Avenue. Another was John H. Gately from West Wyoming Street. Murphy and Dowd would later move from Melrose; five generations later, the Gatelys are still here, running the funeral home their ancestor founded.

Melrose’s first Catholic chapel, St. Bridget’s, was founded in 1873 on land that is now occupied by 77-83 Dell Avenue, but was not yet granted a full-time priest, relying instead on the itinerant services of Fr. William Fitzpatrick, who was based in Stoneham. In 1891, the cornerstone of a new St. Bridget’s was laid, and in 1894 it opened as a Melrose’s first Catholic parish—but by then, its name had been changed to St. Mary’s

Lost Melrose, Volume Two

In this episode of Lost Melrose, we look at 419-429 Main Street, which many will remember as the home of Coffee, Tea, & Me and Mike’s Barber Shop. The exact age of this structure was a matter of interpretation. As is often the case for commercial structures, it had a complicated building history, as it was adapted for new uses over time. In this map from 1915, the building is marked as “Sinnott’s Garage,” an automotive garage with a capacity for 40 vehicles. Most of the building is shaded blue, because it had recently been built of concrete, but that concrete shell was built around an earlier, smaller building shaded in yellow because it was wood-framed.

None of this seems to resemble the familiar brick façade of the old building, which was permitted for demolition in 2017. Six months before, the owner of the building had planned to save it, but discovered “unexpectedly serious structural issues,” that caused him to change plans. Those structural issues were no doubt tied to the complex history of the building, which, alas, is no longer available for study. One reason the Historical Commission supports a demolition review is because it creates a mechanism for documentation of a structure even when it cannot be saved.

As a glance at the 1915 map shows, this block of Main Street has changed radically in the past century; the massive Friends Brothers bakery complex has been completely demolished, and even Ell Pond Brook itself has gone underground. In the event that such seemingly permanent structures as the Carter Brothers Block (now Giacomo’s, Cuts & Such, and the Hourglass Gift Gallery) and the old Melrose Theatre (now Eastern Bank) should likewise face the wrecking ball, we would at least like an opportunity to document their structural histories for future generations.

Melrose COVID-19 Pandemic Experiences Project

What is your life like during the COVID-19 pandemic? Is there a memory, story, or other experience you would like to share? Your response will help the Melrose Historical Commission and Melrose Public Library tell future generations about how the historic COVID-19 pandemic affected the Melrose community. How you decide to share your story is up to you. Use the links to the downloadable submission forms or the Google form, below, to submit your memory:

Adults: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kAx_fvkwCvolI3mOm4HVPbHf--c1XYh6/view?usp=sharing

Kids: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10ULnjZ17WK74vi6EBml9Qszwdo73gM_i/view?usp=sharing

Google Form: https://forms.gle/QP5v33MBX3trAoFbA

You can also obtain blank forms and drop off hard copies at the Melrose Public Library. Contact us at melrosecovidproject@gmail.com with any questions.