Historic Walking Tours
Historical Society President Ken Liss will be offering three walking tours this spring.150 Years of Shopping in Coolidge Corner
Date: Sunday, May 22, 2016, 9am – 10amMeet at: Coolidge Corner Inbound T-Stop, Brookline, MA
Led by: Ken Liss of the Brookline Historical Society
Coolidge Corner was home to just one store—Coolidge & Brother—from the 1850s to the 1890s. Following the widening of Beacon Street in 1887-88 and the arrival of the S.S. Pierce store a few years later, a major new shopping district took root. Almost all of the existing buildings in this still thriving commercial area were built between 1890 and 1930. Journey back to the initial development of the Coolidge Corner business district and get a glimpse of local shopping in the early decades of the 20th Century. Approximate time and distance: 1 hour and 1/2 mile.
Blake Park: History of a Neighborhood
Date: Sunday, June 12, 2016, 2pm – 3:30pmMeet: Brookline High School, 115 Greenough Street
Led by: Ken Liss of the Brookline Historical Society
In 1880, banker Arthur Welland Blake engaged Frederick Law Olmsted to draw plans for the subdivision into roads and lots of the Blake family estate on the lower part of Brookline's Aspinwall Hill. Olmsted's plans were never executed, and the estate remained something of an anomaly; a large tract of open land renowned for its landscaping in the heart of a community rapidly developing as a "streetcar suburb". Learn how the neighborhood of “Blake Park” finally emerged — despite failed plans, untimely deaths, and financial scandal — four decades after it was first conceived. Approximate time and distance: 90 minutes and 1 mile
The Beaconsfield Terraces: "An Experiment in Domestic Economy"
Date: Sunday, June 19, 2016, 10am – 11amMeet at: Star Market at 1717 Beacon Street, Brookline, MA
Led by: Ken Liss of the Brookline Historical Society
Description: Explore the Beaconsfield Terraces, on the south side of Beacon Street between Dean Road and Tappan Street, one of the more unusual developments to follow the creation of the Beacon Street boulevard in the 1880s. Built by Eugene Knapp, a wool merchant, in the early 1890s the terraces were a residential complex in which people owned their units but shared ownership of a 6-acre park, stables, a playhouse (known as the Casino), tennis courts, a playground, and a central heating plant. A bell system connected the houses to the stables so that people could call for their horse and carriage. Today, only the residential buildings (Richter, Frances, Marguerite, Fillmore, Gordon, and Parkman Terraces) remain. This free one-hour tour is presented by Ken Liss of the Brookline Historical Society. Approximate time and distance: 1 hour and 1 mile.
Brookline Historical Society
www.BrooklineHistoricalSociety.org
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