History
The square was first constructed in the mid-19th century to attract a growing wealthy merchant class. The park was once the largest garden square in the South End. It originally included a very large white, three tiered fountain with a seating area and numerous trees, flowers, and other gardens. It fell into decline shortly after the start of the 20th century, as wealthy residents moved to the Back Bay and a growing immigrant class moved in. The grand Victorian townhouses were gradually divided up and converted into smaller units, public buildings, and rooming houses. The park suffered its most devastating change in the 1950s when City and State officials decided to run Massachusetts Avenue directly through the park, dividing the square in half.
Read more about this topic: Chester Square (Boston)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“What you don’t understand is that it is possible to be an atheist, it is possible not to know if God exists or why He should, and yet to believe that man does not live in a state of nature but in history, and that history as we know it now began with Christ, it was founded by Him on the Gospels.”
—Boris Pasternak (1890–1960)
“One classic American landscape haunts all of American literature. It is a picture of Eden, perceived at the instant of history when corruption has just begun to set in. The serpent has shown his scaly head in the undergrowth. The apple gleams on the tree. The old drama of the Fall is ready to start all over again.”
—Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)
“Social history might be defined negatively as the history of a people with the politics left out.”
—G.M. (George Macaulay)