THOUSANDS of professionals will be descending on Boston Thursday for the annual convention of the American Institute of Architects. Many will take side trips to architecturally significant sites as far afield as Connecticut and New Hampshire. In advance of the convention, Common Boston, a group of young designers, last weekend gave local people an opportunity to observe significant buildings in their own city. They focused on six neighborhoods. I chose the tour closest to my heart: Peabody Square in the Ashmont section of Dorchester, where my father worked for four decades.
Peabody Square has long been a planners' nightmare, dominated by a decrepit Ashmont MBTA station, the intersection of three busy roads, and asphalt parking lots. It is barely enlivened by a tiny green space in the middle. But the MBTA station is being rebuilt, and a T parking lot has been replaced by the Carruth building, a combination of market-rate condominiums, subsidized rental housing, and retail space. The city is redesigning the intersection to make it less chaotic and to add more greenspace.
My father, who died in 1982, would have appreciated the changes. An osteopathic physician, he opened an office there in the 1930s, when the square was the epicenter of middle-class neighborhoods, graced by large homes built before World War I. His office was in the Peabody Apartments, a distinguished Victorian building. Automobiles were scare, and public transit was the default mode of transportation.
By the time he was ready to retire, in 1975, the automobile dominated the square, and crime had become a problem. He had to wrap a chain around the steering wheel of his car - an early antitheft technique - while it was parked on a side street. And the residential neighborhood started to erode as homeowners headed for the suburbs. He drew solace from lunches at the Englewood Diner, across the square. It closed in 1980.
Still, new residents, attracted by the convenient location and bargain prices, strengthened the surrounding neighborhoods even as the square declined. On Sunday the 30 people on the Common Boston tour visited two restored houses on Ashmont Hill. Thanks to persistent neighborhood pressure, the care lavished on these homes is rubbing off on Peabody Square.
Coaxed by the neighbors, the Legislature provided enough money for the T to rebuild Ashmont Station, at a cost of $79.8 million, rather than do a less expensive renovation. Christopher Stanley, a neighborhood resident, joined by the public-private St. Mark's Area Main Street program, encouraged the T to lease the parking lot for the Carruth development. Once the new station is finished next year, the square will experience its greatest improvement since the original Ashmont Station opened in 1928.
The square was enlivened 2 1/2 years ago by the conversion of the Ashmont Grill, a venerable barroom, into a restaurant by Christopher Douglass, a neighborhood resident who owns Icarus in the South End. It's not the Englewood Diner (my father wouldn't have known what to make of "vegetarian Thai red curry") but it suits 21th century Dorchester. Douglass has such confidence in the area that he will open Tavolo, an Italian restaurant, in the Carruth later this year.
The architects' convention is returning to Boston after a 15-year absence. The local organizers will be guiding tours to show off the city's many changes in the interim, ranging from the Rose Kennedy Greenway to the harbor developments and new university buildings. The architects won't be coming to Peabody Square, but if its progress continues, attendees at their next Boston convention will witness a completed renaissance.
THOMAS GAGEN
