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Plan to convert Park Plaza school into apartments moves forward
By adamg on Thu, 07/08/2010 - 11:41pm
The BRA reports that developers have filed their detailed project notification form for the proposed conversion of the Boston Renaissance Charter School into roughly 128 rental units.
The school is selling the 13-story building at Arlington and Stuart streets to finance the conversion of an old factory on Hyde Park Avenue in Hyde Park into a new school - expected to open this fall.
Developers say the new residential building will have no parking for residents, but that they have negotiated to make 200 spaces at the 200 Stuart St. garage made available to residents. They add they will work with the city to encourage residents to take advantage of the nearby Back Bay and Arlington subway stops or to get around by walking and bicycling.
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Comments
Formerly UMass-Boston
The University of Massachusetts at Boston was located in this building before it moved to Columbia Point, and part of it remained there for many years afterwards.
And before that it was Boston
And before that it was Boston Latin School.
Are you sure?
Boston Latin School has been in the Fenway since the 1920s, if Wikipedia is right: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Latin_School
Latin Academy, perhaps?
That institution has moved around several times during the past century.
Latin Academy aka Girls' Latin School
Wikipedia has a list of its locations too -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Latin_Academy -- but Park Square isn't one of them.
Eastern Gas & Fuel
It looks like 250 Stuart Street was Eastern Gas & Fuel - later Boston Gas - from at least 1939 until it was sold to UMass in the 60s.
Must have been BLA, then. I
Must have been BLA, then. I was going on memory from the book All Souls by Michael Patrick MacDonald. There's a section where he talks about attending English School, right behind Latin, referring specifically to that building as the location of Latin.
[edit]I've figured out my confusion. English School was located across the street from BLS, but I had the wrong location in my head for English, thinking it was located where the current Quincy Upper school is (behind the Park Square building). Thanks to everybody for pointing out the error, I've had that in my head for many years, now it's corrected.[/edit]
Girls' Latin
Boston English used to be across Avenue Louis Pasteur from Latin. If I remember correctly, Girls' Latin was on Huntington Ave. in what was originally built as the Boston Normal School. Not much of that school's turn-of-the-last century's red brick buildings remain, but one is visible right by the Longwood T stop along with the inscription Normal School.
English was behind Latin when
English was behind Latin when Latin was on Warren ave. - the buildings were adjoining on the same block. Later, English and Latin were across from each other in the Fenway.
That was the First Cadets
That was the First Cadets Corps building until at least 1938 - which is why it looks like a 'castle.' Boston Latin was on Warren ave, near Tremont st.
First Corps of Cadets = Park Plaza Castle
which is a different building, still standing nearby.
I thought the building was
I thought the building was originally built to be the headquarters for Boston Edison/Boston Gas/one of the old utility companies?
It was
The gas company's basement test kitchen was also the location of the filming of the first episode of "The French Chef" with Julia Child. It was taped there because the WGBH studios on Mass Ave in Cambridge burned to the ground prior to the show's scheduled first filming.
This is the site in 1890 - it
This is the site in 1890 - it was a gas tank.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/12157608@N07/4778172060/
Another, maybe more important, question...
why does a building with 128 rental units, which sits just about on top of the green line, and is within walking and biking distance of thousands of amenities, need confirmed access to 200 parking spots? I hope the city revises this down. We have enough asphalt in Greater Boston...enough subsidies to cars.
Well, those confirmed spots are in an
existing off-street parking garage. No new asphalt required.
Boston Gas
Boston Gas was a division of Eastern Gas and Fuel. They moved to the Pru with pland to build a new building on Boylston st accross from the Public Garden.