Pemberton Square (est. 1835) in the Government Center area of Boston, Massachusetts, was developed by P.T. Jackson in the 1830s as an architecturally uniform mixed-use enclave surrounding a small park. In the mid-19th century both private residences and businesses dwelt there. The construction in 1885 of the massive John Adams Courthouse changed the scale and character of the square, as did the Center Plaza building in the 1960s.
In the mid-1830s land on Cotton Hill (also called Pemberton Hill) between Tremont Street and Somerset Street was developed as Phillips Place, "laid out on the estates late of the heirs of Messrs. [Jonathan] Phillips, [Gardiner] Greene, and [James] Lloyd." [1] [2] [3] [4] "After Greene's death in 1832, Patrick Tracy Jackson ... purchased the property. Jackson ... cut down the top of Pemberton Hill in order to create a desirable residential area halfway down the slope, at the point where the mansion had stood. This massive grading operation took only 5 months and was completed in October of 1835." [5] The fill was used to reclaim the North Cove, which became the Bullfinch Triangle neighborhood of streets.
"Jackson sponsored a design competition for developing his property. ... Alexander Wadsworth, a local civil engineer and surveyor and one of 47 entrants, won the $500 prize." [5] "In 1836, Jackson commissioned George Minot Dexter (1802–1872) to design the houses for Pemberton Square and all the accompanying ironwork (stair railings, fences for the small front yards, and the fence with lampposts for the central garden). ... The buildings would be consistent in style and ornamentation." [5]
In 1838 the city named the site "Pemberton Square." Somewhat confusedly, the area later known as Scollay Square was first called "Pemberton Square" in February 1838; the city changed the name to "Scollay Square" in June 1838, to accommodate the newly developed area across the street on Pemberton Hill. The two squares sat very near one another, with Pemberton set back from Scollay, and accessed by a short connecting street.
"The dwellings built in it were fine, indeed elegant for their time, and for many years it was the residence of some of the most substantial citizens. ... Architects, lawyers, and other professional men were among the first to establish their offices in it; then other business worked in, and a number of city and state offices, notably the headquarters of the board of police commissioners." [6] "In the middle of the square [was] an enclosed green, with a few trees, which ... was a pleasant bit of nature for the eye of the city man to rest upon." [6] During the city's Water Celebration in 1848, "the cavalcade [passed] up Park, down Beacon and Somerset Street, to Pemberton Square." [7]
"In 1885 the square was selected as the site for a new court house, the building of which had been agitated for years." [6] "Houses on the west side ... were razed in 1885 to make way for the Suffolk County Courthouse. ... The garden was also eliminated at that time" [5] By 1895, "some of the old swell-front houses remain, used as public and law offices." [8]
Since the 1960s, Pemberton Square has become part of the complex of overscale buildings known as Government Center. [9] "A few of the square's original dwellings on the east side survived until the autumn of 1969, when they, along with 2 more recent office buildings, were demolished and replaced by Center Plaza, a very long office building. The form of Center Plaza mirrores the entire crescent-shaped span of the original houses on the east side of the square, but the square itself no longer exists." [5]
Notable residents of Pemberton Square in the 19th century included:
Government Center is an area in downtown Boston, centered on City Hall Plaza. Formerly the site of Scollay Square, it is now the location of Boston City Hall, courthouses, state and federal office buildings, and a major MBTA subway station, also called Government Center. Its development was controversial, as the project displaced thousands of residents and razed several hundred homes and businesses.
Government Center station is an MBTA subway station in Boston, Massachusetts. It is located at the intersection of Tremont, Court and Cambridge Streets in the Government Center area. It is a transfer point between the light rail Green Line and the rapid transit Blue Line. With the Green Line platform having opened in 1898, the station is the third-oldest operating subway station in the MBTA system; only Park Street and Boylston are older. The station previously served Scollay Square before its demolition for the creation of Boston City Hall Plaza.
Beacon Hill is a historic neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, and the hill where the Massachusetts State House is located. The term "Beacon Hill" is used locally as a metonym to refer to the state government or the legislature itself, much like Washington, D.C.'s Capitol Hill does at the federal level.
Scollay Square was a city square in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. It was named for William Scollay, a prominent local developer and militia officer who bought a landmark four-story merchant building at the intersection of the Cambridge and Court Streets in the year 1795. Local citizens began to refer to this intersection as Scollay's Square, and, in 1838, the city officially memorialized the intersection as the Scollay Square. Early on, the area was a busy center of commerce, including daguerreotypist (photographer) Josiah Johnson Hawes (1808–1901) and Dr. William Thomas Green Morton, the first dentist to use ether as an anaesthetic.
The Tremont Street subway in Boston's MBTA subway system is the oldest subway tunnel in North America and the third-oldest still in use worldwide to exclusively use electric traction, opening on September 1, 1897. It was originally built, under the supervision of Howard A. Carson as chief engineer, to get streetcar lines off the traffic-clogged streets, instead of as a true rapid transit line. It now forms the central part of the Green Line, connecting Boylston Street to Park Street and Government Center stations.
Tremont Street is a major thoroughfare in Boston, Massachusetts.
The Suffolk County Courthouse, now formally the John Adams Courthouse, is a historic courthouse building in Pemberton Square in Boston, Massachusetts. It is home to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and the Massachusetts Appeals Court. Built in 1893, it was the major work of Boston's first city architect, George Clough, and is one of the city's few surviving late 19th-century monumental civic buildings. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
Clarence Howard Blackall was an American architect who is estimated to have designed 300 theatres.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy Federal Building is a United States federal government office building located in the Government Center area of Boston, Massachusetts, adjacent to City Hall Plaza and diagonally across from Boston City Hall. An example of 1960s modern architecture, and designed by Walter Gropius and The Architects Collaborative with Samuel Glaser, it is a complex that consists of two offset 26-floor towers that sit on-axis to each other and a low rise building of four floors that connects to the two towers through an enclosed glass corridor. The two towers stand at a height of 387 feet (118 m). The complex was built in 1963-1966. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2021.
Josiah Johnson Hawes (1808–1901) was a photographer in Boston, Massachusetts. He and Albert Southworth established the photography studio of Southworth & Hawes, which produced numerous portraits of exceptional quality in the 1840s–1860s.
Court Street is located in the Financial District of Boston, Massachusetts. Prior to 1788, it was called Prison Lane (1634–1708) and then Queen Street (1708–1788). In the 19th century it extended beyond its current length, to Bowdoin Square. In the 1960s most of Court Street was demolished to make way for the construction of Government Center. The remaining street extends a few blocks, near the Old State House on State Street.
Summer Street in Boston, Massachusetts, extends from Downtown Crossing in the Financial District, over Fort Point Channel, and into the Seaport District to the southeast. In the mid-19th century it was also called Seven Star Lane. Seven Star Lane was named so for "Seven Stars," a tavern once located at the northwest corner of Summer and Hawley streets.
The Provident Institution for Savings (est.1816) in Boston, Massachusetts, was the first chartered savings bank in the United States. James Savage and others founded the bank on the belief that "savings banks would enable the less fortunate classes of society to better themselves in a manner which would avoid the dangers of moral corruption traditionally associated with outright charitable institutions."
Gardiner Greene (1753–1832) was a cotton planter and merchant from Boston, Massachusetts who conducted business from his plantation, Greenfield, in Demerara (Guyana) in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Socially prominent in the town of Boston, he owned a house, greenhouse, and garden filled with fruit trees and peacocks on Cotton Hill, opposite Scollay Square. He was also the son-in-law of painter John Singleton Copley.
George Albert Clough was an architect working in Boston in the late 19th-century. He designed the Suffolk County Courthouse in Pemberton Square, and numerous other buildings in the city and around New England. Clough served as the first City Architect of Boston from 1876 to 1883.
Cornhill was a street in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, located on the site of the current City Hall Plaza in Government Center. It was named in 1829; previously it was known as Market Street (1807–1828). In its time, it comprised a busy part of the city near Brattle Street, Court Street and Scollay Square. In the 19th century, it was the home of many bookstores and publishing companies. As of 1969, Cornhill exists as 144 feet along the edge of City Hall Plaza.
Cummings and Sears was an architecture firm in 19th-century Boston, Massachusetts, established by Charles Amos Cummings and Willard T. Sears.
Tremont Row (1830s-1920s) in Boston, Massachusetts, was a short street that flourished in the 19th and early-20th centuries. It was located near the intersection of Court, Tremont, and Cambridge streets, in today's Government Center area. It existed until the 1920s, when it became known as Scollay Square. In 1859 the Barre Gazette newspaper described Tremont Row as "the great Dry Goods Street of Boston."
Domingo Mora (1840–1911) was a Spanish-American sculptor and architectural sculptor.
