State Street Block (built 1857) is a granite building near the waterfront in the Financial District of Boston, Massachusetts.Boston Directory. 1858 Architect Gridley James Fox Bryant designed it. In the 1850s "the Long and Central Wharf Corporation ... sold each bay to individual owners, requiring that 'the granite to be used for the sidewalk & facade of each bay must be purchased from the Corporation & erected according to the architect's plan.'"Boston Landmarks Inventory File, quoted in: Mary Melvin Petronella, Edward W. Gordon. Victorian Boston today: twelve walking tours. UPNE, 2004; p.10.
Walt Whitman visited Boston in 1860, and wrote about what he saw: "Noblest of all State Street Block, east of the Custom House, rough granite. The above probably one of the finest pieces of com[merical] architecture in the world."Clifton Joseph Furness and Walt Whitman. Walt Whitman Looks at Boston. New England Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Jul., 1928), p.357. Another visitor travelling through Boston (in 1859) called it "a magnificent block."Charles Edward Bolton and Charles K. Bolton. A Journey to Maine in 1859. A Diary of Charles Edward Bolton. New England Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Mar., 1936), p.121.
In the mid-20th century, "nearly three-quarters of the original 22-bay building ... was amputated for construction of the Central Artery ... and the roofline of the remainder has been destroyed."Petronella and Gordon. 2004; p.10. The surviving portion of the block was added as part of the Custom House District to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.
References
Further reading Southworth & Southworth. AIA Guide to Boston, 3rd ed. 2008.
External links
Google news archive. Articles about State Street Block. Flickr. photo, 2008 Flickr. photo, 2008 Flickr. photo, 2008
Images