January 15th - January 21st

January 16, 1901

January 16, 1901 - Mail collection by automobile announced
January 16,1939 - New Town Hall proposed
January 18, 1958 - Razing of The Farm neighborhood approved
January 15, 1984 - Brook House sold, to be converted to condos

January 16, 1901
Mail collection by automobile announced

The Boston Globe (and the Transcript a few days later) reported that mail dropped off at the Back Bay and Brookline post offices would be collected by automobile for delivery to the central post office beginning March 1st. 

The experiment, announced by Boston Postmaster George Hibbard, would make use of specially designed electric autos with a low gear and an easy to reach seat, "essential points (reported the Globe) in a wagon used for mail collection."

Headline in the Boston Transcript, January 19, 1901

The article included an illustration of the proposed design, shown above. It was expected to cut the time required for collection to 45 minutes, as opposed to one hour and 20 minutes with horse-drawn wagons. It would also reduce the number of personnel used from seven to three for the same volume of mail collected from the two locations.

The proposed experiment never happened. It was abandoned due to delays in securing the necessary vehicles. The failure didn't seem to hurt Hibbard. A few years later he was elected mayor of Boston, defeating John Fitzgerald, John F. Kennedy's future grandfather. (Fitzgerald would win the seat in a rematch two years later.)

January 16, 1939
New Town Hall proposed

1939 proposal for a new Town Hall, as shown in the Boston Herald

Brookline began discussing a replacement for its 1873 Town Hall as early as 1920. The town's population had increased at least five-fold between those years, and town administration had grown along with it. The Victorian building -- the third structure to serve as the Town Hall -- was widely seen as inadequate.

1873 Town Hall

Selected government functions were moved to other buildings, and discussion of a new Town Hall died down for a while. It began again in the mid-1930s as advocates for a new building looked to the New Deal Public Works Administration as a source of funding. 

Finally, in January 1939, a design by local architect George C. Funk (seen above) was presented to the Board of Selectmen. The proposed building was to be constructed approximately where the Town Hall parking lot and public health building are today.

Continued debate about both the need for a new building and the cost, estimated at $672,000, led to a decision being put off. U.S. entry into World War II and a subsequent shortage of construction materials delayed any further action. The 1873 building remained in use, despite growing complaints of its inadequacy, until its replacement by the current Town Hall in 1965.

January 15, 1958
Razing of "The Farm" neighborhood approved

The Brookline Redevelopment Authority (BRA) approved its first major urban renewal project: the razing of the working class, largely Irish-American Brookline Village neighborhood known as The Farm, subject to Federal approval under the Housing Act of 1954.

The neighborhood, which took its name from the old Kimball Farm that occupied the site in the mid-19th century, was home to some 230 families occupying mostly two- and three-story wood-frame houses south of lower Washington Street (Route 9) between High Street and Leverett Pond. (See street-level views of the neighborhood on the Brookline Historical Society website.)

"The Farm" neighborhood. Leverett Pond is at the left and High Street at the right (See larger, zoomable view) 

BRA chair Francis Cappers said "No family will be required to move until suitable living accommodations are found for it and the Authority will endeavor to relocate displaced families in the same school district and parish." 

The project was met with protests and lawsuits by residents, as well as opposition to proposed affordable housing developments nearby that were meant to accommodate families displaced by the razing of their homes. After considerable delay, the neighborhood was replaced by the high-rise, luxury apartment complex known as the Brook House, completed in 1967. (See the next item, below.)

January 16, 1984
Brook House sold, to be converted to condos
The Brook House complex that replaced Brookline's "The Farm" neighborhood in the 1960s (see previous item) was sold for $41 million to Richard Cohen and Harold Brown. Cohen and Brown, described by the Boston Herald as, respectively, a realtor/developer and an apartment czar, announced plans to turn the 762-unit rental apartment complex into condominiums.

Advertisement, Boston Globe, November 10, 1984
(Click image for larger view)

At least some residents of the complex were alarmed by the plans. "We want the place to go condominium," said one resident at a tenant strategy meeting, "but not at these prices."