February 19th - February 25th

February 22, 1873

February 22, 1873 - New Town Hall dedicated
February 24, 1912 - Teddy Roosevelt in Brookline amid election speculation
February 24, 1912 - Tennis star Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman
February 21, 1958 - Skating Rink opens at Larz Anderson Park

February 22, 1873
New Town Hall dedicated
Brookline's third Town Hall, shown above in a contemporary sketch (courtesy of the Public Library of Brookline) was officially dedicated in a ceremony attended by local and state officials, including Massachusetts governor William Washburn and two former governors.

The three-story Gothic building stood adjacent to the site of the current Town Hall. It replaced the 1845 Town Hall, which was converted into a new police headquarters. Former U.S. Senator and Speaker of the House Robert Winthrop, who described himself as "an eleventh-hour Brookline man" -- he had moved to town a few years earlier-- gave the main speech, a lengthy address in the style of the day.

"I may not venture to depict, or attempt to anticipate, [said Winthrop] all the various scenes which this Hall may exhibit, in the long vista of time and change and chance through which we look forward to-day, as through the ever-changing, still-combining colors of a kaleidoscope."

Robert C. Winthrop photo by Matthew Brady. (Library of Congresss)

Winthrop expected the building to last well more than a century. "We can hardly imagine that any increase in population, or any multiplication of offices or affairs, or any caprice of taste of fancy, will ever call for a more spacious or commodious edifice of the kind," he said. 

Less than 50 years later, however, there were already discussions about replacing it with a new, larger building. (See This Week in Brookline History, January 15th-January 21st for more.)

February 24, 1912
Teddy Roosevelt in Brookline amid election speculation
Former president Theodore Roosevelt, visiting Boston and staying at the Brookline home of Edward Brandagee, announced that he would accept the presidential nomination of the Republican Party if offered to him instead of to the current president, William Howard Taft.

Washington Post headline, February 26, 1912

The announcement was evidence of the growing rift between Roosevelt and Taft, who had been Roosevelt's vice president. It was made in response to a request from a group of Republican governors who wished to see the former president challenge Taft.

In the end, Republicans nominated Taft for re-election, leading Roosevelt to run as a third-party candidate under the banner of the Progressive Party, popularly known as the "Bull Moose" party. In November, Roosevelt won 27.4% of the popular vote and 88 of the votes in the electoral college, while Taft, with 23.2% of the popular vote, won just 8 electoral votes. Democrat Woodrow Wilson won less than half of the popular vote but was elected with an overwhelming victory in the Electoral College.

February 24, 1912
Tennis star Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman

According to her biography on the website of the International Tennis Hall of Fame, "few in women’s tennis history had a more distinguished and productive career than Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman." Born in California, where she began her tennis career, Hotchkiss' 1912 marriage to attorney George Wightman brought her to Brookline, where they lived until the mid-1930s.

Helen Hotchkiss Wightman as she was shown in Spalding's Tennis Annual in 1911, left, and in the Brookline Chronicle Citizen in 1968.

 

Her tennis career, which began before her marriage, brought her more than 40 tennis titles in singles and doubles and two Olympic gold medals (both in 1924). Her desire to increase attention to women's tennis led to the Wightman Cup competition, named for a silver cup she donated in honor of her husband. The competition between players from the U.S. and Great Britain was held annually until 1989.

Hotchkiss, her husband, and their five children lived in a house at the corner of Charles Street and Beacon Street in Coolidge Corner, which no longer stands.. (Her in-laws' house on Hawes Street, still standing, has since been used by Hebrew College, Wheelock College, and Boston University.) She continued to play -- and teach -- tennis well into her 80s.

 

February 21, 1958
Skating Rink opens at Larz Anderson Park
Brookline's public ice skating rink -- reported by the Boston American to be the first municipally-constructed rink in New England -- opened in Larz Anderson Park. The celebration featured figure skaters from the Skating Club of Boston, an exhibition by the Brookline High School ice hockey team, and demonstrations by amateur skaters.

The rink was constructed on what had been the Italian Garden of the Larz and Isabel Anderson estate, adjacent to the main house. (The estate had been given to the town after Isabel Anderson's death in 1948.)

The photo on the left shows the Italian Garden of the Anderson estate. The photo on the right shows pipes laid as part of the conversion of the garden into an ice skating rink. (Click for larger view)
Garden photo from Ralph D. Cornell Papers, UCLA. Pipes photo from Brookline Chronicle, February 20, 1958, via Public Library of Brookline)

Prior to the construction of the rink, the town had provided space for skating by spraying water onto the grass on sections of local parks, a process that continued for a few years after the opening of the Anderson rink. (See Ice Skating at Brookline Parks & Playgrounds for more on the early history of ice skating in town.)