July 23rd - July 29th

 

July 24, 1901

July 24, 1901 - Brookline horse sold to Kaiser Wilhelm
July 29, 1917 - World War I military encampments
July 25, 1978 - Condominium eviction dispute
July 25, 2004 - BHS alum Jonathon Riley at Olympics

July 24, 1901
Brookline horse sold to Kaiser Wilhelm
Rudolf Clasen, owner of the Brookline Riding Academy in Brookline Village, was in the news when one of his prize-winning horses was purchased by German Kaiser Wilhelm and shipped to Berlin. The seven-year old stallion, named King, had been brought to the attention of Wilhelm by a member of his court who saw a film of the high-stepping horse "waltzing" to music.

Clasen's stable, where local men and women were taught to ride, stood where Walnut Street and Juniper Street meet today, just east of High Street near the Boston line. The building, erected in the 1870s, had been a carriage house for the horse-drawn Metropolitan Railway before the cars were electrified.

The Brookline Riding Academy building in Brookline Village (Photo courtesy of Leo Sullivan. Click image for larger view)

On July 24th, the German-born Clasen, who had a riding school in Lynn before coming to Brookline, boarded a ship with King to bring the horse to the kaiser's stables. He later moved his school to Worcester.

Rudolf (sometimes spelled Rudolph) Clasen and King, Boston Herald, July 21, 1901

July 29, 1917
World War I military encampments
Visitors were welcomed to the camps of two Massachusetts National Guard units preparing to go overseas after the U.S. entry into World War I. The two units, a cavalry troop and a signal corps, were headquartered at the Commonwealth Armory in Allston but camped across Commonwealth Avenue, in Brookline.

This portion of a panoramic photo taken in August 1917 shows part of the camp of the 101st Battalion Signal Corps. (See the  full view of the scene to zoom in and/or pan left and right)

The cavalry unit was camped in an open field just south of Commonwealth Avenue between Pleasant Street and Crowninshield Road. The signal corps was camped in what had been the ballfields of the Noble & Greenough School, bordered by Pleasant, St. Paul, Dummer, and Egmont Streets. The area was dubbed Camp Norman Prince, after a pilot killed in a crash while fighting for France in the war.

This portion of the panoramic photo looks south toward 127 Egmont Street, still standing today.

The site of Camp Norman Prince became a state-financed 114-unit public housing project, originally built for veterans, after World War II.

July 25, 1978
Condominium eviction dispute
A growing wave of condominium conversions prompted a debate over protections for existing tenants of Brookline apartments. Town Meeting approved a plan to give evicted tenants six months to move but rejected proposals for greater protection put forth by State Representative John Businger (D-Brookline).

It was estimated that ten percent of Brookline's rental apartment has been converted to condos since 1970, with approximately half of those conversions occurring in the past 18 months. Many of the tenants subject to eviction were elderly.

Disputes and legal challenges continued, but ten months later Town Meeting adopted, after several close votes, a Businger-crafted plan that was described as possibly the first ban in the nation on evictions of tenants with leases still in effect.

Brookline Chronicle Citizen, May 10, 1979

July 25, 2004
BHS alum Jonathon Riley at Olympics
Seven years after graduating from Brookline High School, track star Jonathon Riley competed in the 5,000 meter race at the Summer Olympics in Athens. Riley had set numerous school and state records after moving to Brookline from Skaneateles, NY.

The environment at BHS helped foster his success, Riley told the school newspaper the Sagamore (recently renamed the Cypress) in a 2016 profile.

“It was something that I was excited about, and just having been at a small school for a long time, I was pretty excited about what a city type school would be like and just the opportunity to meet more people,”

Jonathan Riley as shown as a member of the Boston Globe All-Scholastic Indoor Track Team, April 9, 1996

Riley, who failed to advance out of the qualifying heats at the Olympics, ran on the professional track circuit for several years. He was inducted into the Massachusetts State Coaches Track Hall of Fame in 2010.