November 5th - November 11th

November 8, 1926

November 9, 1895 - No booze on the border
November 7, 1914 - Devotion School building dedicated
November 8, 1926 - Opening of Georgian Cafeteria
November 10, 1966 - Hotel Beaconsfield burned

November 9, 1895
No booze on the border

Four Boston taverns and liquor stores on lower Heath Street (now South Huntington Avenue), just across the Brookline border, were forced to close due to a temperance campaign by Brookline officials. Town officials had won a ruling against the businesses from the Boston licensing board in April, with the owners given until November to find new locations.

This segment from an 1895 Boston atlas shows the location of a group of taverns and liquor stores at the corner of Huntington Avenue and Heath Street. A Citgo station occupies the corner today with new residential buildings adjacent to it.

Brookline had banned liquor sales within the town in 1887, but the presence of these businesses so close to the town line rankled town officials and temperance leaders. There was also an underlying, if unspoken, class and ethnic dimension to the protests: the taverns were closest to the working class, largely Irish Brookline neighborhoods of The Farm and The Marsh.

The oldest of the establishments, John Devine's store at 368 Heath Street, had been in business for more than 20 years when forced to move. It relocated to Roxbury.

John Devine's liquor store, 368 Heath Street

November 7, 1914

Devotion School building dedicated
A third building for the then Edward Devotion School was dedicated on Harvard Street between two earlier buildings constructed in the 1890s. That 1914 building is now the oldest part of the school, which has been renamed the Florida Ruffin Ridley School.

The 1914 building, though not yet completed, was used for the school's graduation when this photo appeared in the Boston Globe in June 1914.

The new building, designed by the architectural firm Kilham & Hopkins, included a large hall and eight classrooms. The School Committee described it as 

"....a splendid building, well adapted to its purpose, which will provide ample accommodations for years to come...."

The new school was constructed at a cost of $138,000.

November 8, 1926
Opening of Georgian Cafeteria
The Georgian Cafeteria chain opened a 200-seat restaurant, its tenth, in Coolidge Corner, in the space now occupied by CVS. The Brookline Chronicle described it as "an institution rather than merely a place to eat" and "a distinct asset to the Corner and a realization of the ideal in which Brookline and the residents of the town may well take pride."

The Georgian, marked by both a vertical and a horizontal neon sign, had a bronze entrance that led to a foyer, 50 feet long and 25 feet wide, and a large dining room decorated in a silver, blue, and ivory color scheme.

This December 1936 photo shows the neon signs for the Georgian Cafeteria next to the Coolidge Corner Theatre. The theater opened in 1933, seven years after the restaurant.

The Brookline branch of the Georgian closed in 1944, though the chain continued for a few years after.

November 10, 1966
Hotel Beaconsfield burns

The partially demolished Hotel Beaconsfield, built in 1905 as a luxury hotel serving both short-term and long-term stays, burned in a fire of suspicious origin.

The last resident of the Beaconsfield, a 79-year old woman who had lived there for 55 years, had been forced out when the demolition began. The site remained empty and strewn with rubble and trash for many years as plans for the site faced opposition from neighbors and others.

The Regency Park apartment tower -- scaled down from earlier plans -- was completed on the site in 1980.