Chemical No. 2, Bay Village, Boston, MA. March, 2006. (Photo copyright The City Record and Boston News-Letter, all rights reserved)
This photo is for a reader who lives in an old firehouse. Chemical No. 2 is in Bay Village on Church Street. The 1899 Boston Municipal Register lists a C.W. Conway as its Lieutenant. By 1931 the station was no longer in use, a victim of gasoline powered fire engines which weren't well suited for the narrow streets and narrow firehouse bays in some areas of Boston like Bay Village. Another example of an obsolete firehouse can be found on Eustis Street in Dudley Square, where the Eustis Street Firehouse, home to Chemical Engine 10 in 1899, slowly deteriorates.
The Eustis Street Firehouse is one of my favorite Boston buildings and deserves a better fate--if anyone from the city is reading this, can you at least secure the roof so water doesn't continue to pour in?
Church Street, Boston, 1835; from 351 Tremont street to 16 Columbus Avenue, and from 21 Providence Street to 240 Boylston Street; from Fayette Street, north, across the Boston and Providence (now New York, New Haven, and Hartford) Railroad, with proposed extension to meet proposed extension of Boylston Street in 1835; extended north to Boylston Street, 1846; accepted, May 24, 1852; extended from Fayette Street, south to Tremont Street, through Lincoln Court, June 24, 1852; portion adjoining estate of Boston and Providence Railroad Corporation from Providence Street to proposed extension of Columbus Avenue discontinued, November 10, 1871.
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