Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1828
Remember the photo of the longest wooden stairway in the city we saw the day before yesterday?
Here’s a comment:
I lived on Jerome St. from 1941 to 1971 and went to the Mather School, a two mile walk. The stairway had been converted to concrete steps as long as I can recall. Yes, 100 steps. We (school buddies) all counted them.
It ran from Hancock, at Kane Sq. next to the DPW storage facility up to Downer Ave. When we were bored with the Hancock St. trek, we would go up to Downer Ave by the stairway, continue to Sawyer Ave., past St. Margaret’s Hospital, where many of my cousins and sister were born, and then down to Jerome St.
I was referred to the website by Karl Bossi ( Call Me Moose ) a classmate at St. Kevin’s and Boston Tech.
Paul Valleli
Today’s illustration is a drawing by Jack Frost for his column Fancy This in The Boston Herald, Wednesday, April 29, 1936, furnished by Richard Heath. The caption to the drawing reads:
The Longest Wooden Stairway in Boston
The fatigue inspiring stairway shown in the sketch connects Hancock Street and Downer Avenue in Dorchester on Jones Hill. There are more than a hundred steps and thirteen landings. The granite wall shown in the foreground was built by the PWA. The three family houses are common to the hill. The building part way up the steps is a dance hall, well known in Dorchester. After the city had been scoured pretty thoroughly, these Jones Hill steps were the longest wooden ones found—and wooden steps are not as abundant today as they once were.
I conclude from this that the photo we saw earlier this week may have been taken to furnish a model for Jack Frost so that he could sketch the scene.
Now the new mystery is: what was the name of the dance hall and who can tell us more about it?
_____
The Dorchester Illustration of the Day (DIOTD) is sent weekdays. If you receive this e-mail by mistake, please reply to be taken off the e-mail list. If you know others who would like to receive the daily e-mail, please encourage them to join the group by going to http://groups.google.com/group/dorchester-historical-society. You may contact Earl Taylor at ERMMWWT@aol.com
If you value receiving the DIOTD, please express your appreciation by making a donation to the Dorchester Historical Society, either by regular mail at 195 Boston Street, Dorchester, MA 02125, or through the website at www.DorchesterHistoricalSociety.org