Intro

Jake Intro-Outro:
[0:00] Hi, listeners. Before I get started this week, I’d like to ask you for a favor.
As you probably know, if you’ve been listening these past few weeks, we’re gonna be honored at the Boston Preservation Awards on October 15.
We’re asking for your vote for the fan favorite award. It only takes a few seconds to vote.
Just go to HUBhistory.com/fan, and that will redirect you. Some of our competition are large companies. And they can get every employee to vote. But we’re counting on you, our actual fans.
That’s HUBhistory.com/fan to vote. And thank you.

Music

Jake Intro-Outro:
[0:44] Welcome To Hub history, where we go far beyond the Freedom Trail to share our favorite stories from the history of Boston, the Hub of the universe.
This is Episode 205 saving History with the Boston Preservation Alliance.
Hi, I’m Jake. In just a few minutes, I’m going to be joined by Matthew Dickey, the communications and operations manager of the Boston Preservation Alliance.
As you heard me say at the top of the show, Hub history is being honored at the Alliance’s annual award program next week.
Up to this point, every time I’ve mentioned the Boston Preservation Alliance on this show, it’s been to hype up our own award this week. I want Matthew to tell you about the organization’s important work and saving the historic nature of Boston’s many diverse neighborhoods.
They fight to preserve individual buildings of historic importance, but they also work to keep the cohesion of historic neighborhoods and to raise public awareness through efforts like well, awards ceremonies,
stay tuned to the very end to learn how you can attend this year’s Virtual Boston Preservation Awards.

[1:51] My entire chat with Matthew will be this week’s upcoming historical event, but before that It’s time for this week’s Boston Book Club selection from My Boston Book Club pick this week, I thought it would be appropriate to stick with the theme of historical Preservation.

Boston Book Club

[2:06] Though she’s better known for the book Asphalt Nation. How the Automobile Took Over America and How We Can Take It Back.
Brookline native in Boston Globe architecture critic Jane Holtz. Kay’s first book was all about the history of Boston’s architecture er on what’s been lost in the past 400 years.

[2:24] Originally published in 1980 updated in 1999 the bluntly titled Lost Boston blends prose with historic photos and maps to uncover some of the grand public buildings,
cozy back streets and iconic details like neon signs and storefronts that have fallen in the name of the greater good.

[2:44] 1980 Review, by Henry B. Leonard of Kent State gave the book high marks, saying,
For enthusiasts of the hubs built, landscape Lost Boston is a book which will both delight and inform,
a long time resident of the city and student of Boston’s art and architecture, ER Jane Holtz Caisse scoured the collections of numerous institutions to assemble a fascinating collection of photographs, which bring back to life both the buildings and, more important,
the broad visual aspects of the city, which had been vandalized in the name of progress.
This is no dry architectural survey, rather milliseconds attempts with great success to recreate, Boston is a work of collective art as the joint product of its diverse and active citizenry.
From the city’s 17th century foundations to the 19 thirties,
she effectively brackets lively essays, which described the historical architectural on environmental development to the city with photographic portfolios, which are organized around particular themes.
As the book’s title suggests, virtually all of the photographs or of buildings and prospects now gone.
For anyone who knows today’s Boston milliseconds, comparison of the past with the present is startling and, unfortunately, depressing as well.

[4:03] I’ll include a link to buy the book in this week’s show notes, as well as a link to a C SPAN video of an illustrated talk Jane Holtz K gave it the BPL in the year 2000, drawing on the research she did for Lost Boston.
You’ll see many of the images that were used in the book, and you’ll get, um, or opinionated take on Boston’s so called Progress, um, moderated by the influence of her editors at Houghton Mifflin.
Just Goto Hub history. Com slash 205 For the links you need.
The rest of this week show is essentially are featured. Upcoming event to learn more about the Boston Preservation Alliance, how to support them and how you can attend the upcoming Virtual Awards ceremony.
Just go to Boston Preservation dot org’s or follow the links in this week’s show. Notes.
Now to tell us more about the Boston Preservation Alliance, I’m joined by Matthew Dickey.

Interview With Matthew Dickey

Jake Interview:
[4:55] Matthew. Welcome to the show.

Matthew Dickey:
[4:56] Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Jake Interview:
[4:59] So just to kick us off, can you tell us a little bit about the Boston Preservation Alliance? Guess, starting with the organization’s mission.

Matthew Dickey:
[5:07] Yeah. So our underlying tagline is we preserve, promote and protect Boston.
The Bus Preservation Alliance is a nonprofit organization that protects it, protects and improves the quality of Boston’s architectural heritage.
And this could be through advocacy and education on ditz. By bringing people in organizations together to influence the future of Boston’s historic buildings, landscapes and communities.

Jake Interview:
[5:32] When you say that you preserve that preserve, promote and protect.

Matthew Dickey:
[5:35] Correct it. Preserved, promoting. Protect.

Jake Interview:
[5:37] What does that tell us that Boston’s built environment? Or is that historic sites? What? What is it that you’re protecting?

Matthew Dickey:
[5:44] Mhm. Basically, we are the independent voice for historic Preservation. Inequality of Boston’s built environment.
So it could be anything built. It could also be monuments. It could be open space.
It could be just We like to be a guide for what Boston can be.

Jake Interview:
[6:05] When I think of your organization? I think of buildings. So it’s interesting to hear that it could be open spaces like parks Space, I assume, or it could be monuments. So it’s more than just historic buildings.

Matthew Dickey:
[6:16] Yeah, definitely. It’s it could be landscapes and just the communities in general.
Um, like an example is right now, there’s been a big move in the Preservation world that it’s not just buildings, and it’s people that preserve place.
So it’s focusing on the many stories that the facades of our buildings and our buildings are just vessels of these stories of the people that make important.

Jake Interview:
[6:40] That really resonates with me more than just thinking about buildings.
Because for me, in our podcast, I like to think about the people of Boston’s past. So for me, thinking about Preservation is a way of preserving those people. Stories really resonates more than just thinking about old buildings.

Matthew Dickey:
[6:55] Exactly. There’s more to the story than just a beautiful building.
And this he sometimes getting Preservation. You get the beautiful building.

Jake Interview:
[7:00] Right?

Matthew Dickey:
[7:04] But what about that little shoe shop That maybe not, is an architecturally significant but is historically and story significant because of the lives that were touched there?

Jake Interview:
[7:13] So I guess I have an outdated impression of the Boston Preservation Alliance.
But as long as I’m thinking about the organization’s past, how did this organization come about? Where did the Boston Preservation Alliance get started?

Matthew Dickey:
[7:25] The Alliance is an alliance of Boston’s organizations that care about their community in place.
Eso it started, We started in 1978 and it was in a formal association of 25 organizations concerned with the cities built environment.

Jake Interview:
[7:37] 78

Matthew Dickey:
[7:44] And it was mostly just the neighborhood groups that came together and that we’re interested in city in some way.
The organization did get started by a group of community advocates and locals who wanted to have an Alliance that was trying to help all the voices of the city.
And and it’s evolved over the years to be really the leading voice of Preservation and the city of Boston, and that just basically what that equates to is over 120.
Some odd meetings attended countless phone calls with advocates and city planners and developers Cos meeting with the Boston Planning and Development, B P D A,
and meetings with zoning and other developers within various neighborhoods of the city to try to guide new projects.
New buildings with Boston’s best intent in mind like this are Number one Line is like Boston doesn’t deserve just better. Boston deserves the best.

Jake Interview:
[8:38] Yeah. So what are some of the projects that the Alliance has been involved with in the past? Maybe some sites that folks would recognize.

Matthew Dickey:
[8:46] I mean, I think the biggest one we had is the Citgo sign is the one that was a really big a couple of years ago when BU sold the building, and now you’re seeing developments happening at that site now.
But that is after they’ve communicated a lot with the Alliance, and we’ve helped guide decisions in the hopes that the Sinus saved for that history of Kenmore Square is preserved.
And then another really big one is there is a lot of talk. Several years ago, I don’t quote me on the date win again. It’s before my time there.
Also, I’m from ST Louis and more of a Cardinals fan. But Fenway Park was they were going to do a lot of work to Fenway Park and the Alliance I was working with. The Red Sox and the Red Sox are still advert supporters of ours.
They did lots of work with them to preserve what was important of the ball park and the surrounding areas, and that includes up to this recent project. Where there’s there’s they’re doing Ah, there’s a new project happening at Fenway where they’re bringing in a performance space.

Jake Interview:
[9:47] Uh huh. Inside Fenway Park.

Matthew Dickey:
[9:49] It’s not inside its adjacent to it, and it’s connecting to it, and part of that project would remove seats in one of the walls, and so it’s altering it.
But we think it’s done in a way that really integrates and utilizes the space around them better.
So we they approached us before they even went out with it, and we’re asking our advice.
So that’s just kind of the way that the Alliance, as a smaller organization, can have a large community impact.

Jake Interview:
[10:16] And we’re recording this on the anniversary of Ted Williams, last at bat with the Red Sox and talking about Fenway Park, which inspired John Updike to write a little piece in The New Yorker called Hub fans.
Big kid. A do, which is a great headline.
But he calls Fenway Park in the opening sentence a lyric little bandbox of a ballpark.
So it’s great to know that we can do things like at a venue onto that lyric little bandbox who they still keep the essential character of the park.

Matthew Dickey:
[10:48] Yes, exactly. So they it was. It was the theater with an overlook so you could go above and see the park.

Jake Interview:
[10:53] Hm?

[10:57] Well, that sounds pretty neat. I’ve been grilling you, Ah, lot about the organization’s past.
We are a history podcast. But as you pointed out, you haven’t been with the Alliance since the beginning. So I also want to ask you about what the Alliance is doing now. So what sort of projects is the Boston Preservation Alliance working on right now?

Matthew Dickey:
[11:05] Uh huh.

[11:18] Boston is very bustling cities, so there’s constantly projects going on.
It’s it’s impossible for our staff. You get involved with all of them, but there are some really big ones.
And like this, they’re stuck with one that’s actually currently being constructed, and that is City Hall.
We’ve been a big advocate for City Hall in Government Services Center and that whole wing of design that was kind of planned by Master Plan by I.
M. Pei and then the Plaza was like laid out both an ideas by I. M. Pei, but then never fully executed.
So while we successfully advocated for the continued maintenance of Boston City Hall, which the city is doing and are continually investing in that project, they have also just went out.
And don’t quote me on the numbers here, but I think it’s a 70 million or so project to revamp all of City Hall Plaza, and it is currently under construction right now. So if you go there, it looks like a construction site.
Uh, we had a couple of suggestions that they were again contacted us early on in the process, and we’ve been working with a number of constituents with the project, and our number one concern was making sure that the historical context of City Hall was always remembered,
and that the entry points to the City Hall was we’re still kind of intact.

Jake Interview:
[12:36] So I know that City Hall Plaza originally had a few more softer edges.
It’s a lot of hardscape right now, but I know I had some softer edges in the original design. With a little more planters, there was, Ah, I want to say a fountain, but it’s almost more of like a small river. The.

Matthew Dickey:
[12:50] No, no, there was a fountain. It’s actually. Oh, yeah, Yeah, you’re right. The fountain. Right now, the fountainhead is actually revealed because they took out that concrete caps. If you go by right now, you can see that.

Jake Interview:
[13:01] To swing by is the new revision incorporating a more sort of organic soft escaping or.

Matthew Dickey:
[13:08] Um, one of the biggest things is it makes it a lot more human friendly.
It z no longer just this, like a barren land of concrete and brick and stone just in the middle of the city. There is going to be lots of trees added to it.

Jake Interview:
[13:13] That would be terrific.

Matthew Dickey:
[13:27] And it we’re gonna be 100% 88 compliance.
So it’s a lot more literally accessible on Ben. There’s a planning for there’s a new park, like a Children’s park and play area around the bend, closer to like the Faneuil Hall area side of it.
And then on the other side, you see a lot more parks than they have the fountain kind of uncovered.
The design of that has been incorporated into the current design.

Jake Interview:
[13:54] You do projects at different scales. Also, I know from just browsing the website in the last couple of days that there’s a non going project on Stanhope Street.

Matthew Dickey:
[14:03] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jake Interview:
[14:04] Well, why don’t you tell us a little bit about that? I won’t be quite as immediately recognizable as City Hall Plaza, but folks might get a kick out of that.

Matthew Dickey:
[14:13] That was really fun, because personally, on my instagram account right now, I’ve been doing lots of research on amused streets.
Muses are like thes thes roads that were for stables and one of the biggest ones in Boston being Byron Street in the Beacon Hill.
And it’s just, uh, big Long Street of just these former stable homes for stable a carriage houses that are now private residences.
And Stanhope Street was like one of those. It was this role of stables that were there. Now we know one of the locations. It’s friendly toast.
That’s the neighboring property. And then this property you’re talking about is, um, uh.

Jake Interview:
[14:54] To give folks a reference. This is almost right out the back door of back Bay Station, sort of across Clarendon from Back Bay.
Little row of mostly restaurants on that street. Now on Stanhope, that part of Stanhope. So is your project. Between the friendly toast and flower bakery.

Matthew Dickey:
[15:13] Exactly because there’s a low slung stables that are right there. Then the flower bakery building is a current, taller structure. That’s I don’t remember the dates of it, but it’s not. It’s not part of this development.

Jake Interview:
[15:25] I never stopped to consider the, you know, the friendly toast and.

Matthew Dickey:
[15:30] Red Lantern.

Jake Interview:
[15:31] The red lantern that Yeah, that sort of squat, cute little buildings. I had never stopped to think that they were former stables.

Matthew Dickey:
[15:37] Exactly. And at this time, the interiors have been changed many, many times.
So the the for us is Preservation isn’t about the interiors of the building.
It’s about preserving that streetscape. And it’s not solely about just saying Preserve this in amber.
We know that the city is going to change, and we know that you you need to have an adaptive city, too.
Be viable for the future. So we don’t want to just say like no nothing. We’re not like nimbys, you know?
So So yes, we do think that that element of those tables there are part of a unique fabric of the city that can be over easily overlooked.
And and but for everybody that’s there, that’s this, holds this memory to them.
And so if we can somehow preserve that, that streetscape, that architectural character there while building above and adaptive ing and adaptive Lee reusing the space, then that’s all the better because you get something unique and you get this new space that could be used.
But we do know that if these buildings are demolished, that is probably going to set a president for the rest of the street. Next thing you know, it’s all going to be gone.
The owner is Ah, Rosalind Goran and we’ve been working with her since the beginning for for a while now. And and she does agree that if the anything happens to the building that is going to see the president for the air is near it.

[16:58] What’s really fascinating about this project is that it is currently up for to be a landmark, and that kind of adds, we supported becoming a landmark as well.
But the thing is that just because your land work doesn’t mean you can’t change it landmark just means you have to have a well vetted and intelligent change that goes with it.
So it’s so long as it follows guidelines, you can change your landmark building.
The mark isn’t set in stone.

Jake Interview:
[17:27] And this is my own ignorance. But who grants landmark status? Is that a city designation? A state designation? National Register of Historic Places? What, What sort of landmark are we talking about?

Matthew Dickey:
[17:39] So the only thing that can preserve a building from being demolished in the city is local designation.
So when you see something on the National Historic District or a National National Historic district, has something different.
A national historic landmark that does not protect it from demolition that just says it.
It is an architecturally significant or historically significant building.
You shouldn’t demolish them, but we can’t stop you from doing that. Ah, local designation can consult demolition.
And so, like for the Stanhope project, they do want to give it a landmark status, but they don’t want to give it like, uh, you can’t change the status.
So we were for it to become a landmark building. So long as the facade is preserved that streak escape is maintained and the new building is well designed and interesting.

Jake Interview:
[18:28] You know, I think about the projects we’ve discussed so far. We talked about the Citgo sign. We’ve talked about the Red lantern on Stanhope Street. We’ve talked about City Hall Plaza. These are very different. Structure is very different places in Boston.
How does the Alliance decide what to get involved with? I I don’t want to use the words. How do they decide what’s worth saving? But that’s almost in the back of my mind. What makes those very different projects similar enough to get involved in each?

Matthew Dickey:
[18:59] A lot of the times away. It starts, and this is me saying this as the guy who does operations and communications, not the one who’s on the ground doing the Preservation work.
So I’m I’m just a storyteller. He gets it afterwards. I’m not the one getting into the nitty and gritty right, but I know that for us, what gives us involved in the first place is to know if there’s like one.
Is that something that’s architecture inefficient to? Is the community that surrounding the building really adamant about the story line? And they want something to preserved?
So, for example, there’s projects that’s this is giving some rough ones in Jamaica plain a good example of Doyle’s right.
We’ve been involved in that for a long time, and that’s just a It’s an old restaurant. Is the building itself historically significant?

[19:45] Hard to argue that it is the interior of the memories made within it are extremely significant, and the heritage that is, their restriction, the significant.
But the community is enamored by that history, and so we could give guidance to that.
And so it’s kind of this. The community’s concern that Ghana gets us going or sometimes it could be.
The mass Historical Commission will give us a tip that something is happening.
Or maybe it’s a developer sometimes will come to us right away and be like, Hey, we’re looking to do this. That’s like Case and, uh, Stanhope.
We were very early on, or Fenway Park.
They get involved very early, and we kind of helped him through various processes.
But again there. Then there are times when weird we get inklings through the paper or like anybody else.
And it could be. I think there’s only a 90 day limit on the demolition delay, and that’s very little to find any significance for building and to come to a solution to save it.
So lots of these times it has to be the developer and those who are involved in all the constituents who are willing to adapt to the structure or to the space like another one is a good example is of the hurly building,
and that’s the It’s another downtown building.
But it’s Paul Rudolph and companies part of Government Services Center, and this is the state wants to sell it.

[21:04] But they didn’t just find out, say we’re going to sell this for this much money. Here it is. They’re trying to work a way that could best preserve what’s there to work out a solution that’s a creative solution to the city’s needs and the states needs and the community’s needs.

Jake Interview:
[21:19] This isn’t the building with the angry frog, is it? Okay.

Matthew Dickey:
[21:21] Yes, it is not. Not technically, that building that’s the Lindemann building, which is the others.
They don’t look like they’re separate buildings, but there are two separate buildings that are disconnected right next to each other but the Lindemann building in the hurly building Makeup Government Services center.

Jake Interview:
[21:37] You mentioned what a tight timeline it could be with a 90 day turn around to try and do the research and determine whether something’s significant or not. That made me think maybe wonder.
Have there been missed opportunities? Have there been buildings or projects that either during your tenure with the organization or before that, you wish there had been an opportunity to preserve.

Matthew Dickey:
[22:02] I mean, there’s things that I think about all the time, that are just that they’re no longer around, that I’m like I would be so cool to see that, Like like Old Scully Square, Pemberton Square. Or where the was the taunting.

Jake Interview:
[22:15] The West End entirely?

Matthew Dickey:
[22:17] Yeah, all of the West and we could get you can talk about that because that’s pregnant right now, too. With MGH they’re doing, they want to expand.
And again there’s like I believe there’s something like 12 or so buildings, that’s it that remain of the historic Weston.
And MGH wants to demolish three of them so that there you go.
That’s 1/4 of the history gone. And that’s why you can’t let places as we as an organization. We don’t want to let places just going like, Oh, it’s just one building was just one building was just one buildings. You know, the whole neighborhood’s gone and that that history is lost.
So we we try to avoid that, and we have been in communication that MGH we came out to them were really asked them to think about other solutions, and they said none of them were viable.
So now there’s still this conversation going back and forth about what is possible and, um and what we can do in the community. I know where they want to see these buildings preserved, because again, there’s so few of them.
But, like like I think about like I love the red hat and seeing that which it’s ah bar in, um historic Scollay Square. But now it just looks like it’s nestled in the Beacon Hill.

[23:27] And it’s like the last surviving restaurant from that time is like one of the only things that are left and you get you get a little sense of what it was like.
Um, I also love seeing all the old streetcars that used to be around Boston. I live in Dorchester in Columbia Road, had a Streetcar, and now there’s a project that historic Boston.
Incan Out owns that called the Comfort Station, which was basically the bathrooms for Legal Street trolley that are being objectively reused.

Jake Interview:
[23:52] Where is that?

Matthew Dickey:
[23:53] Zahn Columbia Road in Dorchester, right next to the Dorchester North burial ground.

Jake Interview:
[23:58] The only comfort station I knew of was on the comment.

Matthew Dickey:
[24:00] Oh yeah, yeah, it’s very similar to that, and,
it’s a very small building has been sitting vacant for forever, and the reason that it was there is because there used to be street cars that went up and down Columbia Road right there as I could be convenient because I live near there. So, uh huh.

Jake Interview:
[24:14] Yeah, which you could. Those streetcars there probably now in San Francisco.
I know. Anytime I’m in San Francisco, I see old Boston PCC cars on their streetcar lines because they went on. But all the cities that were phasing out their streetcars, they went around and bought them all up and put them back into.

Matthew Dickey:
[24:22] Oh, yeah.

[24:30] Uh, interesting. Interesting. I love that little stories like that.
There’s just so many things like the thing that I hate is that when you get these buildings of character and they’re just built with this is me just being like a neigh Sayer grumpy man.
But it just gets built with lackluster architecture. Er, and as a bad Preservation is, I’ll be fine demolishing the building. It was if it was replaced with something that’s absolutely outstanding, but it so rarely is.
And by the time you go through, all the planning thing just becomes, Ah, it looks like it starts to look like everywhere. America and Boston shouldn’t look that way.
Um, and then I also think about like things that air kind of decaying that I think are just sad to me.
And that, just like one of those is the Aaliyah Blanc, a brewery.
And a lot of people don’t know that along the Stony Brook, there was once 40 or so Greer ease in Boston.

Jake Interview:
[25:24] That is on my list of future podcast topics. I would really love to dig into that more. Is this one of the ones right along Heath Street?

Matthew Dickey:
[25:32] Exactly. Yeah, So there is one. And he street that we, I believe when the Preservation prices, not that long ago, is great adaptive reuse project.
And then the theology of Lana just sits there, vacant with like trees growing out on the roof.
And the owner is just holding on to it, probably waiting for it to be demoed by neglect, kind of situation.
And right now there’s nothing that we can do as a community because they own it. They’re following the rules of the minimalist minimal standard possible, and it’s just sitting there and is like just so much history in that.
But the thing is, it’s not the history, that little thing that that that tethers me or like, pulled on my heartstrings little bit that’s going to be lost. It’s just like there’s so much potential for this unique structure to exist.
And like the the crazy potential, that building is also what I think is like.
What I love about his to replace is is that we’re just stewards of these places right now.
We’re not going to be the ones you’re going to keep them in amber. They’re going to change their We’re just adding new layers to their histories.

Jake Interview:
[26:33] You see, it worked both ways throughout Boston’s neighborhoods. I live in the Reedville section of Hyde Park, which is, I want to say, formerly industrial.
A lot of people here would tell you it’s still in industrial area, but that’s really formerly industrial.
The biggest employer in the area back in the early eighties was Westinghouse that a huge factor here.

Matthew Dickey:
[26:52] Oh, wow. Okay.

Jake Interview:
[26:53] Westinghouse hadn’t manufactured anything in Hyde Park in 20 years or something. Now, maybe longer.

Matthew Dickey:
[26:58] Mhm.

Jake Interview:
[26:58] But the building is a tech company headquarters. It’s lofts. There’s, Ah, school inside. So you know that that building still anchors that end of Reedville.
It’s just not making transistors or, ah, it wasn’t true. I think it was industrial fans. They made their.

Matthew Dickey:
[27:17] But when you get to the places that are extremely successful in their continual layering, you get to these these really cool places, that air, like thinking about some of our upcoming Preservation prize winners like the substation in Roslindale.
It was this this building that created the electricity for the train systems, and now it is a brewery in a community space is just like it was perfect.
And it was the train that supplied basically all the back and forth for people to get out to the breweries that line the Stony Brook.

Jake Interview:
[27:50] So you mentioned the Roslindale substation being honored this year with a Preservation award that actually, that’s a good segue. I meant to ask you about the Boston Preservation Awards.
How long has that event been happening?

Matthew Dickey:
[28:06] You know. So this is our 32nd Preservation achievement of words. So a bit of time, Yeah.

Jake Interview:
[28:10] Wow, that’s great. What does the Alliance hope? That presenting these awards each year does either For the organization for the city for Architectural er, what’s the idea behind creating an award?

Matthew Dickey:
[28:24] The idea is that we have, ah, place a platform to celebrate great Preservation.
And it’s also not just press. It’s not just preserving a billion amber, it’s it’s We also give awards the compatible new construction. So it’s anything that celebrates the city’s built environment and their looked upon.
The award winners were looked upon as models for future Preservation work, and we believe that creating a better future for Boston lies and preserving its past.
So these air kind of our exemplary projects anybody can apply.
So this year we got anything from an individual who nominated their own smaller project to universities nominating their larger projects.
And it’s open into a podcast that is, that is telling stories, for example, on De. So congratulations also on winning this year’s at one of this year’s awards.
Yeah, yeah, so that’s mostly the theme behind it.

Jake Interview:
[29:23] People or organizations submit their projects for consideration, I guess. What’s the thought process like behind choosing an honoree? So how our projects selected to be honored?

Matthew Dickey:
[29:37] So they’re all selected. So I will say that while the Alliance puts out the call, we have a separate panel or committee that picks the winners from the pool of applicants.
So it’s not. The people of the staff of the Alliance aren’t the ones who get that say we put it to call out there, But then it’s a members of the various communities are board some of our advisers from your young advisors that are all on this committee.
We’re always looking for new volunteers for people to be involved in this. So you’re interested.
Let us know you can submit and the things we don’t want to make it seem like.
You have to be this glitzy drone footage kind of application.
We want it to be open to anybody for like, for example, of somebody who did a carriage house adaptive reuse project one a couple of years ago in Dorchester. And it’s an awesome project, just the the owner just submitted it and they want it.

[30:29] So we want to keep it easy for people to do it, and there’s no cost, and our goal is to try to get places that we might not have known about it like, yeah, we all know about the big ones, right?
Like like we all know about what a great example like like City Hall Plaza?
Yeah. We all know about, like, other preserving City Hall Plaza. Or or I just thought that the Dome of the State House was under scaffolding for forever.
All they did a great job today. Yeah, we know these projects, and those teams were probably going to submit, But we don’t know about these smaller places in the communities.
And so we really encourage anybody to apply. It could be anything from your small house.
Maybe it’s preserving a triple decker and creatively you re using space.
Or we’re always looking for something that uses architectural er Preservation history in the built environment as a creative solution for the future.

Jake Interview:
[31:22] And surfacing some of the projects that otherwise might be overlooked. It sounds like so it’s not just always the same large developers or big institutions, so you’re you’re going out into the neighborhoods and and finding honorees that that might otherwise not be.

Matthew Dickey:
[31:35] We hope to do that. It’s sometimes it’s difficult for a staff of four like like, for example, like last year.
Last year we had the Longfellow Bridge was a winner. I mean, look at it looks amazing because I wanna make sense, right?
But But then we also had a little farm out in Mattapan called the Fowler Clark Epstein farm that was submitted for an award.
And just these little we want to Seymour of the communities, because I really think that’s the This is a smaller neighborhoods of Boston that actually make the culture of Boston, So I want to see some of those preserved.

Jake Interview:
[32:08] An award ceremony in co vid season is a special case. I assume in a normal year, non 2020 year, there would be a ballroom somewhere and invited guests would come in and watch the awards ceremony.
But we’re in a pandemic. So what does an awards ceremony look like in a pandemic season?

Matthew Dickey:
[32:30] So you can find all of the things all information you ever wanted to know, maybe a little bit more on our website at Boston Preservation dot org’s slash awards slash 2020 and you can register and is going to be a virtual event.
This year. However, it is going to be hosted by Katie Couric, and we usually do these little, um, they’re mostly slide shows, but this year they’re full on videos with drone footage.
We hired a great filmmaker toe Help us make videos that really showcase all the award winners,
and honor their projects in the works that they put into the things such as Hub history Podcast, for example and way interviewed you guys right underneath the shadows of the Old North Church.
And we interviewed all of the project winners on site to hear their stories and about why,
why go through the trouble and spending the money and the research in the time on the craftsmanship,
in loving these buildings to preserve them for the next generations to come, and we hope to share our little teaser of all those videos along with our host, Katie Couric.
Some of our award winners and they were going to roll out longer. Form 3 to 5 minutes videos of each project in the weeks after the awards of October 15th.

[33:47] That’s gonna be the kind of idea for this year. There is also going to be afterwards, a networking session where you can hop in and hop out of each networking room.
So you have that ability to meet some of these award winners and some of these project teams who are behind the projects.
So it kind of gives you an insider view about what development in Boston is like.
So I think it’s gonna be fun time. As’s fun as we can be in your virtual world, the event is free. The after networking session does have a cost of $100.
We have, ah, request for a donation just to help us continue to do our work.
You can also follow along on social media will beginning everything out there eventually.

Jake Interview:
[34:29] Those are the Bus and Preservation Awards. But before I start wrapping up, I also want to ask about Matthew Dickey. That’s that is you.

Matthew Dickey:
[34:37] That is me. Uh huh.

Jake Interview:
[34:40] So how did you end up at the Boston Preservation Alliance? What in your background or your experience led you there?

Matthew Dickey:
[34:46] Yes. So I do have a slightly obsessive interest in architecture and the built environment,
and just just telling people of the stories of the history of places like like even the most popular sites that you know I’m in the city.
There is a lot more to the story than what you know.
And it’s, um I like to spark that little morsel of curiosity to let people dive deeper into the places that surrounded them.

[35:14] And so when the position came open to the Alliance, it’s kind of like, Well, I get to do this and to get insider perspective of some of the things that happened here was like That sounds sweet And so that’s kind of how I I got involved.
A couple years ago, I did a big project with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, where I joined them to preserve Route 66.
So I hopped in on their caravan on Airstream and drove the route with them for a couple of weeks, ended that project.
That was kind of like my entryway into that, and I got that because I have been heavily involved in this group called the Rust Belt Coalition of Young Preservationist.
I’m from the ST Louis area big Rust Belt City, and we’d like to showcase our Rust Belt charm, and we do that by visiting a different city every usually about two a year.
We’ve been doing this now for several years, except for this year, because reasons So that’s this. This this just been in a constant evolution of an obsession with architecture er.

Jake Interview:
[36:21] You may be from ST Louis, but you’re in Boston now, so I have to ask. So leaving the Alliance aside doesn’t matter whether the Alliance had any involvement or not. What are some of your favorite buildings here in Boston?

Matthew Dickey:
[36:34] Well, I do love the city Hall, but I love some. I think my favorite building in the city could be the class of 1959 chapel, designed by mostly softy.
It’s the Harvard Chapel on their business school campus, and it’s this little jewel box.
But it was built in, like the nineties 1992.
So it’s very postmodern aesthetics and design, but you walk in. It’s just like something that not maybe we also know that exists.
I see it as Harvard’s answer to the M I T.
Chappell, designed by Arrow sarin and and then I just love like like love.
Just finding the different houses and the triple deckers in the city or the walk ability and getting lost in these little roads like I’ve really just now in Kobe Times and been spending a lot more time in my own city, discovering things that I didn’t know were there.

[37:24] And so like, like the People’s firehouse in Charlestown, it was saved twice by the local community when it was twice going to be removed from the neighborhood, and twice the community was like No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
And it’s still there and it still a fire station. And that’s amazing.
Um, or I do also really love the Five Cents Savings Bank, I think, is what is called which is designed by the same architect as a Boston City hall.
And it’s just yeah, and so was the courthouse.
That was another weird one, because it’s much different generation, but same architect, Um, the Five Cent Savings Bank is the, uh, It was a borders for a bit right across the street from the Old South meeting house.

[38:08] Love that building then. I also really love the 75 federal Building right across the street from South Station.

[38:16] I believe that was attacked, building the architects collaborative, and it’s it’s the one that starts off really narrow that has a cantilever that goes up and then it goes straight up.
It’s very black and ominous int walk in that direction, and he’s like, Whoa, okay, but I love that building e mean, I also love a good, clever house.
There’s a house on Taylor Street. I know some of my colleagues just really hate it, but I love it, and it’s this.
It was an old wooden one of the oldest wooden framed homes in the south end and it was demolished and they made them put it back up.
And they did a clever combination of all the new from appearance, even though it’s all new.
I didn’t have that more than two. I mean, I could follow me on instagram out, pulling out the things I love. Every day there’s another new obsession has been narrow houses.
I mean, just there’s three of them that I was like, I wonder which one of these is really the narrowest house.
And so I did go out on a bike ride with a tape measure and it is that one in whole street. It is the narrowest house by a solid 2 ft.

Jake Interview:
[39:17] Didn’t get any funny looks as he rolled up in front of folks houses with.

Matthew Dickey:
[39:19] You’re kind a little bit. Yeah, the thing that really got me, like posting on Instagram. The owners of every house have reached out to me.
I’m like, Oh, yeah, well, you do have the narratives that your house is actually three inches narrower than the other one. It was a one in Beacon Hill.
The north end in Charlestown are all in contention, I thought, but there might be others that I don’t know about just anything with an architectural oddity.
There’s a great history of Bay Village with used to be like the center of the filming industry.
And there’s all these rows of homes their that were basically basically these filming studios, and one of them is a perfectly adapted, be reused small house I love.
It’s got a blue facade with a painted round window or it’s painted blue brick and got these round windows inside from more recent update.
Another favorite of mine. There’s tons of little gyms around here to be discovered.

Jake Interview:
[40:16] So if people want to follow you on social media, they want to catch up with the Bus and Preservation Alliance online. Where should they look for information about you, about the organization or about the upcoming award ceremony?

Matthew Dickey:
[40:29] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you want to find me? Matthew Dickey?
I’m mostly on instagram at Underscore m A. Dickey underscore, and it’s mostly buildings all the time.
Um, if you’re looking for the Boston Preservation Alliance, you can find us on Instagram at Boston Preservation Alliance online at Boston Preservation Dot or GTA,
and you can join us and learn everything about Katie Couric and our upcoming award winners, including History and eight others at,
Boston Preservation dot org’s slash awards slash 2020,
one thing that you wanna be that that people just understand, is that if there’s ever anything in your neighborhood that you really want to know more about, you really think,
deserves to be preserved or a story or history that you think really a significant in your community.
You should write to us and tell us about it because we want to be the organization that can help share and spread those stories in those histories, because,
there’s always more to this story, and we want to make sure that we tell the full story of a place so and again, it’s really difficult for us as a staff of four focus on everything But if we have everybody out there is kind of eyes and ears to what’s going on the community.
We can help share and preserve and more diverse and interesting. Boston.

Jake Interview:
[41:52] Matthew Dickey. I just want to say thank you very much for joining us today.

Matthew Dickey:
[41:55] All right, Thank you for having me.

Jake Intro-Outro:
[41:57] Before I wrap up, I just want to say a big thank you to all our patryan sponsors.
These are the folks commit to giving $2.5 dollars or even $10 a month to support the show.
Their kind support helps us offset the costs of making hub history costs like Web hosting and security podcast media hosting, audio processing and transcription.
In return, they can earn special perks like hub history stickers, access to the script I write for each show and even monthly video chats.
If you’d like to join them, become a sponsor of the show. Just go to patryan dot com slash hub history or visit hub history.
Com and click on the Support link.

Outro

[42:42] To learn more about the Boston Preservation Alliance, check out this week’s show notes at Hub history dot com slash 205,
of links to the Alliance’s website, a direct link to register to attend the Preservation awards and links to their social media profiles.
I’ll also link to Matthews Personal Instagram, where you can see a lot of creative pictures of Boston’s architecture.
ER And of course, I’ll have links to information about Jane Holtz K’s Lost Boston, this week’s Boston Book Club pick.
If you’d like to get in touch with us, you can email us at podcast of hub history dot com.
We’re hub history on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Or you could go toe hub history dot com and click on the Contact US link while you’re on the site. Hit the subscribe Lincoln. Be sure that you never miss an episode.
If you subscribe on Apple podcasts, please consider writing us a brief review.
If you do drop us a line, we’ll send you a Hub history sticker as a token of appreciation.

Music

Jake Intro-Outro:
[43:45] That’s all for now. Stay safe out there, listeners.