Dorchester Illustration 2535 Dorchester Power Station
Reminder: a house history from the Dorchester Historical Society would make a great gift to a homeowner in Dorchester or Mattapan. Take a look at some of the completed histories on the Dorchester Historical Society website www.dorchesterhistoricalsociety.org
The Dorchester Power Station of the West End Street Railway Company generated electrical power for the company’s street cars on the Dorchester, Neponset, Ashmont and Milton lines. The brick power station on Freeport Street with a tile roof and chimney and a wharf for coal delivery was erected in 1896. The building is now occupied by Yale Electric Company.
The building of hard-burned brick with freestone trimmings sits on a foundation of concrete and stone. The roof is carried on arched iron trusses provided by the Boston Bridge Company. The roof is a series of arches “springing from truss to truss. The arches are constructed of two layers of flat fireproof tiles laid in cement. This special roof construction was designed by Mr. Baker and carried out under his instructions by Messrs. Guastavino, of Boston.” The Guastavino tile arch systems is a version of the Catalan vault brought to the United States in 1885 by Spanish architect and builder Rafael Guastavino. It was patented in the U.S. by Guastavino in 1892.
The illustration shows the building from an early photograph and an example of Guastavino arches from the New York Municipal Building.
A coal dock extended into the bay. The coal was delivered in barges and hoisted to the top of a trestle, where it was dumped into automatic self-dumping cards. The boiler room had two batteries of two 500 horse power boilers each.
Sources: H. W. Wheeler. “The Dorchester Power Station of the West End St. Ry. Co., Boston, Mass.” The Electrical Engineer, vol. xxiii, no. 464, March 24, 1897, 309-313.
John Ochsendorf. Guastavino Vaulting: The Art of Structural Tile. (2010)