Dorchester Historical Society

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1754

The Vietnamese American Initiative for Development (Viet-AID) is finishing their new building at 455-475 Geneva Avenue or 4 Bloomfield Street.  The city’s Assessing department calls the parcel 4 Bloomfield Street, while Inspectional Services calls it 455-475 Geneva Avenue.  The project is described as 4 stories, 27 units of affordable housing and 13 parking spaces.  The lot was once occupied by the Stewart Building, designed in 1896 and extant from that time through the first half of the 20^th century.

From American Series of Popular Biographies. Massachusetts Edition. This Volume Contains Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Boston: Graves & Steinbarger, 1891:

JOSEPH IRVING STEWART, of Dorchester, a prominent real estate dealer and builder, now serving as Representative in the Legislature for the Twentieth Suffolk District, was born in Kings County, New Brunswick, April 25, 1847, a son of Joseph and Mary (McVey) Stewart. His ancestors on both his father’s and mother’s side were Scotch, the former settling first in Nova Scotia.

Mr. Stewart’s early years after his school days were spent in active employment on his father’s farm and in the saw and grain mills, where he made himself generally useful. In April, 1867, at the age of twenty, he came to Boston and entered L.F. Whiting’s iron foundry as an apprentice, but thus continued for only one year and nine months, when on account of his health he gave up that business. For two years subsequently he was employed at the cabinet-maker’s trade in Cambridge. He then worked for a while in the piano factory of Chickering & Sons, after which he was engaged for seven years in the fancy wood business. This was followed by an industrial period of six years with the Bell Telephone Company. Then in 1886 he began business as a real estate dealer and builder, in which line of industry he has achieved an unqualified success. The assessed value of the property he has built in Dorchester alone amounts to about one million dollars. At Ashmont he erected sixty-one houses and three blocks. In four and a half years the value of this property had increased to five hundred thousand dollars. He purchased sixteen acres of land in Dorchester Centre, and built thereon fifty-four houses, putting in three-fourths of a mile of sewers and the same length of streets, all of which he subsequently released to the city of Boston. This property also included a large brick block known as the Stewart Building and Bloomfield Hall.

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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

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1753

Jack Beatty was born and raised in Dorchester and attended Boston Latin School, Boston State College and the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Jack Beatty is public radio station WBUR’s On Point program news analyst. He was a longtime senior editor at The Atlantic Monthly, which he joined in September of 1983, having previously worked as a book reviewer at Newsweek and as the literary editor of The New Republic.

From The Atlantic Monthly:

Beatty joined The Atlantic Monthly as a senior editor in September of 1983, having previously worked as a book reviewer at Newsweek and as the literary editor of The New Republic. In addition to editing many of The Atlantic‘s major nonfiction pieces, Beatty is in charge of the book-review section, and he has contributed numerous articles to the magazine himself. Recent subjects have spanned the globe: NATO, the United States Navy, and the Irish Troubles among them.

His 1993 contribution to The Atlantic Monthly‘s Travel pages, “The Bounteous Berkshires,” earned these words of praise from The Washington Post: “The best travel writers make you want to travel with them. I, for instance, would like to travel somewhere with Jack Beatty, having read his superb account of a cultural journey to the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts.” Beatty is also the author of The World According to Peter Drucker, published in 1998 by The Free Press and called “a fine intellectual portrait” by Michael Lewis in the New York Times Book Review.

Born, raised, and educated in Boston, Beatty wrote a best-selling biography of James Michael Curley, the Massachusetts congressman and governor and Boston mayor, which Addison-Wesley published in 1992 to enthusiastic reviews. The Washington Post said, “The Rascal King is an exemplary political biography. It is thorough, balanced, reflective, and gracefully written.” The Chicago Sun-Times called it a “. . . beautifully written, richly detailed, vibrant biography.” The book was nominated for a National Book Critics’ Circle award.

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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

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1752

Wikipedia 2012-03-28

Neal P. McDonough (born February 13, 1966) is an American film, television and voice actor.

McDonough was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, the son of Catherine (née Bushe) and Frank McDonough, motel owners who emigrated from Ireland, with his mother coming from County Tipperary and his father from County Galway.  McDonough was raised Roman Catholic.  He grew up in Barnstable, Massachusetts, graduated from Barnstable High School, and attended Syracuse University, where he was a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1988. His roommate in college was Brett Pollock, current broadcaster for the Omaha Storm Chasers of the Pacific Coast League. McDonough frequently appeared as “Captain Laser”, inspiring young students to bring their studies to completion. From there, McDonough trained for a short time at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA).

In 1991, McDonough won the Best Actor Dramalogue for “Away Alone”. McDonough has made many television and film appearances since then, including Band of Brothers, Boomtown, Star Trek: First Contact, Minority Report and The Hitcher. McDonough played Dave Williams on the fifth season of Desperate Housewives. He also starred in the lead role on 2004 medical drama Medical Investigation for its one full season.

McDonough was set to star in the ABC dramedy Scoundrels but was fired for refusing to do sex scenes for the show. He credits his family and his Catholic faith for his decision.

McDonough portrays the role of “Jesus” in “The Truth & Life Dramatized audio New Testament Bible,” a 22-hour, celebrity-voiced, fully dramatized audio New Testament which uses the Catholic edition of the RSV.

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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

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1751

News correspondent John King grew up on King Street in Dorchester, and some of his relatives still live in the area.

Wikipedia 2012

John King (born August 30, 1963) is an American journalist and is the anchor of John King, USA which appears weeknights at 7pm/ET on CNN. He is also the former anchor of State of the Union with John King. With Lou Dobbs’ sudden resignation from the network on November 12, 2009, CNN announced that King would take over Dobbs’ timeslot on March 22, 2010 with a new show.

King was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts. He attended Boston Latin School, and earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Rhode Island.

In 1985, King joined the Associated Press where he began as a writer. In 1991, King was named chief political correspondent and headed the AP’s political coverage of the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections. Also in 1991, King won the top reporting prize from the Associated Press Managing Editors’ Association for his coverage of the Gulf War in Kuwait.

In 1997, King joined CNN where he served as the senior White House correspondent from 1999 to 2005. In 2005, King was named CNN’s chief national correspondent, a position he still holds. He frequently appears on the nightly news programs The Situation Room and Anderson Cooper 360 and sometimes fills in as anchor.

King also uses the Multi-Touch Collaboration Wall, nicknamed the “Magic Wall” or “Magic Map.” First used during the primaries of the 2008 presidential campaign, it allows him to display and manipulate various graphics and maps relating to poll and election results. He and the Multi-Touch Collaboration Wall have both been featured in a Daily Show segment.

Just prior to the 2009 US presidential inauguration, King began hosting his new talk show State of the Union, which replaced CNN’s Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer. It was announced on November 12, 2009 that King will host a show in the timeslot formerly occupied by Lou Dobbs in early 2010.  On January 31, 2010, King announced that CNN’s senior political reporter, Candy Crowley, would replace him as anchor of State of the Union. King began hosting a new show on CNN starting March 22 called John King, USA.

In a debate on January 20, 2012, John King made headlines after opening the debate with a question related to allegations from Newt Gingrich’s ex-wife in an ABC interview that Gingrich wanted an open marriage. Newt Gingrich answered stating his anger that CNN would open a debate with such a question.  Fox News hosts Chris Wallace and Neil Cavuto spoke out in support of King for asking the question.

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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

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1750

Mark Wahlberg is another son of Dorchester.

Wahlberg was born in Dorchester, on June 5, 1971, to Edward Wahlberg and Alma Elaine Donnelly. His paternal grandfather, Axel Simon Wahlberg, was of Swedish descent, while the remainder of his ancestry is Irish.  He graduated from Copley Square High School on Newbury Street in Boston.

Wahlberg first came to fame as the younger brother of Donnie Wahlberg of the successful bubblegum pop group New Kids on the Block. Mark had been hired as an original member of the group but quit before it became a success.  When the New Kids’ success finally ended, Mark began recording as Marky Mark & the Funky Bunch, earning a hit with Good Vibrations from the album Music for the People. The record was produced by his brother Donnie.

Wahlberg was also known for his impressive physique. He first displayed it in the Good Vibrations music video and most prominently in a series of underwear ads for Calvin Klein shot by Herb Ritts. He also made a workout video entitled The Marky Mark Workout: Fitness, Form, Focus

He then began an acting career, making his debut in the 1993 TV movie The Substitute. He earned positive reviews and appeared in a number of successful movies like Boogie Nights, Three Kings, The Perfect Storm, Four Brothers, and The Italian Job.  Wahlberg starred in the football drama, Invincible, based on the true story of Vince Papale. He is also the executive producer of the HBO series Entourage which is loosely based on his experiences in Hollywood. He appeared as a Massachusetts State Police detective in Martin Scorsese’s thriller, The Departed in 2006.  These are only a few examples of his work.  One of his more recent movies was The Fighter in 2010 where he portrayed “Irish” Micky Ward from Lowell, MA.

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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

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1749

Sheldon Adelson grew up on Erie Street in Dorchester, and is now one of the wealthiest men in the world.  He made money from American International Travel Service, which became the largest travel agency in New England.  He invested in trade shows for computers and made a huge success out of Comdex.  He then moved to Las Vegas and transformed the Sands Hotel into The Venetian Casino.  More recently he has opened the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore.

Adelson and his wife Miriam have a long history of philanthropy and are donors to many pro-Israel causes, helping to fund travel to Israel by young Americans.  In 2006 Mr. Adelson contributed $25,000,000 to the organization Birthright Israel, which finances Jewish youth trips to Israel, and  in 2007, he pledged another $25,000,000 to the program, allowing for approximately 20,000 people to take part.  He and his wife also donated $25 million to Yad Vashem—the largest donation received by the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem by a single donor.   

About a year ago Adelson visited Boston to scout out the possibilities for casinos in Massachusetts, but all the news this year is about his support of Newt Gingrich’s candidacy for the Republican nomination for President.

Sheldon Adelson was born in 1933 into a neighborhood of Jewish immigrants on the west side of Dorchester, not far from Franklin Park and Grove Hall.  An earlier son of Jewish immigrants, the author Theodore White, also born on the same street, offered this description:  “it was then a bustling market street ancillary to the main shopping artery of Dorchester/Blue Hill Avenue.  Storekeepers had transformed Erie Street from the quiet residential neighborhood my grandparents had sought as Jewish pioneers in the district into a supermarket bazaar.”

Check out Sheldon Adelson in Wikipedia and take a look at the article by Farah Stockman in the Boston Sunday Globe, March 18, 2012, “Sheldon Adelson, Dorchester is Calling.”

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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

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1748

I hope than I am using the proper terms in the following paragraph, but I think you can make sense of it in any case.

Today’s photo shows the foundation sill and a post in the ell of the Clapp Family barn.  In the days of hewing each post and beam by hand, builders would shape posts and beams before putting the building together.  In today’s photo each mortise on the foundation sill would accept the tenon from a post.  And the mortise and tenon would be shaped to fit each other one at a time.  Due to the nature of hand work, it was important to be sure the post’s tenon would enter the same hole it was designed for.  So the builder marked Roman numerals on the post and on the corresponding side of the beam.  These are called marriage marks.  The straight lines of Roman numerals are easier to cut than the rounded forms Arabic numerals.

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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

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1747

Yesterday we saw that in 1910, Dr. Archibald T. Davison (a Dorchester native) left his position as Organist & Choirmaster at All Saints to take the post of University Organist and Choirmaster at Harvard.

Wikipedia says: Archibald Thompson Davison (11 October 1883 – 6 February 1961) was an American musicologist, conductor, composer and music educator.

Davison was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He completed his studies in music at Harvard University, finally graduating in 1908 with a PhD. He is best remembered for his work as editor of the two volumes of ‘The Historical Anthology of Music’, done together with Willi Apel. He died in Brant Rock.

His compositions were completed early in life, and none of them are part of the standard repertoire.

His musicology writings include:

• The Harmonic Contributions of Claude Debussy, 1908
• Choral Conducting, 1940
• The Technique of Choral Composition, 1945
• The Historical Anthology of Music Volume I: Oriental, Medieval and Renaissance Music, 1949
• The Historical Anthology of Music Volume II: Baroque, Rococo and Pre-Classical Music, 1950

For a much longer description of Davison’s life, check out his obituary in the Harvard Crimson.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1961/2/17/archibald-t-davison-faith-in-good/

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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

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1746

All Saints’ Choir of Men and Boys along with Harvard Glee Club at Ashmont

On Tuesday, 27 March 2012, at 7:00 p.m., the Harvard Glee Club, and the All Saints’ Choir of Men and Boys, will present a free, one hour-long concert at All Saints’.

The musical directors of the groups–Andrew Sheranian (Ashmont) and Andrew Clark (Harvard)–have planned an evening of socializing and music-making culminating in a joint concert of the ensembles.

All are invited to this free concert, but you are asked to make a special effort to bring along a boy (grade 3 through 6) who might be interested in the choir. This joint event with the Harvard Glee Club re-establishes an historical connection and is the beginning of an exciting new collaboration.

A bit of history:  In 1910, Dr. Archibald T. Davison (a Dorchester native) left his position as Organist & Choirmaster at All Saints to take the post of University Organist and Choirmaster at Harvard. In 1912, he began coaching Harvard Glee Club (HGC) members on vocal training and other aspects of choral music making. He became a beloved figure, and in 1919 he accepted the HGC’s invitation to become the group’s first conductor. Known as “Doc” Davison, he is credited with leading the HGC to the artistic heights and renown it continues to enjoy.

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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

Dorchester Illustration of the Day no. 1745

In Codman Square Bernie’s Bike Shop at 26 Norfolk Street and the houses around the corner on Epping Street were taken down to allow an expansion of the Codman Academy, a charter school connected to the Codman Square Health Center.  When the Academy learned that a portion of the Bernie’s Bike Shop building was built probably in the 18^th century, they saved the beams that could be salvaged for a future exhibit inside the new building.

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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