An assortment of eight apartment buildings clustered along Columbia Road are now on track to join the National Register of Historic Places. Secretary William F. Galvin, who chairs the Massachusetts Historical Commission said last week that the commission has approved the nomination and submitted it to the National Park Service in Washington, DC for final consideration.
“Inclusion of the Columbia Road-Devon Street district in the National Register will help to raise awareness of this historic area of Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood,” Secretary Galvin said in a statement.
The district includes buildings at 193-231 and 200-204 Columbia Rd., all built between 1900-1910. According to Galvin’s office, “these buildings were constructed by speculative developers looking to capitalize on the improvements to public transit with the widening of a major boulevard to accommodate streetcar travel. Their construction coincided with the movement of Jewish immigrants into Dorchester, which retained its strong Jewish identity into the 1960s, when Dorchester’s demographics changed to reflect a growing number of African-American and Hispanic residents.”
Most of the buildings are Colonial Revival in style. Galvin’s office pointed out that one of the buildings— the Mary Rubenstein Building at 217-219 Columbia Rd., was recently rehabbed using historic tax credits by the property owner, Cruz Development Corporation.
The Columbia Road – Devon Street district was one of five historic resources around the Commonwealth approved for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places by at the commission’s most recent meeting.
