Photograph of Back Bay — Photograph by Rick Berk, CC BY 2.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Arlington Street Church

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.

From the record

“Back Bay is an officially recognized historic neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, built on reclaimed land in the Charles River basin. Construction began in 1859, as the demand for luxury housing exceeded the availability in the city at the time, and the area was fully built by around 1900.”
Wikipedia article Back Bay, Boston, CC BY-SA 4.0.

one of 206 National Register listings in Suffolk County · listed in 1973 · category: Building · one of 5 National Historic Landmarks in Suffolk County.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service · the Wikipedia article

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1440 buildingss, 4 sitess, 1 structure as contributing to the listing.
Still standing. The Park Service records this property as extant.
Address. Roughly bounded by the Charles River, Arlington, Providence, Boylston and Newbury Sts., and Charlesgate East, Boston, 02116
When was it listed? 1973-08-14
Category. building
Township. Boston city
National Register reference number. 73001948 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

What happened here

An account from the chapter on Boston city, The inset identifies its exact source book and publication year.

From The Memorial History of Boston, Including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880, published 1880 - Boston City

City Charter

IN giving some notices of manners and social life during this period, I shall speak first of usages which were characteristic of the close of the last century: most of them continued without essential modification until our city charter swept away the old landmarks, and Boston felt the im¬ pulses which mark a new epoch in her history.

Read the rest of this passage

The ground it stands on

1,054,450 words

The chapter on Boston City in The Memorial History of Boston, Including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880, published 1880 names Boston. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.

Illustrations: State House and the Monument (in 1811), 64; the Monument from the corner of Temple and Derne streets, 65 ; the Monument and the Thurston House, 65; Beacon Street and the Common (in 1804-1811), heliotype, 65; Boston from Breed's Hill (in 1791), 66; the Faneuil-Phillips House,

Passage source: The Memorial History of Boston, Including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880, published 1880.

IN giving some notices of manners and social life during this period, I shall speak first of usages which were characteristic of the close of the last century: most of them continued without essential modification until our city charter swept away the old landmarks, and Boston felt the im¬ pulses which mark a new epoch in her history. It is difficult to deal justly with ways of living which are not widely different from those that surround us. We miss the salient contrasts which lend themselves to picturesque de¬ scription, and are tempted to look for exceptional occurrences to brighten a narrative, rather than for facts which are truly symptomatic of taste and thought. Were it possible to go back four-score years, or even a century, and mingle with those then conducting the town, we should not feel among strangers. In many respects their ways were counterparts of our own. In certain directions, indeed, we might note a narrowness of range and a contraction of outlook, while envying the vigor of speech and de¬ cisiveness of action which seemed the outcome of the limitations. When Massachusetts took her place in the sisterhood of States, the gigantic up¬ heaval of the French Revolution had not taken place. The prophets whom her capital was to raise up to demand the redemption of human society, each with his panacea for its sad ailments, had put in no appearance. The tyranny of England had been broken by an heroic effort, and any further redemption which society might need would be provided by those who VOL. iv. - i.

Passage source: The Memorial History of Boston, Including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880, published 1880.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Boston City - 1,054,450 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

Fires near this property

35 since 2015

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 35 fires within 5 miles of Arlington Street Church between 2015 and 2020, burning about 28 acres in total. None started naturally. 2 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	13
Recreation and ceremony	7
Debris and open burning	7
Smoking	4
Arson/incendiarism	2
Equipment and vehicle use	1
Misuse of fire by a minor	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
4 September 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
3 September 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
23 September 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
23 September 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
22 September 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
2 September 2018	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	BROOKLINE
2 September 2017	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	QUINCY
7 August 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	QUINCY

Every fire recorded in Suffolk County

Specimens collected near this property

12 of 18,331 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 18,331 specimens collected within 10 miles of Arlington Street Church between 1810 and 1975: 8,320 Plantae, 4,447 Fungi, 3,757 Animalia, 1,254 Chromista, 229 Bacteria, 212 Protozoa, 112 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by (MARSDEN, H W), ?, A B Seymour and others. Each is a physical object with a catalogue number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be concluded from a species being absent.

Species	Year	Collected by	Where, as recorded
Lysimachia × producta (A.Gray) Fernald	1900	A. P. Chute
Thalictrum L.	1810	Boott, J.W.	Near Boston.
Anemone L.	1815	Boott, J.	Andover Turnpike, 7 miles from Boston.
Betula L.	1815	Boott, J.W.	Near Fresh Pond, Cambridge, 4 miles from Boston.
Chenopodium album L.	1815	not recorded	Gathered at Bunker (properly Breed's) Hill.
Corylus L.	1815	not recorded	Cambridge Port, 2 miles from Boston.
Ericaceae	1815	Boott	Boston, U.S.A.
Acanthis flammea flammea (Linnaeus, 1758)	1900	ZAPPEY, W R	ROSLINDALE
Acer carpinifolium Siebold & Zucc.	1900	A. K. Harrison	Harvard Botanic Garden, Cambridge.
Acer palmatum var. dissectum (Thunb.) Miq.	1900	A. K. Harrison	Harvard Botanic Garden, Cambridge.
Agaricus flavescens (Gillet) Sacc.	1900	G. E. Morris
Agarum turneri Postels & Ruprecht	1900	J. Murdoch	Revere

All 18,331 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this property

10 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 10 workings within 5 miles of Arlington Street Church: 8 plants, 2 past producers. 8 still produce. What was taken out: Iron, Lead, Gypsum-Anhydrite, Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
(Facility) Vulcan Smelter--Chelsea, Ma.	Copper, Lead	Plant
C. J. Mabardy	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Us Gypsum Co--Boston	Gypsum-Anhydrite	Past Producer
Whittemore Prdts Inc--Boston	Perlite	Plant
(Facility) Cambridge Smelter Co	Lead	Plant
General Metals & Smelting--Boston	Lead	Plant
Industrial Serv. Centers--Cambridge	Iron	Plant
Somerville Smelting Co.	Lead	Plant
Us Steel Supply Div--Boston	Iron	Plant
Wheelock-Lovejoy--Cambridge, Ma.	Iron	Plant

Every working recorded in Suffolk County

Storms near this property

60 of 64 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Boston, the town this property stands in, in 64 storm reports between 1994 and 2024: 37 thunderstorm wind, 9 flash flood, 7 lightning, 7 flood. The reports record 1 death and 9 injuries. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
August 2010	Lightning	South Boston	1 killed	A 50 year old man was struck by lightning while walking in an area known as the Sugar Bowl in South Boston. Lightning struck him in the head, passing through his back and exiting his feet. He collapsed in cardiac arrest and was revived and hospitalized for several days before dying from his injuries.
July 2012	Lightning	Boston	2 hurt	A 29 year old male and a 29 year old female were knocked unconscious when lightning struck them at Thomas Park, where the pair were watching the July 4th fireworks. They regained consciousness prior to the arrival of EMTs, but unable to feel their legs and were transported to Brigham and Women's Hospital.
August 2008	Lightning	Boston	2 hurt	Two people were hospitalized after lightning struck their boat. One of them, a woman, was believed to be directly struck by lightning.
June 1997	Lightning	Boston	2 hurt	Boston Harbor...
September 2023	Lightning	Boston	1 hurt	In Boston, a woman was struck by lightning at Malibu Beach in the Dorchester section of Boston and was listed in critical condition.
July 2004	Lightning	South Boston	1 hurt	no account filed
September 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Boston	1 hurt	no account filed
August 2001	Lightning	Boston	$1,500,000	no account filed
June 1998	Flash Flood	Boston	$570,000	Muddy River
July 2010	Flash Flood	Boston	$500,000	In Boston, two cars were stuck in flood waters on Corey Road. Storrow Drive was closed due to flooding at the Mass Avenue and Longmeadow Bridges. Several other roadways in the city experienced significant flooding.
June 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Boston	$100,000	Numerous trees and wires and several utility poles were downed throughout Boston, including in Boston Common. Several trees were downed onto cars throughout town, though no injuries resulted. One tree was downed onto a building on Corey Road. The Automated Surface Observing System at Logan International Airport in Boston, MA (KBOS) recorded sustained wind speeds of 47 mph and wind gusts up to 68 mph.
July 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Boston	$50,000	Multiple trees and wires were downed throughout Boston, including on Barstow Street, Forrester Street, Washington Street, Houston Road, and Keith Street. Trees were downed onto cars on Forrester and Washington Streets. A portion of a chimney was blown over onto Keith Street.
July 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	Boston	$50,000	The National Weather Service at Logan International Airport recorded a wind gust to 60 mph as a severe thunderstorm moved across the city of Boston. Scaffolding was blown down at government center and some large trees were blown down in Revere and Winthrop. One damaged a house in Winthrop and a tree limb and electrical wires fell onto an auto. The occupants of the auto were not injured.
June 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Boston	$30,000	Trees and wires on Call Street were downed by thunderstorm winds.
July 2005	Flash Flood	Boston	$30,000	no account filed
September 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Boston	$25,000	At 546 PM EST, an amateur radio operator reported two trees down on Belden Street in the Upham's Corner section of Boston. Also, two trees were down on Hamlet Street including one down on three cars. A tree was down on Willis Street. A tree was down on wires on Taft Street.
September 2017	Flood	Boston	$25,000	At 607 PM EST Columbia Road near Ceylon Street and Hamilton Street In Boston was flooded and impassable. Four cars were trapped in flood waters.
June 2019	Flood	East Boston	$20,000	At 3:26 PM EST, heavy rain caused the intersection of Lewis and Marginal Streets in East Boston to be flooded and impassable. At 3:36 PM EST a car was trapped in floodwaters at Clark and Stockton Streets in Chelsea. At 3:38 PM EST several cars were trapped in floodwaters on the McClellan Highway, Condor Street and Putnam Street in East Boston.
July 2018	Flash Flood	East Boston	$20,000	At 5:09 PM EST, the access road for Logan Airport at Terminal B Lower Level was flooded. Several cars were stalled in the flood waters.
July 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Boston	$20,000	A utility pole at the intersection of Washington and New Washington Streets in Boston was downed by thunderstorm winds.
June 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Boston	$20,000	Numerous trees were downed by thunderstorm winds.
July 2005	Flash Flood	Boston	$20,000	no account filed
May 2018	Flood	Boston	$15,000	At 5:05 PM EST several cars on Child Street and Boynton Street were trapped in flood waters as high as the car doors. At 5:10 PM EST a car was trapped in flooding on Columbia Road at Bodwell Street, and Ceylon Street was impassable at Quincy Street due to flooding.
June 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Boston	$15,000	Several trees were downed throughout Boston, including one on Parkdale Avenue in Brighton.
June 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Boston	$15,000	A tree and a utility pole on North Harvard Street were downed by thunderstorm winds.
May 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	South Boston	$10,000	In South Boston, a large tree was down on top of 3 parked cars on Columbia Road. No injuries were reported. Report relayed by amateur radio.
July 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Boston	$10,000	Power lines on Weld and Beech Streets were downed by thunderstorm winds.
July 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Boston	$10,000	A tree on Warner Street was downed onto a house by thunderstorm winds.
August 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Boston	$10,000	Trees on Park and Dartmouth Streets were downed by thunderstorm winds, blocking those streets.
October 2006	Flood	Boston	$8,000	Significant urban flooding was reported throughout the city of Boston.
July 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Boston	$8,000	no account filed
June 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Boston	$6,000	A tree was downed by thunderstorm winds onto a car at the intersection of Bakersfield and Stoughton Streets. Another tree was downed onto a car on Columbia Road.
February 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	South Boston	$5,000	Wires on West Fifth Street in South Boston were downed by thunderstorm winds.
July 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Boston	$5,000	A tree on Lagrange Street was downed by thunderstorm winds blocking the road.
September 2012	Thunderstorm Wind	Boston	$5,000	Wires on Charles Street were downed by thunderstorm winds.
August 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Boston	$5,000	Large branches and wires on Pond, Hereford, and Tremont Streets.
August 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	East Boston	$5,000	Trees and power lines on Quarter Street Place were downed by thunderstorm winds.
August 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Boston	$5,000	Trees and wires in Dorchester, Mattapan, Roxbury, and Boston were downed by thunderstorm winds.
June 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Boston	$5,000	Wires on Columbia Road and trees on Saywood Street were downed by thunderstorm winds.
June 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	South Boston	$5,000	no account filed
August 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Boston	$5,000	no account filed
May 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	East Boston	$3,000	In East Boston (street unspecified), a light pole was knocked down by thunderstorm winds.
July 2019	Flood	Boston	$2,000	Portions of Columbia Road were closed due to flooding.
July 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	Boston	$1,000	At 1:15 PM EST, a thunderstorm over Boston brought a tree down on Dorchester Avenue.
August 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	East Boston	$1,000	At 140 PM EST, a tree was uprooted on Harborside Drive in East Boston.
July 2019	Thunderstorm Wind	Boston	$500	A tree was downed on Adams Street.
June 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	South Boston	$500	Large limbs were downed by thunderstorm winds.
July 2019	Thunderstorm Wind	Boston	$300	In Boston, power lines were down from wind on Willis Street.
June 2024	Flash Flood	Boston	-	In Boston, an underpass was flooded at Columbia Rd and Ceylon St.
July 2023	Flash Flood	Boston	-	In Boston, on Columbia Rd at Hamilton St a car was stuck in flooding and the driver needed to be rescued.
June 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	South Boston	-	At 616 PM EDT, a mesonet site at Pleasure Bay recorded a gust to 58 mph.
June 2017	Hail	South Boston	-	At 435 PM EST, dime size hail fell in South Boston.
August 2017	Flood	East Boston	-	At 158 PM EST, the Ted Williams Tunnel near Logan Airport flooded, with two feet of water trapping a car in the flood waters.
February 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Boston	-	An amateur radio operator recorded a 69 mph wind gust on their home weather station in Boston. No damage was reported.
February 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	Boston	-	An amateur radio operator recorded a wind gust of 63 mph on their home weather station in Boston. No damage was reported.
June 2013	Flood	Boston	-	Three to four inches of rain fell across the Boston metro area. Sargent Street in Boston was flooded.
August 2011	Hail	Boston	-	Quarter size hail fell in the Back Bay section of Boston.
July 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Boston	-	Tree down on car.
July 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Boston	-	Multiple trees down.
July 2004	Hail	Boston	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Suffolk County

Newspapers printed here

0 digitised pages

8 papers published in this town, digitised by the Library of Congress and free to read: 0 issues, 0 pages. Every page is searchable, so a name or a street can be looked for directly in what the town printed about itself at the time.

Newspaper	Published
The Boston Courant	1890 to 19??
The Boston Advance	1896 to 1907
The New-England Chronicle	1776 to 1776
The Massachusetts Spy	1770 to 1772
The Massachusetts Spy, Or, Thomas's Boston Journal	1772 to 1775
The Boston Gazette, Or, Country Journal	1755 to 1793
The Liberator	1831 to 1865
The Guardian	1901 to 1960

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

From the nomination file

11,084 words on record

When this property was proposed for the National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is, and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain. It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s typewriter's.

Description of the property

L Unexposed (Check One) Original Site p.I. For description of legal boundaries see Continuation page 33 The Back Bay is presently a densely built up area of fashionable apartments, office and business facilitles, schools and other institutions. Most of its original structures survive; and despite many variations in architectural style, they are dis- tinguished by a general consistency of character, form, and scale. Enclosed within well-defined bounds, the Back Bay com- prises, in effect, an easily discernable encive of superior nineteenth century architecture in the city proper. Since 1966 the residential portion of the Back Bay has been a legally es- tablished architectural conservation district under the juris- diction of the Back Bay Architectural Commission.
The streets of the Back Bay are arranged in a regular grid of rectangular blocks oriented longitudinally along five main axis avenues and intersected at equal intervals by less important transverse streets. The core of this system 1s Commonwealth Avenue. Laid out as a grand boulevard along the central axis grid, it includes a wide, elm-shaded, pedestrian mall within its 240 foot width and 1 1/8 mile length from the Public Garden to Charlesgate East. The other principle axis streets are Beacon, Marlborough, Newbury, and Boylston. The cross streets, named for English nobility and occuring in successive alphabetical order are: Arlington, Berkeley, Clarendon, Dart- mouth, Exeter, Fairfieldy Gloucester, Hereford, Iollowed by Massachusetts Avenue and Charlesgate East.
At Boylston Street, between Clarendon and Dartmouth Streets, the original grid was intersected by the diagonal swath of - Huntington Avenue.

Read the complete 11,084-word case file.

Statement of significance

-p.l . The Back Bay attains great historical importance in three areas: 1. as an example of ambitious and progressive city planning in the nineteenth century; 2. as a superb retrospective view of American architecture in the last half of the nineteenth century; 3. as a tangible reflection of the age when Boston was the cultural fountainhead of America. Cultural The Back Bay is the consummate physical manifestation of Boston in her intellectual and economic maturation.
"In a word, it was in the Back Bay that Boston first established herself as one of the centers of world culture in the arts and sciences."1 The original Museum of Fine Arts, the Boston Public Library, the Museum of Natural History, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and many of the city's famed clubs and private institutions settled here. Writers and philosophers- Oliver Wendel1 Holmes, William Dean Howells, George Santayana, Henry and William James, and many more of international renown--liveds ändahe worked in the Back Bay; and artists like John Singer Sargent, William Morris Hunt, and Henry Hobson Richardson are inseparably associated. with it. Finally, the Back Bay was home for the rich and elite of the city.
"old Order" families and those but recently "arrived" made the Back Bay the center of city fashion and shared in their patronage of the artists and architects who created it. "The abode ... of legendary brahmins and ambitious Silas Laphams, the Back Bay has a thousand associations with American thought and action of the later nineteenth century.

Read the complete 11,084-word case file.

The whole case file for this property - 11,084 words, 45 pages, reproduced complete.

Quoted from the National Register nomination for reference 73001948, 45 pages, held by the National Archives in Record Group 79. See the catalogue record.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Paine Furniture Building	under 500 feet	2002
Armory of the First Corps of Cadets	0.2 miles	1973
Trinity Rectory	0.2 miles	1972
YWCA Boston	0.2 miles	2004
First Baptist Church	0.3 miles	1972
Youth's Companion Building	0.3 miles	1974

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 73001948 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Suffolk County	All 206 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.