Old Corner Bookstore Building
The Old Corner Bookstore Building is a historic structure situated at the corner of Washington Street and School Street in Boston, Massachusetts. Built in 1718, it stands as one of the oldest surviving commercial buildings in the city and has served a remarkable succession of purposes over the course of three centuries, ranging from a private apothecary shop and residence to a celebrated literary hub, and later to a pizza parlor and fast-food outlet. Its longevity and shifting uses reflect the broader commercial and cultural evolution of Downtown Boston, and the building has periodically attracted preservation efforts aimed at restoring its standing as a civic landmark.
Construction and Early History
The current structure was built in 1718 by Thomas Crease, who used the building to house his apothecary shop on the ground floor and a private residence in the upper story.[1] This mixed-use arrangement — retail commerce at street level combined with domestic living quarters above — was a common configuration in colonial New England and speaks to the practical demands placed on urban property in early eighteenth-century Boston.
The site itself carries significance that predates the existing building. The corner of Washington and School Streets occupied a prominent position within colonial Boston, situated near important civic and religious institutions that shaped the character of the neighborhood. The 1718 structure replaced earlier buildings on the lot, and its brick construction helped it survive fires and redevelopment that claimed many of its neighbors in the centuries that followed.
Over the decades following its construction, the building changed hands and functions multiple times. The ground floor has hosted a private home, a drugstore, a bookstore, a jewelry concern, and various other commercial enterprises across its long history.[2] This adaptability — the willingness of successive owners and tenants to repurpose the structure rather than demolish it — is a central reason the building survived into the modern era at all.
The Bookstore Era
The building is now most closely associated with its period of use as a bookstore, the identity that gave it the name by which it is commonly known today. During this chapter of its history, the structure became a gathering place for writers and literary figures connected to the flourishing of American letters in the nineteenth century. Boston and its surrounding region were then central to the intellectual life of the United States, and the bookstore at this corner served as a node within that culture.
The association between the building and the literary world was strong enough that long after the bookstore itself had closed, the name endured. Subsequent tenants operating in entirely different commercial fields found themselves housed in a building that the public continued to call the Old Corner Bookstore building, a testament to the depth of the impression that era left on the city's collective memory.
Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Uses
By the latter decades of the nineteenth century, the building had transitioned away from its literary associations. Photographic records from the period between approximately 1885 and 1890 show the building occupied by the Baltimore Dairy Lunch and other businesses, reflecting a shift toward food service and everyday commerce.[3] This transition illustrates how thoroughfares like Washington Street evolved during the Gilded Age, as retail and dining establishments catering to a broad working public replaced the more specialized cultural institutions of an earlier generation.
The building continued to change tenants through the early twentieth century, adapting to the commercial rhythms of the city around it. Its position on a major downtown street ensured a steady flow of potential customers for whatever business occupied it at any given time, and the structure remained economically viable even as its surroundings transformed.
Mid-Twentieth Century Decline
By the mid-twentieth century, the building had fallen into a notably diminished state relative to its historical significance. Photographs from the 1950s and 1960s show the structure occupied by a pizza shop, hemmed in by other undistinguished commercial buildings that had accumulated around it over the years.[4] The visual contrast between the eighteenth-century brick building and the commercial clutter surrounding it underscored the degree to which postwar urban development had eroded the architectural context that once gave the structure its setting.
This period coincided with broader pressures on historic downtown properties across American cities. Suburban expansion, urban renewal programs, and changing retail patterns drew commerce and residents away from city centers, leaving older buildings vulnerable to neglect or outright demolition. The Old Corner Bookstore Building was not immune to these forces.
Preservation Efforts
By the early 1960s, the building's future had become a matter of public concern. Reporting from that period indicates that the structure was at risk of an undesirable fate, and that preservation advocates were working to secure its rescue.[5] The effort to save the building reflected a growing national awareness of the need to protect historic structures from destruction, awareness that would eventually find legislative expression in preservation statutes at both the state and federal level.
The campaign to preserve the Old Corner Bookstore Building drew on its historical associations and its architectural value as a rare surviving example of early eighteenth-century Boston commercial construction. Advocates argued that losing the structure would mean losing an irreplaceable physical connection to the city's deep past, a past that included the colonial period, the age of American literary achievement, and the commercial life of the nineteenth century all within a single set of walls.
The success of these efforts meant that the building was retained, though debates about its appropriate use and condition continued well past the moment of its initial rescue from demolition.
Condition and Ongoing Concerns
Even after the building was spared from demolition, concerns about its use and upkeep persisted into subsequent decades. Observers noted with frustration that a landmark of such historical resonance had been reduced to housing fast-food operations, a condition that many felt was unworthy of the structure's significance.[6] The gap between the building's storied past and its commercial present became a recurring theme in local commentary on Boston historic preservation.
In 2018, discussions emerged about the possibility of converting the Old Corner Bookstore Building into a museum, a proposal that would have substantially changed its relationship to the public and its role within the downtown streetscape. Such proposals reflected a desire to realign the building's use with its historical identity, returning it to a function that acknowledged rather than ignored its significance.[7] Whether or not such a conversion is ultimately realized, the conversation itself signals the enduring hold the building maintains on Boston's civic imagination.
Architecture
The Old Corner Bookstore Building's architectural character derives from its construction date and method. Built in 1718, the structure predates the various stylistic movements that would reshape Boston's built environment in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and its form reflects the practical conventions of early colonial urban building in New England.[8]
Its brick construction has contributed to its survival over more than three centuries, as masonry buildings proved far more durable than their wooden counterparts in a city that suffered repeated fires. The building's corner placement, at the intersection of Washington and School Streets, gives it a degree of visibility within the streetscape that has helped keep it in public view and public consciousness even during periods when its use was prosaic.
The structure has been modified and altered over the centuries, as would be expected for any building that has served so many different functions across so long a span of time. The alterations to windows, storefronts, and interior configurations have accumulated as successive tenants adapted the space to their needs. Despite these changes, the essential eighteenth-century character of the building remains legible, and it continues to read as distinctly older than the commercial environment around it.
Location and Access
The Old Corner Bookstore Building stands at the corner of Washington Street and School Street in Downtown Boston, within walking distance of other significant historic sites including King's Chapel, Old South Meeting House, and the broader Freedom Trail corridor. Its position along Washington Street, historically a major commercial artery, places it within easy reach of public transit and pedestrian traffic.
The building is accessible as an exterior landmark for those walking the Freedom Trail or exploring the historic core of downtown Boston. Its ground floor has housed retail and food service tenants in recent decades, though the character of these tenants has varied and public access to the interior depends on whatever commercial operation is in residence at a given time.
Historical Significance
The Old Corner Bookstore Building represents a continuous thread connecting Boston's colonial origins to the present day. Built in 1718 and surviving through fires, urban renewal, commercial change, and shifting tastes in historic preservation, it offers a physical record of three centuries of the city's development. Its various lives — as an apothecary, a private home, a celebrated literary bookshop, a dairy lunch counter, a pizza shop, and a fast-food location — trace the arc of Boston's commercial and cultural history with unusual specificity.
The building's name, derived from only one phase of its long history, speaks to the power of a particular era to define a structure's legacy in the public mind. Long after the bookstore closed, the name stuck, and with it came a set of associations and expectations that subsequent tenants and owners have had to navigate. That dynamic — between a building's current use and its historical identity — continues to animate discussions about the structure's future role in the city.
The fact that the building still stands, after more than three centuries, is itself a form of significance. Boston has lost many structures of comparable age to fire, development pressure, and neglect. That this particular building survived, through a combination of construction quality, preservation advocacy, and something approaching civic affection, marks it as an enduring presence in the landscape of Downtown Boston.