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Boston Custom House

1674 establishments in MassachusettsAmmi B. Young buildingsCustom houses in the United StatesCustom houses on the National Register of Historic PlacesGovernment buildings completed in 1674
Government buildings completed in 1810Government buildings completed in 1849Government buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in MassachusettsLandmarks in Financial District, BostonNational Register of Historic Places in BostonRotundas (architecture)
CustomHouseStreet Boston
CustomHouseStreet Boston

The Custom House in Boston, Massachusetts, was established in the 17th century and stood near the waterfront in several successive locations through the years. In 1849 the U.S. federal government constructed a neoclassical building on State Street; it remains the "Custom House" known to Bostonians today. A tower was added in 1915; the building joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and was designated a Boston Landmark by the Boston Landmarks Commission in 1986.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Boston Custom House (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Boston Custom House
McKinley Square, Boston Downtown Boston

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N 42.3591 ° E -71.0535 °
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Custom House Tower (Marriott's Custom House Hotel)

McKinley Square 3
02109 Boston, Downtown Boston
Massachusetts, United States
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CustomHouseStreet Boston
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Aquarium station (MBTA)
Aquarium station (MBTA)

Aquarium station is an underground rapid transit station on the MBTA Blue Line in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is located under State Street at Atlantic Avenue on the eastern edge of Boston's Financial District near Boston Harbor. The station is named for the nearby New England Aquarium. It is adjacent to Long Wharf, which is used by two MBTA Boat lines. The station has two side platforms serving the two tracks of the Blue Line; an arched ceiling runs the length of the platform level. With the platforms 50 feet (15 m) below street level, it is the second-deepest station on the MBTA system (after Porter station). The Boston Elevated Railway (BERy) opened the Atlantic Avenue Elevated on August 22, 1901, with a station at State Street. The BERy opened the East Boston Tunnel under State Street and Long Wharf for streetcars on December 30, 1904. Construction of the intermediate station at Atlantic Avenue under the Elevated was delayed; it opened on April 5, 1906. Unlike other early stations in Boston, which were built with cut-and-cover tunneling, most of Atlantic Avenue station was built as a large barrel vault. The access shaft at the east end of the station was topped with a three-story headhouse, which included a footbridge to the elevated station. Four unusual angled elevators connected the headhouse to the platforms. In 1924, the Boston Transit Department implemented a long-planned project to convert the tunnel from streetcars to high-floor metro trains, with high platforms added at the station. The Atlantic Avenue Elevated closed in 1938, while the subway station remained open. In 1948, the city began replacing the old headhouse and elevators with a smaller structure and escalators. On January 28, 1949, a welder ignited a grease fire that exploded down an elevator shaft, killing three people and burning numerous others. The station was closed until the completion of the renovations in January 1950. The station was renamed Aquarium in 1967 as part of rebranding by the 1964-formed Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA). The MBTA began construction on a major renovation of the station in 1996. The platforms were lengthened for six-car trains, new entrances were added west of Atlantic Avenue, and the station was made fully accessible. The station was closed from October 14, 2000 to October 29, 2001; major construction was completed in 2003. Since the renovation, the station has had water leakage issues; it also occasionally floods during high tides and storm surges. The proposed North-South Rail Link includes a possible Central Station for MBTA Commuter Rail trains located under Aquarium station.

Flour and Grain Exchange Building
Flour and Grain Exchange Building

The Flour and Grain Exchange Building is a 19th-century office building in Boston. Located at 177 Milk Street in the Custom House District, at the edge of the Financial District near the waterfront, it is distinguished by the large black slate conical roof at its western end. It is referred to as the Grain Exchange Building and sometimes as the Boston Chamber of Commerce Building. The exchange building was designated as a Boston Landmark by the Boston Landmarks Commission in 1994. The Flour and Grain Exchange Building was built from 1891 to 1893 for its original occupant, the Boston Chamber of Commerce on land donated for that purpose by Henry Melville Whitney. It was designed by the firm of Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge (now Shepley Bulfinch), founded by the successors of Henry Hobson Richardson, and in the Romanesque Revival style often associated with Richardson. The building exterior is of pink Milford granite.The Flour and Grain Exchange Building is seven stories tall, with two additional stories in a cylindrical turret at the west end. The ornate facade features three-storey roundheaded windows at the middle floors. Triangular attic dormers topped by crocket finials at the turret give a crown-like aspect to the conical roof.The Boston Chamber of Commerce was created by the merger of two bodies, the Boston Commercial Exchange and the Boston Produce Exchange, in 1885. Whitney, an industrialist and Chamber member, donated land for a building for the new body. Construction by the Norcross Brothers firm began in 1890 and the building was dedicated in January 1892. The Chamber occupied part of the building (the remainder was let to banks and other concerns) until 1902, when it was occupied by the Flour and Grain Exchange. A plaque in the building commemorates its hosting of the 5th International Congress of Chambers of Commerce and of Commercial and Industrial Associations in 1912, attended by American President William Howard Taft and delegates from fifty-five countries.A restoration of the Flour and Grain Exchange Building facade was undertaken in 1988 by The Beal Companies. The building is a designated Boston landmark. Christopher Kimball's Milk Street moved into the building's ground floor in 2016. Other organizations which have occupied the building in the 21st century include Perry Dean Rogers Architects, Global Rescue, and the Beal Companies.

Custom House District
Custom House District

Custom House District is a historic district in Boston, Massachusetts, located between the Fitzgerald Expressway (now Purchase St. / the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway) and Kilby Street and South Market and High and Batterymarch Streets. Named after the 1849 Boston Custom House located on State Street, the historic district contains about seventy buildings on nearly sixteen acres in Downtown Boston, consisting of 19th-century mercantile buildings along with many early 20th-century skyscrapers, including the 1915 Custom House Tower.The area is an early example of urban planning, in which the Broad Street Associates hired architect Charles Bulfinch in 1805 to plan the commercial development of the area south of Long Wharf and State Street, which connected the wharf to the city center. The district includes a few Federal period buildings that were built to the standards specified by Bulfinch, but is architecturally diverse, reflecting more than century of economic development. Visually prominent 19th-century buildings include a collection of warehouses built out granite, which marked a departure from the more usual brick construction of the period. The State Street Block, built 1858 to a design by Gridley James Fox Bryant, is another example.The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. When first listed, its historically significant buildings were limited to those of the 19th century. An amendment to the listing in 1996 extended the period of significance to 1928, changing a number of architecturally significant early skyscrapers from non-contributing to contributing properties.

Armenian Heritage Park
Armenian Heritage Park

Armenian Heritage Park is a memorial park dedicated to the victims of the Armenian genocide located on Parcel 13 on the Rose Kennedy Greenway between Faneuil Hall Marketplace and Christopher Columbus Park in Boston, Massachusetts.The Park includes an abstract sculpture, split dodecahedron, that sits on a reflecting pool.The abstract sculpture has 24–26 different configurations, which symbolize the dispersion and coming together of immigrants from different shores. The abstract sculpture is dedicated to lives lost during the Armenian genocide of 1915–1923 and all genocides that have followed.The other part of it is a grass labyrinth that not only pays tribute to the contribution to the United States, but also represents the journey of life.The Armenian Heritage Foundation, composed of dozens of Armenian-American religious, cultural, and other organizations from around Massachusetts, raised from $5 million to $6 million for the park. The groundbreaking ceremony on September 9, 2010, was attended by Governor Deval Patrick, Karekin II, Catholicos of All Armenians, Registrar of Motor Vehicles Rachel Kaprielian, Sheriff of Middlesex County Peter Koutoujian, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and many Armenian-American citizens and City and Commonwealth officials. Governor Patrick said that the park will be a "beautiful addition to the Greenway as well as a testament to the heritage of Armenian-Americans and Massachusetts' larger immigrant history". Mayor Menino also noted that the park "celebrates the distinctive history of the City of Boston and the generations of immigrants who have made Boston the wonderfully diverse community it is today".Construction of the park was expected to be completed within 12 months, but actually lasted over a year and the park was opened on May 22, 2012. Armenian Minister of Foreign Affairs Eduard Nalbandyan and Governor Deval Patrick joined hundreds of attendees from the Armenian community at the dedication of the park.In "On the Greenway, public arts that feels alive", Joanna Weiss, columnist for The Boston Globe, Opinion, April 11, 2015, wrote, "The Abstract Sculpture at Armenian Heritage Park "might well be the gem of the Greenway so far; an example of public art that is both permanent and alive"