Audio
IMAGE AND TEXT: Old Corner Bookstore
Transcript
IMAGE and TEXT: Old Corner Bookstore
DESCRIPTION: The Old Corner Bookstore is situated on the corners of School and Washington Streets. The photograph shows the red brick building from an angle so that you see two sides of it. The building has a unique roof type in Boston as it is one of the oldest buildings in the city. The roof is a gambrel roof, which means it has a symmetrical roof with two slopes on each side. The School Street side is shown in full and shows the four stories that make up the building. On the first floor of the building, there are two bay windows that extend out over the sidewalk. There are twenty four panes of glass and the framing is yellow wood. On the edges of the first floor are a set of double doors leading into the structure. There is also a historic plaque made of dark metal on the first floor on the corner of the School Street and Washington Street sides.
In between the first and second floors is a wooden sign that is centered on the building. The sign says “The Boston Globe Store” which no longer occupies the store. On the second floor are five windows spaced evenly along the floor. Each window has twenty four window panes that are edged in yellow wood. On the corner of each side of the building, there are lighter red bricks extending slightly out of the wall to give it a textured look going up one story to the bottom of the roof edge.
In between the second and third floor is a double horizontal line of red bricks that are slightly extended out of the building face. It extends across the top of the five windows of the second floor. The third floor has only three windows spaced, each with twenty four panes of glass edged in yellow wood, evenly across it due to the roof slope. In between the third and four floor is a double horizontal line of red bricks that are slightly extended out of the building face. It extends across the top of the three windows of the third floor. Located at the top center of the fourth floor is one window with twenty four window panes edged in yellow wood.
The Washington Street side of the building is shown in shadow. There are only three floors on this side. There is a historic sign on the corner of Washington Street and School Street made of dark metal. There are two bay windows with twenty four panes of yellow wood. They extend out over the sidewalk of Washington Street. There is a space between the two windows where the door is, but is covered by shadow in the photo. Above the windows and door on the first floor is a wood sign, but you cannot read the text.
The second floor has three windows spaced evenly across it with twenty four panes of glass and edged in yellow wood. The roof line is just above these windows. The roof is made of grey shingles with white wood edging it. There are two dormer windows that extend out of the roof. They are made of white wood on the extension with grey shingles. The building is surrounded by many red brick buildings and red brick sidewalk. There are people walking on School Street. Today, the Old Corner Bookstore is no longer an active bookstore. As of 2019, it is a Chipotle Mexican Grill.
CREDIT: NPS/James Higgins
RELATED TEXT: Typical of the kinds of dwellings and shops that lined the streets of colonial Boston, this gambrel-roof building was saved from destruction in the nineteen sixties and restored by Historic Boston in 1970. Built as an apothecary for druggist Thomas Crease in 1718, it became a literary center in the mid-1800s. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and others brought their manuscripts here to be published by Ticknor and Fields Company.
Description
Audio description of text and relevant image of the Old Corner Bookstore.
Duration
3 minutes, 49 seconds
Credit
UniDescription/Gould and Pollock
Copyright and Usage Info