• Abandoned by city as primary sewage system in 1960s
• Fanciful, castle-like structure stands alone as a familiar landmark on U Mass campus near JFK Library
• City may transfer property to U Mass in exchange for scholarships for Boston students
Historic Boston Incorporated 1999 Preservation Revolving Fund Casebook : Property
Entries Online
next / previous / back to contents / HBI homepage / feedback
Click here for Summer 2002 Update
| Calf Pasture Pumping Station | Dorchester |
| • Central pumping station
for Boston's innovative late-19th century sewage system • Abandoned by city as primary sewage system in 1960s • Fanciful, castle-like structure stands alone as a familiar landmark on U Mass campus near JFK Library • City may transfer property to U Mass in exchange for scholarships for Boston students |
|
| Name: Calf Pasture Pumping Station | Bldg SqFt: 20,675 | Lot SqFt: 420,582 | |
| Address: 435 Mount Vernon Street | Ward: 13 | Parcel: 3413 | |
| Neighborhood: Dorchester | Zoning: Industrial-Columbia Point Special Study Area (I-2-65) | ||
| Year Built: 1883 | Use: Used by owner for storage | ||
| Style: Richardsonian Romanesque | Condition: Fair | ||
| Architect(s): George Clough | Owner: City of Boston, Water and Sewer Commission |
||
| Historic Certification: National Register listed | |||
| FY99 Building Assessment: $591,000 FY02 Building Assessment: $571,600 |
FY99 Tax: N/A FY02 Tax: N/A |
||
| FY99 Land Assessment: $1,005,000 FY02 Land Assessment: $1,257,500 |
Tax Status: Exempt | ||
Preservation Strategy:
While the state legislature might agree to underwrite the whole cost of rehabbing this building for some public purpose, the absence of existing funding suggests that some sort of partnership with a private development entity might be in the best interest of the University of Massachusetts, which, by proximity, appears to be the most logical, public user. The Pumping Station is a good candidate for a charrette to energize a disposition process, seek new ideas, and pave the way for a request for proposals seeking to attract public and private investments here. The worst and most costly mistake would be to do nothing for the next decade and then face costly alternatives to dealing with deferred maintenance.
Significance:
The Boston Improved Sewage Commission built the castle-like Calf Pasture Pumping Station at Harbor Point (now Columbia Point) in 1882 as the headworks of the city’s first comprehensive sewage system. At the time, open cesspools were common in Boston’s immigrant neighborhoods and water-born diseases like typhoid fever and cholera still posed a serious threat to life. The new system connected all of Boston’s sewage pipes to a central drainage point at the remote Calf Pasture Station, where giant pumps transferred raw sewage through a tunnel under Dorchester Bay to storage tanks on Moon Island, which held the sewage for discharge into the ocean with the retreating tide. An access way in a small brick structure at water’s edge, east of the pumping station, enabled workers to descend into the tunnel under the bay for maintenance. Calf Pasture Station handled all of Boston’s sewage until the city built a new treatment plant on Deer Island in Boston Harbor in 1968.
Preservation Challenges:
The Boston Water and Sewer Commission (City of Boston) uses the site around the building to dump trash collected in the city's storm drain system and to store hardware such as hydrants and manhole covers. Long term discussions between the City and the University of Massachusetts focus upon conveying the Pumping Station to U Mass in exchange for (among other considerations?) at least 40 full U Mass scholarships for Boston residents. The University reportedly has plans to use the pumping station to house its growing marine environmental program.
The lack of a plan to finance the redevelopment of this pivotal building should concern the preservation community. For a building with such a strong visual impact, are marine environmental programs an ultimate goal or an interim holding use? As with the Chestnut Hill Waterworks, should not other uses be considered which would draw far more people?
Neighborhood Context:
The once isolated site of the Calf Pasture Pump Station on Columbia Point is now one of the city's busiest locales. Columbia Point is home to the Boston campus of the University of Massachusetts, the JFK Library, and the Massachusetts Archives. Nearby are the Bayside Expo Center, Boston College High School, and the Harborside housing development.
Other Sources of Information:
National Register nomination form
Boston Globe article by Charles A. Radin, p. A1, A8, 3/13/1999
Entry Completed: 06/28/1999
On July 29th Acting Governor Jane Swift approved a budget amendment that effectively blocked the long-planned rehabilitation of the Pumping Station by prohibiting a land transfer between the University of Massachusetts Boston and the Boston Water and Sewer Commission, which had been approved by the legislature in 1997. In exchange for the Pumping Station property, UMass Boston was to provide $1 million in scholarships to Boston students. The University's Urban Harbors Institute then planned to rehabilitate the Pumping Station to house research and conference facilities. Local opposition to the BWSC's plan to relocate its material handling facility from the Pumping Station property to a new building near Boston College High School's athletic fields, however, received support from several elected officials, who added the amendment to the state budget. Now the future of the Pumping Station is again uncertain.Update Entry Completed: 08/09/2002
next / previous / back to contents / HBI homepage / feedback