Read more news at
INSIDE HISTORIC BOSTON INC.
News
In Memoriam: Pauline “Polly” Harrell
A member of HBI’s Board from 1979 until 2005, Polly Chase-Harrell more recently served actively on HBI’s Programs and Projects Committee.
Pauline “polly” chase-Harrell, a resident of Boston and Arrowhead Farm, Newburyport, was a prominent Boston architectural historian and president and owner of Boston Affiliates, a historic preservation consulting firm that she co-founded in 1980. For many years, she was an active member of Historic Boston’s board and, more recently, a member of HBI’s Council of Advisors.
Chase-Harrell worked tirelessly toward the designation of her home town of Newburyport as a National Historic Landmark district. In Boston, she served on the Boston Landmarks Commission, and on the boards of the Boston Athenaeum, Victorian Society of America, the Boston Preservation Alliance and multiple historical societies.
As President of Boston Affiliates, she undertook large-scale historic resource surveys, impact evaluations and mitigation for compliance review on the Central Artery, Boston Harbor cleanup and other public civil engineering projects, and assisted institutional and corporate clients withpreservation and restoration advice and compliance. She has also taught courses at Tufts, Northeastern and Boston Universities, and UMass, Boston.
Chase-Harrell chaired the Boston Landmarks Commission from its inception in 1976 through 1988, and continued to serve on the commission and chaired the South End Landmark District Commission until 1991. In 1983, she was a founding board member of the National Alliance of Preservation Commissions.
In addition to her consulting work, Chase-Harrell was an author of books including Historic Maritime Resources: Planning for Preservation with Marcia Myers, Preserving New England with Jane Holtz Kay,and Arrowhead Farm: Three Hundred Years of New England Husbandry and Cooking, which won an American Association of State and Local History commendation.