Old Corner Bookstore

How to Get There

From Downtown Boston (0.3 mi): Walk toward Washington Street and School Street in Downtown Crossing, and the Old Corner Bookstore is located at the corner of Washington and School Streets along the Freedom Trail.

Overview

The Old Corner Bookstore is a historic commercial building located at Washington Street at the corner of School Street in the historic core of Boston, Massachusetts. It was built in 1718 as a residence and apothecary shop, and first became a bookstore in 1828. The building is a designated site on Boston's Freedom Trail, Literary Trail, and Women's Heritage Trail.

The Old Corner Bookstore was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

History

The site, situated on what was then part of Cornhill, was formerly the home of Anne Hutchinson, who was expelled from Massachusetts in 1638 for heresy. Thomas Crease purchased the home in 1708, though it burned down in the Great Boston Fire on October 2, 1711. Crease constructed a new building on the site in 1718 as a residence and apothecary shop. For generations, various pharmacists used the site for the same purpose: the first floor was for commercial use and the upper floors were residential. In 1817, Dr. Samuel Clarke, father of future minister James Freeman Clarke, bought the building.

The building's first use as a bookstore dates to 1828, when Timothy Harrington Carter leased the space, from a man named George Brimmer. Carter spent $7,000 renovating the building's commercial space, including the addition of projecting, small-paned windows on the ground floor.

Corner Bookstore building, 19th century

From 1832 to 1865, it was home to Ticknor and Fields, a publishing company founded by William Ticknor, later renamed when he partnered with James T. Fields. For part of the 19th century, the firm was one of the most important publishing companies in the United States, and the Old Corner Bookstore became a meeting-place for such authors as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Dickens, and Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. Ticknor and Fields rented out the whole building, using only the corner for a retail space. Other sections of the building, particularly upstairs rooms and storefronts facing School Street, were in turn sublet to other businesses. After the death of Ticknor, Fields wanted to focus on publishing rather than the retail store. On November 12, 1864, he sold the Old Corner Bookstore to E. P. Dutton; Ticknor and Fields moved to Tremont Street. A succession of other publishing houses and booksellers followed Ticknor and Fields in the building.

Preservation

The building was threatened with demolition and replacement by a parking garage in 1960 and was "rescued" through a purchase by Historic Boston, Inc.. Historic Boston is a not-for-profit preservation and real estate organization that rehabilitates historic and culturally significant properties in Boston's neighborhoods so that they are a usable part of the city's present and future. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a Boston Landmark under the auspices of the Boston Landmarks Commission.

Recent

In recent times, the Old Corner Bookstore's retail space was the original location of the Globe Corner Bookstore (a division of the Old Corner Bookstore, Inc.), which operated there for 16 years from 1982 to 1997 and specialized in travel books and maps. A Boston Globe company store operated in the building from 1998 through 2002, selling Boston Globe products and tourist memorabilia. The space now houses a Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurant.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Old Corner Bookstore", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0