The Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association and Mechanics Hall
by Anthony Sammarco
The Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association was founded in 1795 and was "formed for the sole purposes of promoting the mechanic arts and extending the practice of benevolence." Paul Revere served as the first president, and the association was so well received that it was incorporated in 1806. Its founding members had met initially to address the problem of runaway apprentices, but ultimately established the MCMA as an organization committed to "promote the mechanical arts and provide funds for members’ widows and families." Simple enough, but Mass Charitable has been, and continues to be in the 21st century, an important part of the history and development of Boston since 1795.
Some of the early members are known to have earlier participated in the activities of the Sons of Liberty, and in the building of the USS Constitution, built in the shipyard of member Edmund Hartt. In the early 19th century, members of the association were also involved in the construction of the Bunker Hill Monument. Architect and superintendent Solomon Willard was a member, as was engineer and master builder Gridley Bryant, whose further involvement included designing and building the country's first commercial railroad known as the Granite Railway to transport the granite from a Quincy quarry to the Neponset River for shipment to Charlestown, Massachusetts.
The Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association (MCMA) has long been actively involved in the promotion of the mechanical arts and trades. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, these efforts took the form of an Apprentice Library, a Trade School and Mechanical Exhibitions. Originally meeting at the Green Dragon Tavern, then at various other locations including Quincy Market for exhibitions by the 1860s the headquarters was built at the corner of Bedford and Chauncey Streets. After the Great Boston Fire of 1872 a temporary wood frame building was built at Columbus Avenue and Pleasant Street (later a part of Broadway) in the South End. Here the association held meetings as well as their well-attended exhibitions of mechanical innovations and related curiosities.
A new Mechanics Hall was designed by William Gibbons Preston (1842-1910) and built in 1881 on Huntington Avenue in the newly filled Back Bay. Preston was a noted architect in Boston having been educated at Harvard University and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He began his professional career working for his father, the noted builder and architect Jonathan Preston (1801–1888) … both William and Jonathan Preston were members of MCMA. In the last quarter of the 19th century, William Preston designed many prominent buildings in Boston, among them the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Rogers Building in 1864, located on Boylston Street near Boston's Copley Square, which housed the school's architecture department, the first in the United States. The Rogers building featured a grand Corinthian portico and was modeled on Apsley House in London, the Duke of Wellington's townhouse. Adjacent to Rogers Hall was the Natural History Museum, which was completed in 1865. These two buildings complemented one another architecturally and were impressive additions to the newly created Back Bay of Boston. With such an impressive career Preston’s designs for the Hotel Vendome on Commonwealth avenue in 1871, the World's Peace Jubilee Coliseum in 1872, and the Hotel Aubrey on Newbury Street in 1883, led to him being chosen by the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association to design their new headquarters on Huntington Avenue.
Preston used the triangular lot between Huntington Avenue to the south, the Boston & Albany rail yard to the north, and West Newton Street to the west to create an impressive red brick and brownstone building that had a turreted tower on the east side of the building with a porte cochère that was a city block in length. The building had an enormous auditorium known as the “Grand Hall,” that was the largest meeting space in Boston at the time. It proved a popular venue and was conveniently located as in 1883 the Foreign Exhibition Association held a large exhibit of "foreign arts, manufactures and products," in 1883 the Olympian Club held a "floral display and costume carnival" that included indoor roller skating, and in 1889 the International Maritime Exhibition, in 1890 the New England Kennel Club bench show, and in 1908 the Hippodrome Circus were held here. Interestingly, the Great Hall was briefly the home court of the Boston Whirlwinds of the American Basketball League.
The Grand Hall was impressive, and could accommodate 4,000 seats, but the building had numerous exhibition spaces, offices and a library that had books related to the trades that made it one of the most important in the United States. Throughout the next few decades, the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association continued to have exhibitions, but the Grand Hall was used less and less and was often rented as a convention, meeting hall, and school graduation venue as well as for opera and indoor sporting events. By the 20th century there were wrestling matches, dog shows, auto shows, flower shows and track meets as well as the popular B’nai B’rith Circus that brought thousands of children to Mechanics Hall and share in the excitement of clowns, elephants and lion tamers. Probably one of the most memorable was the Sportsman Show which often featured Ted Williams putting on a fly casting exhibition, and the popular lumberjacks who put on a log rolling contest in a temporary pool in the hall.
Following World War II, the area just west of Copley Square was declining in popularity and the area of Mechanics Hall and the extensive Boston and Albany Railroad Yards were viewed for the urban renewal that was sweeping the city. The area was proposed by the Boston Redevelopment Authority to be developed for the new Prudential Tower complex, a modern skyscraper with shops on the ground floor, and Mechanics Hall was sold in 1958. Mechanics Hall was razed and the Prudential Center was built in the 1960s. Today 111 Huntington Avenue, a modern skyscraper designed by CBT Architects and commonly referred to as the R2-D2 Building, occupies a portion of the triangular lot.
Today, the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association is headquartered in Quincy and still upholds the traditions of the founding members. Its motto “Be Just and Fear Not” is appropriate in that its purpose in the promotion of the mechanical arts and trades still holds true to this day.
Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers’ track The Fenway from the 1985 album Rockin’ And Romance
“Now I was born by the Fenway, in Beth Israel Hospital.
Could that help to explain why I love the Fenway so well.
Nowhere do I feel more at home, it seems,
Then on the Fenway, where I dreamed my dreams.
Well I was small, they took us to old Mechanics Hall.
We got to see the Mighty Ted Williams,
Put one over the right field wall.”