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THE REGENERATION OF BEACON HILL:
HOW BOSTON GOES ABOUT CIVIC IM-
PROVEMENT
of Boston citizens, working quietly
to improve their own property and
lying around it, seem to have hit
rect and practical way of bringing
e phase of civic reform. They are
tunes, nor are they effecting any
+f h4t 1kr Mt +k. .ý. -pelpon," n+r~  ho
part of old Boston lying between the lower slope of Beacon Hit, and
the Charles River to something like its old desirability as a residence
neighborhood. This part of the West End had long been given over
to stables and tenements which, until recently, seemed to have come
to stay. Most of the fine old houses, some of them dating from
Colonial days, were elbowed by dirty and unsanitary shacks, and
the minor streets, such as Acorn Street, River Street and Lime Street,
were chiefly occupied by stablemen and negroes and the servants
of people living on Beacon Street. The whole neighborhood took
its name and its character from "Horse Chestnut" Street, which
has
so long been the name for Chestnut Street that it is hardly recogniz-
able without its prefix.
   The building of the new river embankment created a possibility
of redeeming the neighborhood, if only the property owners would
take an interest. That they have done so, and to good purpose, is
shown by the result, and yet it is doubtful if each man has spent more
than a few hundreds, or at most a few thousands, of dollars in bringing
his own property into harmony with the traditions of dignified old
Boston. One of the most active of the reformers is an energetic
and progressive architect, Frank A. Bourne, who began with his own
house on River Street, changing a commonplace building into an
interesting and delightful dwelling, and from that has extended his
work until it appears throughout the whole neighborhood,-not so
much in the form of new or entirely remodeled houses as in old houses
renovated and given individuality by a group of windows here, a
Colonial doorway there, a quaint bay or an unusual entrance, which
restored to it the character of the good Colonial architecture that
always has belonged to Boston.
   These changes affect most markedly the general character of the
streets in this neighborhood, for instead of shabby and commonplace
wooden or brick fronts with the usual doors and windows, the facades
now show any number of quaint and interesting characteristics.
Here a door is deeply recessed after the old Colonial style and is
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