Banned in Boston · STOP 08 · Chinatown / old Combat Zone
H.H. Richardson's only surviving commercial building in Boston spent the 1970s as a peep show, and for almost a century nobody knew it was his.
In 1977 this narrow brownstone on Washington Street had an X-rated peepshow on the ground floor and two adult clubs out back. H.H. Richardson had designed it in 1875 for his wife's family, and for nearly a century nobody remembered. It's his only surviving commercial building in Boston, and it barely survived the Combat Zone. Stand at the corner of LaGrange and look up.
This is stop 8 of Banned in Boston. Walk it - any two stops are free.
The plate
Collected on site
681 Washington Street, at LaGrange Street
Directions
The Landmarks report can't settle its own address: it gives both 681-683 and 691-693 Washington Street.
More footnotes on the story card, in the app.
Near Chinatown · Near Boylston · Near Tufts Medical Center · Near Downtown Crossing · Near Park Street
Sources (2)
- Hayden Building Study Report (Boston Landmarks Commission report #17)Boston Landmarks Commission · 1977-10-27 (rev. 1977-11-30)
- Historic Boston Inc. Opens Historic Hayden Building In ChinatownHistoric Boston Incorporated · 2013-02-28