In June 1925, Otis House in downtown Boston was moved nearly forty-three feet back from its original location. The shift made way for the widening of Cambridge Street, a project sparked by rising traffic needs of a new era. This reshaped both the house’s setting and the surrounding neighborhood.
Built in 1796, Otis House was first home to the politically and socially elite Otis family, then passed through several owners. In 1916 it transformed from a home to a museum and headquarters for the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA), now Historic New England. Within a decade, the city proposed widening Cambridge Street, forcing action to preserve the historic house.
The main goal of widening the street was to ease traffic congestion. By 1925, Americans had embraced the automobile, leaving carriages behind. Subways, elevated trains, and electric streetcars had also replaced horsecar lines in Boston. The city’s transportation infrastructure needs had changed. Architect and former City Planning Board Chairman Ralph Adams Cram strongly supported widening Cambridge and Court streets, calling it essential for Boston. “None of its great thoroughfares,” he told a reporter for the Boston Sunday Post in 1922, “penetrate right into the heart of the city. They stop just outside. . . or else they narrow so as to be useless.” It was the largest street improvement project in Boston at the time, impacting 130 parcels of land and exceeding its $3.5 million budget.
What did Bostonians think of the project? According to 1920s newspapers, it was either celebrated as a way to reduce traffic and rejuvenate the neighborhood or criticized as a destructive force. Just after the project was complete, the Boston Evening Transcript claimed new and influential business were already surfacing along the street and upgrades to remaining ones were “deserving of praise.” The Christian Science Monitor proclaimed in 1926, “A new era has dawned in the West End. Light and air have flooded into the dark places.” However, the project also brought hardship for residents and businesses and altered the fabric of the neighborhood.
According to The Boston Globe, about 150 families were forced to relocate from homes, hotels, and lodging houses lining the street. In the 1920s, the neighborhood was primarily home to Italian and Eastern European immigrants, including a substantial Jewish population. “Where will the people go?” the Boston Evening Transcript asked in 1924, “These families are in no position to pay higher rents.” Assessors suggested relocation to tenements in Charlestown, Roxbury, East Boston, and South Boston. The Globe also reported that some Boston landmarks had been “entirely wiped out.”
Amid this upheaval, SPNEA seized the moment to grow the Otis House site. Trustees purchased four nineteenth-century row houses behind their building. Two were demolished for the house’s new foundation, while the other two were joined to Otis House, adding much needed office and museum space.
To carry out the complex move, SPNEA founder William Sumner Appleton assembled a team of experts. The Walter A. Wentworth Company prepared the site to move while Little and Browne Architects designed the new foundation and cellar. Isaac Blair & Co., founded in 1820 and still active today, moved the house. Appleton himself oversaw and documented the work, leaving us with a collection of seventy-five photographs.
Otis House was moved intact. Under foreman Jim McCool, the Isaac Blair & Co. crew supported the house on steel beams and moved it back on a trestle, a rigid support framework structure. They inserted two hundred and fifty rollers between the beams and trestle and pushed. The Boston Evening Transcript described the process: “Eight men pushed this building by hand. They braced their screw jacks against the ground, pointed the other end toward the building and then, as they turned the screws round one full revolution they pushed the house ahead five eighths of an inch. Thus turning all together at the same time they produced an even forward movement which did not twist the building out of shape.” To stop the house from cracking, iron rods were placed in the walls and secured to outside beams.
On June 27, 1925, the Boston Evening Transcript declared, “This afternoon, the Harrison Gray Otis House will arrive at its final destination.” The 1796 home was successfully moved back. Workers filled in the original cellar and built a new terrace, altering the house’s setting. Otis House was safe, but neighboring structures were not so lucky. The Cambridge Street project expanded space for traffic but also altered the neighborhood’s layout and displaced individuals and businesses. Looking back on this project reminds us of the complexities and delicate balance between development and preservation.
Join us this Thursday, June 12, 2025, on the terrace at Otis House to celebrate with a talk about the move, live jazz, and light refreshments.
Written by Barbara Callahan, Regional Site Administrator, Metro Boston
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