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INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 1006 Mass. Ave. MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125 1630 Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. If checked,you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form. ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION: Describe architectural features. Evaluate the characteristics of this building in terms of other buildings within the community. Built in a Colonial Revival style,the East Lexington Fire Station is a brick structure constructing of a two-story,hip-roofed section to the west, facing Locust Avenue, and a gable-roofed garage section facing Massachusetts Avenue. Brickwork is laid in a Flemish bond and the roofs are sheathed in slate with a central brick chimney on the rear structure. The Locust Avenue entrance consists of a paneled door capped by transom lights and recessed behind a double-arched portico. A projecting brick beltcourse wraps around the building between the stories. Windows contain wooden 12/12 sash on the first floor with flat arch brick lintels. The second floor openings include 12/12 and 8/12 sash but the tops of the windows extend to the projecting,boxed cornice. The Locust Avenue (north) elevation of the garage is five bays deep with 15/20 windows set into rectangular recesses. There are four windows and an entrance on the south side. The flushboard pediment facing Mass. Ave. over the two garage doors is decorated by a painted town seal and ribbon sign reading"Lexington Fire Department". HISTORICAL NARRATIVE Discuss the history of the building. Explain its associations with local(or state)history. Include uses of the building, and the role(s) the owners/occupants played within the community. Funding for a new East Lexington Fire Station was first appropriated in 1946 but when bids were received,there were not sufficient funds. The project was postponed until 1950 when it was decided to advertise the project again. The old Station/Village Hall was demolished beginning on April 17, 1950 and the new fire station was completed for occupancy about January 1, 1951. Men and equipment temporarily moved to the Arlex Oil Co.plant while the new station as being constructed. The new station was celebrated with an open house on May 6, 1951. The contractor was the Harty Construction Company. The architect was probably Leland&Larsen who also designed the main fire headquarters in 1945. A twenty-foot square building erected in 1829 was the first fire house in East Village. It was located on Pleasant Street, at or near the present Bridle Path. That building was later moved to a vacant lot between 922 and 956 Massachusetts Avenue where it served as a henhouse for many years. In 1858 the town purchased land on the northwest side of Independence Avenue and erected a new engine house which was sold in 1873. That same year the town bought a building at the corner of Independendence Avenue and Massachusetts Avenue and remodeled it to contain an engine house in the basement and a Village Hall above. The building had been originally constructed as a church for the First Universalist Church in 1838 and was used by them for about twenty years. It was subsequently used by the Catholics who sold it to the town in 1873. Over the years Village Hall was the site for dances, dramatic performances, Christmas parties and church fairs. A lock up was constructed in the basement in 1874 and in 1898 the building was raised about three feet to accommodate horse-drawn apparatus. BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES Hinkle,Alice and Andrea Cleghorn. Life in Lexington 1946-1995: p. 13 &27. Lexington Town Reports. Massachusetts State Archives,Building Inspector Plans. Minute-man,May 9, 1950;May 3, 1951. Worthen, Edwin B. A Calendar History of Lexington, Mass. 1620-1946: p. 133. Continuation sheet 1