INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET LEXINGTON 22 BOWKER STREET
<br /> MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.
<br /> 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD,BOSTON,MASSACHUSETTS 02125
<br /> 2197
<br /> ❑ Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.
<br /> If checked,you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form.
<br /> Use as much space as necessary to complete the following entries, allowing text to flow onto additional continuation sheets.
<br /> ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION:
<br /> Describe architectural features. Evaluate the characteristics of this building in terms of other buildings within the community.
<br /> 22 Bowker Street occupies a small lot that slopes down steeply from right to left. The house is set at the right front corner of the
<br /> lot, with a small front setback and minimal setback on the right side. The yard is maintained chiefly in lawn, with foundation
<br /> plantings and scattered shrubs. A brick walkway leads to the main entrance, with a short brick stairway. A paved driveway
<br /> extends along the left side of the house. The building consists of a two-story main block with a rear.
<br /> The rectangular main block rises from a fieldstone foundation to a front gambrel roof with gambrel returns and a center chimney.
<br /> Walls are clad with wood clapboards and trimmed with plain flat sill boards, corner boards, and fascia. Windows typically have
<br /> 1/1 double hung sash and flat casings. Spanning the first floor of the fagade, a one-story porch consists of Tuscan columns, a
<br /> hip roof, and turned balusters. Behind, an offset, single-leaf door is flanked by one large window on the right and a smaller
<br /> window on the left. Two windows are centered above in the second floor.
<br /> The south (right side) elevation of the main block contains two symmetrical 1/1 windows on the first floor and a half story dormer
<br /> with a hip roof and a single 1/1 window. The north (left side) elevation of the main block contains one 1/1 window towards the
<br /> front, paired short windows towards the back, and a small nearly square window at a mid-story height. A large, one-story
<br /> addition projects from the back left corner of the house. Rising from a concrete foundation to a long shed roof, it contains a wide
<br /> bay window and off-set, single-leaf door on its front elevation and widely spaced single windows on its left side elevation.
<br /> Well preserved and well maintained, 22 Bowker Street is representative of modest, early 20th century infill housing in Lexington.
<br /> The house is notable for its intact massing, gambrel roof and gambrel returns, hip roofed dormer, and front porch.
<br /> HISTORICAL NARRATIVE
<br /> Discuss the history of the building. Explain its associations with local(or state) history. Include uses of the building, and the role(s) the
<br /> owners/occupants played within the community.
<br /> The small grid of streets bordered by Massachusetts Avenue, Hibbert Street, Taft Avenue, and Bowker Street represents an
<br /> early area of suburban infill in East Lexington, near the Arlington town line. Immediately south of Taft Avenue is Liberty Heights
<br /> (LEX.Q), a hilltop subdivision laid out by Brookline developer Jacob W. Wilbur in 1909 and developed in the teens and twenties.
<br /> The growth of both these neighborhoods followed the arrival of the electric street railway on Massachusetts Avenue in 1899 and
<br /> was directed at working class residents.
<br /> In the area adjacent to Massachusetts Avenue known as Dexter Hillside, Hibbert and Sylvia streets, which straddle the
<br /> Lexington/Arlington line, were laid out, platted, and partially developed by 1898. The only other evidence of development here at
<br /> that time is the L-shaped beginning of Charles and Cherry streets, where ten house lots were laid out but vacant. By 1927, both
<br /> Charles and Bowker streets extended from Massachusetts Avenue to Taft Avenue, and the western ends of Cherry Street,
<br /> Stevens (then Cary) Road, and Camden (then Smythe) Street pushed a few lots eastward from Charles. Development was
<br /> gradual through the 1920s and 30s, and was virtually complete, with the present network of streets, by 1950.
<br /> The 1922 directory identifies four households on Bowker Street, none with street numbers. They include a carpenter, "state
<br /> agent," post office clerk, mason, and chauffeur. The house at 22 Bowker Street appears on the 1927 map, facing the
<br /> intersection of the newly extended Hillside Avenue. The first known residents at this address, in 1933, are Lawrence Emil
<br /> Lassen, a real estate salesman who worked in downtown Boston, and his wife Effie. (They were married the previous year and
<br /> Continuation sheet 2
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