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Look: It's that space you always said you'd buy if you ever got a round tuit

Church of All Nations

Looks like that unusual round and long vacant Church of All Nations on Tremont Street is for sale. So what would you do with a round building with 10,000, um, square feet of space? Grain elevator? World's largest Spirograph set?

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Luxury condos, of course.

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If it has granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. Because we all know, that is the definition of luxury.

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let it go

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Great globe of death scenes at least what I can remember from the Aer Lingus inflight movie;

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090993/

It is a shame that this place wasn't on the market 20 years ago. It would have made a great place for the hookers of Bay Village to keep warm.

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I think I'll get a Kickstarter going...

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I'll kick in a few dollars. For the beer idea, or if you want to turn it into some wild amusement ride.

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Tear it down and reopen the portal to subway there with light rail to the seaport and Dudley Square!

Allowing anything else to be built on the site would be a crime and a waste of an existing tunnel.

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Who do you think you are, Bizzaro Beverly Scott?

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Run streetcar tracks over to Washington Street and then have this whole rapid transit thing down to Dudley. Or if you wanted to get really ridiculous, Mattapan.

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With the park behind it now torn up for construction, I've had to walk around this building to get to Guilt from the South Cove Orange Line Station. If it were me, I'd put in a dance floor!

I wonder if the building was designed by Eero Saarinen. It reminds me of the MIT Chapel, as well as the Chinatown telephone central office building addition that I also suspect was designed by Saarinen.
IMAGE(https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3202/2862712627_6ba0c34031.jpg)
IMAGE(https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3331/3272088887_5b287e43cb.jpg)

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But neither of these buildings were designed by Saarinen. There is a resemblance, yes, but Saarinen's only works in the Boston area are at MIT, the Chapel and the Kresge Auditorium. These two buildings were built in a similar time frame, and may have been inspired by Saarinen's works, though.

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IMAGE(http://lts.brandeis.edu/research/archives-speccoll/exhibits/building/SaarinenComplex2.gif)
                              Saarinen's Academic Complex rendering, 1950

In addition, Eero Saarinen is known for doing work for the Bell System, most notably the Bell Telephone Holmdel Laboratories. Up close and in person, the Chinatown CO addition has a special quality about it; the arches, perched atop angled pylons, the shape and subtlety of the windows, and even the texture of the brickwork itself; recalls some of Saarinen's other works. The South Cove church building is easier to dismiss; other than being round, it doesn't have any drama or elegant details.

Telephone central office buildings, though sometimes architecturally interesting, weren't usually thought of as great public buildings. In this case, the setting is horrible and the addition clashes terribly with the older building it's attached to. Nonetheless, such commissions often helped pay the bills. With the Bell System already as a major client, it's not inconceivable that Saarinen's large firm might have designed the Chinatown building, but it wasn't considered significant enough to receive any attention and/or public attribution.

I think the only way I'll be truly convinced otherwise, would be to find out that the actual architect of the telephone building was someone from some other firm.

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It would make a cool silo drome. You know, the thing that you ride a motorcycle in?

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Vaughn already beat you to it (and he had a picture too!)

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Such a cool space but I fear there's little one could do with it.

I've never seen the inside, and have never been able to find photos of the interior, but apparently it's three levels inside. There is a 20' stage, though, according to the listing.

The listing says it is available "for a short-term lease". There's no evidence it's actually for sale but I dunno. There have been plenty of advertisements for this space over the years.

The hard part isn't coming up with the $12/foot in rent; it's sitting through endless neighborhood meetings while you try to convince Bay Village residents that you should be allowed to turn it into a theater. With no parking for patrons.

http://www.loopnet.com/Listing/18861216/333-Tremont-Street-Boston-MA/

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What's wrong with the spirograph idea? Who could possibly object to spirograph?

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Actually that's what it was used for last. As a theater.
Wasn't Nunsense there forever? But I guess that moved to another location.

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So just as your funky new, elevator accessible, performance space, with attached full-service cafe takes off, they'll tell you to move. Where do I sign?!

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just to run around in circles.

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zombie shelter!

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Bike zombie shelter.

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meetings there so the councillors can talk in circles in a circle allowing their harrumphs to have greater acoustical effect.

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(adjacent) Can't imagine how it could be used.

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I was interested in the history of the building and tracked down the architects whom I interviewed by phone in 2011. They are Roger Stover and Hermione Stover who at the time were associates at Bertrand Goldberg and now lives in California. The Church of All Nations has an extensive collection at BU under the name Morgan Memorial Church and through this Church spun out national chain Goodwill. The construction of I-90 demolished their original site on Shawmut Ave. and the congregation was left homeless. The BRA gave them this land and originally Goldberg had designed a steel structure (this drawing is in a Chicago museum). However, due to the high costs associated with this Goldberg backed out and the Stovers, who were committed to the congregation, stayed onboard and built the round church as quickly and efficiently as possible. This church has a fascinating history. http://www.goodwill.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Goodwill-Founder-Edga...

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Interesting. Didn't realize Goodwill had local origins. Thanks!

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How did they get the square footage to exactly 10000 ? Or is that figure rounded ? (sorry)

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n/t

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store molasses in it for my rum distillery. What could go wrong with that?

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My husband and I designed this building when we worked for Bertrand Goldberg, who had nothing to do with the design, and it was EXACTLY what the client wanted.

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