Back Bay Historic District

Back Bay is a densely built Boston neighborhood of townhouses, apartments, churches, schools and businesses, laid out on about 450 acres of reclaimed tidal flats. Filling began in 1857 near Arlington Street and continued west until the late 1880s. Arthur Gilman's plan, influenced by French urban design, arranged a grid of streets around Commonwealth Avenue, a wide boulevard with a central mall. Setback rules, height limits and masonry requirements produced uniform block fronts despite a wide range of styles, from Italianate to Richardsonian Romanesque and Beaux Arts. Copley Square holds landmarks such as Trinity Church and the Boston Public Library. The district was also home to leading writers, artists and institutions of nineteenth-century Boston. Later amendments recognize an archaeological fishweir thousands of years old beneath the neighborhood and early twentieth-century commercial buildings along Boylston and Newbury Streets. Much of the original character survives, and the residential area has been protected as a conservation district since 1966.