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round was officially broken for the Recitation Building on June 19, 1909, a Saturday. The Boston Herald reported that from noon until nearly midnight, an estimated 30,000 people flocked to the property. Similar to the garden party of the year before, this event featured rides, games, music, fireworks, and, as a special draw, according to the Globe, “exhibitions of . . . skill” by “a group of Indians and cow boys from the 101 Ranch Wild West Show.” At the end of the afternoon, the formal ceremony began, and the Globe noted its “purely civic character” In this “early 20th-century” view shot by professional photographer Clifton Church, the Recitation (meaning there was no Mass Building stands alone. or religious service). A professor from the University of Notre Dame delivered a salute chapel commissions. In 1899, he won the commission for to Jesuit education. Edward Burns, an alumnus of the Class the chapel at Saint John’s Seminary in Brighton. He had of 1880, read “Our Mother’s House,” a poem he wrote some strong ideas about how religious structures should be for the occasion. Then Gasson stepped forward carrying a adapted to the American context: Not every local church, he shovel adorned with ribbons (red, white, and blue; maroon held, had to look like Chartres. The firm he formed with his and gold). “The sod was tough from the trampling of many friend Timothy Walsh in 1905 would became the country’s feet,” a reporter wrote, and Gasson “had to take off his cuffs foremost designer of church-related facilities in the first half and stop to wipe his brow several times,” playing, perhaps, of the 20th century, with collegiate commissions at Holy to his audience. Other dignitaries took their turns, including Cross, Fordham, Notre Dame, and elsewhere. the mayors of Boston and Newton. Although virtually none of the winning design was ever At that moment, Gasson and his fellow Jesuits probably built as planned, Maginnis’s vision established expectations did not appreciate how much money would be needed to for the campus among alumni, students, and friends of the erect the first building (more than $200,000), or how long college over the succeeding decades. His design covered the construction would take. As before, their fundraising the entire property, north to south (Commonwealth to plan relied on amassing small contributions, a method that Beacon) and west to east (present-day College Road to the took time. Money was often tight, and with “frequent delays cliff). In it, a main gate led from Commonwealth Avenue in the shipment of building material,” reported the Stylus, to the Recitation Building (what now is called Gasson progress was slow. Several times, the project came to a Hall), which, on paper, was shaped like a fat H and was surhalt. The initial design was scaled back and the building’s mounted by a low stump of a tower. Both sides of the enterfootprint shrank, though its tower was raised to a more ing roadway were crowded, with two buildings to the right impressive height. and four to the left, one of them a massive public church. All the while, photographs of the construction site ran Additional structures were fitted between the Recitation regularly in the Stylus and in local newspapers. In May Building and the athletic fields, which hugged Beacon Street. 1910, students expressed their hope of attending classes at A landscaped plaza east of the Recitation Building extended Chestnut Hill by the start of the 1911–12 school year, but to the cliff edge, offering a view of the city. The unifying that did not happen. By September 1912, a finished buildstyle was collegiate gothic. ing seemed at last in sight. “Everything points now to the 30
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photograph: Courtesy John J. Burns Library Archive