Marketplace Signs

141 Cambridge Street Boston, Mass. 02114-2702

Frederick A. Stahl and Roger S. Webb assembled a team of architects in June 1969 to prepare documents for the restoration of the North and South Market buildings, and later the Faneuil Hall (Quincy) Market building in Boston. The first task was to survey the conditions of the buildings; every floor and every corner of each market building was documented. Many unique artifacts that had been left behind over the course of the more than 140-year-life of the markets were discovered. A number of these were found under the eaves. Team members saved many artifacts and displayed them in their second-floor field office in the Quincy Market building beneath the plastered rotunda dome. Much of the preparation of the contract documentation was completed in fall 1970 and the team disbanded. Some of the artifacts moved on with the team members as reminders of their efforts to preserve and restore a significant part of Boston’s architectural heritage.

Some of the most colorful and graphic artifacts were the signs identifying the individual purveyors who occupied the buildings. Though found in the eaves of

South Market, these signs were once prominently displayed at Quincy Market. One—a two-sided sign—hung from the exterior canopy structure perpendicular to the facade. The other sign was made so that it tucked under a firstfloor windowsill above the steps of a cellar store.

These signs, artfully displayed in several homes from Beacon Hill to Bristol and Newport, Rhode Island, have been returned to Massachusetts to be added to Historic New England’s collection of Faneuil Hall Markets documentation and artifacts. by WILLIAM L. MCQUEEN An architect, William L. McQueen is a professor emeritus at Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island, and a member of the Historic New England Council. He recently donated his collection of artifacts from Boston’s Faneuil Hall Marketplace to our organization. d c Marketplace SIGNS Waters and Litchfield Co. specialized in “fabricated cuts” and marketed itself as “hotel purveyors.” Today the company would be called a meat supplier or butcher. Lowell Bros. and Bailey Co. was a wholesale produce dealer.