Though Boston's historic Ames Building has lain fallow for 10 years, a new infusion of capital will turn this historic "skyscraper" into a four-star boutique hotel.
"The Ames Building, a towering 14 stories at 1 Court St., reigned for more than a decade as the city's tallest skyscraper -- but that was more than a century ago.
Empty for the last eight years, a nonstarter for two would-be redevelopers, and more recently isolated by ugly concrete barriers, the exquisitely carved, historic landmark is soon to be reborn as a boutique hotel with a fine restaurant.
Designed in a combination of Byzantine and Romanesque styles by architects tutored by H.H. Richardson of Trinity Church fame, the building is undergoing $40-million-plus renovation to ready it for readmission to downtown's active urban life.
'The Ames Building is one of those structures that are flower-like, and it will be more and more appreciated as the years roll on,' one writer predicted in a pamphlet in 1891, soon after 'the most prominent and eligibly situated of Boston's great buildings' opened."
Read the full story: Historic tower gets update
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City of Rosemead
Rutgers University, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
One Hundred Miles
Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY)
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
City of Cambridge
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