Diane's Bakery, 9 Polar Street, Boston, MA (award-winning design)
Roslindale Village Main Street Inc., asked Sterling Associates to capture the Art Moderne style of this commercial building. Thanks to the inventive sign design and faithful attention to stylistic detail, the result is as if the original village main street had never changed.
In a city famous for such neighborhoods as Beacon Hill and the Back Bay, places where the city’s working people live can be forgotten. That’s what almost happened to Roslindale Village. For twenty years the late-nineteenth-century suburb suffered the decay, disinvestment, redlining, arson and abandonment that have been the lot of many an urban neighborhood.
Then in 1985, at the suggestion of City Councilor Thomas M. Menino, Roslindale Village applied to be, and was accepted as such, an urban demonstration project for the National Main Street Center of the National Trust. And in five years the preservation-based, incremental approach to neighborhood revitalization—carried out by Roslindale Village Main Street (RVMS) under the direction of Kathleen McCabe—has not only turned the neighborhood around, it has also provided a national example of grass-roots involvement. Businesses improved their facades, took part in promotional events like the Christmas-tree-lighting ceremonies and the two-day international festival, and changed product lines to meet the needs of a new consumer population. Even classes in conversational Greek ere offered in order to help English-speaking business people communicate with Greek-speaking peers.
RVMS also worked for the elimination of unsightly billboards, developed a farmers’ market, and established a design-review process and a master plan for street and sidewalk amenities. Best of all, Roslindale became a great place to live for the working people who make their homes here. Says Boston Mayor Raymond L. Flynn, “None of the work was done in a vacuum, but, rather, in a close relationship that has guaranteed the preservation and character of the neighborhood.”
~Historic Preservation Magazine, November/December 1990