Roughan Hall is a historic commercial building at 10

City Square A town square (or public square, urban square, city square or simply square), also called a plaza or piazza, is an open public space commonly found in the heart of a traditional town or city, and which is used for community gatherings. Rel ...

, the historic central square of the Charlestown neighborhood of

Boston, Massachusetts Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

. Built in 1892 and enlarged in 1896, it is the square's only surviving 19th-century commercial building, and a distinctive example of Romanesque and Renaissance Revival architecture. Its upper levels now serve as the headquarters of the

Appalachian Mountain Club Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) is the oldest outdoor group in the United States. Created in 1876 to explore and preserve the White Mountains (New Hampshire), White Mountains in New Hampshire, it has expanded throughout the northeastern U.S., wit ...

. The building was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1982.

Description and history

City Square is a public park at the southern end of the Charlestown peninsula, lined on the southwest and southeast by major traffic arteries. Roughan Hall is located on the park's northeast side, between Main and Park Streets. It is a four-story yellow brick building, with cast-iron storefronts on the ground level, and a limestone-framed entry to the upper floors, which historically housed offices and a large auditorium. The main facade is four bays wide, with the leftmost bay set at a slight angle, owing in part to an odd lot shape. The second and third floor windows of three of the bays are surrounded by decorative brickwork, and the fourth-floor windows are tall rounded arches with terra cotta surrounds. The building cornice includes a series of blind arches surmounted by brick corbelling. The building was designed by Arthur H. Vinal and built in 1892 for Michael Roughan, a prominent local businessman and philanthropist. At the time, the square was completely encircled by commercial and civic buildings. The building housed Roughan's liquor store on the ground floor, and the top-floor hall was used primarily by social and fraternal organizations. In 1989, the ground floor space was converted for use as a restaurant and housed

Todd English William Todd English (born August 29, 1960) is an American celebrity chef, restaurateur, author, and television personality, based in Boston, Massachusetts. He hosted the TV cooking show, ''Food Trip with Todd English,'' on PBS. In 2005 he was a ...

's Olives from 1989 to 2013, which was replaced by Legal Oysteria in 2014. The building was purchased by the

in 2016, which occupies its upper floors .

References

{{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Commercial buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Commercial buildings in Boston Charlestown, Boston National Register of Historic Places in Boston Appalachian Mountain Club

Description and history

See also

References