Former Museum of Natural History
This historic building on Berkeley Street is one of the oldest
buildings in the Back Bay neighborhood. It was constructed in 1863 on
a block that was set aside for the Museum of Natural History and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Eventually, two MIT buildings
would be built in this block between Berkeley and Clarendon Streets,
the first of which was the 1866 Rogers Building.
MIT remained here until 1916, when they relocated to their much
larger campus across the Charles River in Cambridge. The Rogers
Building, along with the neighboring Walker Memorial Building, were
demolished in 1939 to build the New England Mutual Life Insurance
Building, which is still standing.
The museum was located in this building until 1951, when it was
renamed the Boston Museum of Science and moved to its present location
on the Charles River. After the museum left, it has been used by
several different companies as a retail store, including Bonwit Teller
and Louis Boston. In 2013, the home furnishing company Restoration
Hardware opened their Boston gallery in the building, which still
remains well-preserved and relatively unchanged after over 150 years
and a number of ownership changes.
Photo NatHist, July 2001