The Robert Treat Paine School was located at the corner of Blue Hill Avenue and Harvard Street.
Architects: O’Connell & Shaw
Readers’ Comments
From: Henry H. Shultz December 26, 2006
I attended Robert Treat Paine School until 1948. My sister went through all 6 grades there and kindergarten. Dr. McAuliffe was a female principal. All of the female teachers at that time had to be either single or widowed — no married women, but the men could be married. I can, for some reason, remember everything about the shcool — its teachers, etc., and I mean everything. Miss Muldoon, Miss Galvin, Miss Silver, Miss Donnolly, Miss Tilley, etc. etc., and I can remember even where I sat. I remember recess, hallway monitors, blackboard mnitors, type of pens with inkwells (in 1947 we were allowed to us ballpoint pens). I remember that lefties were forced to try to write right-handed, milk monitors, plays, reading groups, my mother being called up to Miss Tilly because I drew a picture of Dagwood on the back of my arithmetic test, the Minuteman statue in the hallway, the playground (boys and girls were separated, marching in two by two, then threes in the 3rd grade on up, carrying the flag after Mr. Coakley’s command to march in …
From: “Alan Krigman” March 10, 2007
I attended the Robert Treat Paine School from kindergarten through part way into the fifth grade when we moved to the suburbs — 1943 or 1944 through 1949. I had gone to nursery school across Harvard Street, and spent time after school at the Hecht House which was at the top of the hill on Lorne St, two blocks from the school.
At the time we moved, I thought I was lucky to be able to go to a suburban school with more facilities, but with 60 years of hindsight, I wonder…
We were told that the school was named after Robert Treat Paine, one of the people who signed the Declaration of Independence. In some research I did a few years ago, I learned that a descendent — also named Robert Treat Paine — was a great philantrhopist who built housing for working class people, which they could buy under what was then a radical new concept. This was the self-amortizing mortgage, which they could get from mutual savings fund societies pioneered in Massachusetts. Many of the houses Paine amd his colleagues built were in Dorchester and Roxbury, which were then considered “suburbs” — opened to working class people because of the streetcar and elevated lines that allowed them to get to work other than by walking, and therefore able to leave the tenements of the North and West End. I now wonder whether the school was named after the younger Paine, or perhaps was named for the founding father at the behest of his descendent.
I’m surprised, having come accidentally on this website, how many of the things about the school, its teachers, and some of my fellow pupils whom I haven’t seen or thought about for many years, I remember so vividly. (Including an embarrassing incident when I got home late for lunch one snowy day and made up a story about Miss Silver (my first grade teacher) being angry with me because I couldn’t put on my overshoes properly and keeping me there. My lie was exposed when my mother came storming back to school with me after lunch. A great lesson in life about honesty being the best policy!
From: Joel Tenenbaum November 2007
Comments i moved from the William Lloyd Garrison school, on Hutchings st, Roxbury(now houses apartments, as does the Paine sch00l. i attended the Paine school from1956-1958. the only two teachers i recall, were my home room teachers, Mr. Fuller and Mr. Foley. i lived on Fermoy Hts Ave, off Franklin hill ave(now knowns as the projects)until 1968. my grandparents lived at Lorne st. You remember the flower store on the corner of Franklin hill ave. I knew the people who owned it. For many years, there were two stores, on the corner of Lorne st. i practically lived at the Hecht house. i learned to play piano, on the third floor auditorium.(i found out a fire destroy alot of that area in the 70’s and it has since been rebuilt. it houses class for schcol children now) i have many vived memoeries of those days, my folks also were involved with plays that were on stage there as well as the choral group. my dad maned the coat room on Sundays. i went to summer camp,from the hecht house!
. they took us on day trips on the William S> Carroll buses. the parking lot there, once housed gardens and as small brook (now damed up underground)ran thru the area, and(very few people know this)once was used to flood Franklin Field so people could ice skate. you can still see the flood gates on Talbot ave on the north side of the field. The field house housed the sporting goods for the field as well as a registry office. I passed my droiers test there in 1958. the brick house is gone, only the wall remains, i believe. i won’t even get into the many time i sat on that wall. i even sat, where that poor girl was murdered on the wall at Blue hill, Talbot and Harvard.
just one of the probably unknown facts that most of us Dorchesterites don’tknow, is a small brook, ran thru was once a farm, just opposite the Hecht house . it was behind the current project in the rear of Franklin Hill ave. That brook once ran on the surface, and according to my mother, who was brought up on Lorne st., it was put undergound, ran under(yes under) the road, just between the Painee school and the White Health center. it was used in the 30’s 40’s to flood Franklin Field for iceskating in the winter. i believe, you can still see the iron grates on the north side of the field, that is where the water came out.
From Howard Fox, January, 2009
I grew up next to the Paine school (911 Blue Hill Ave) and have many great memories, the field across the street with the pool, the track, and little leauge; Mr. Fuller, Miss Deangelis (who everyone loved) stern Mr. Foley; Lorne Street, the Hecht House, the Lewnberg, and of course all my friends from the projects. It was a great place to grow up!