This is a rare photo showing a stage in the evolution of the old Coolidge & Brother store after the 1887 widening of Beacon St. The original store, which had been taken over by Merrill Brown in 1884, was purchased in 1892 by the S.S. Pierce Company which then constructed the new S.S. Pierce Building seen today in 1898-99. Also visible are the large homes lining Summit Ave.

[Photograph by Thomas Warren Sears from the J. Horace McFarland Collection, Archives of American Gardens. Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution.]