Standing on Washington St. looking north at the Bethany Building. School St. is to the right. The steeple is in the first of three iterations, it was reduced in size over time. Known as the “Bethany Building”, the church was constructed in 1844 as the first church in Brookline of the newly-organized Harvard Congregational Society. The building was sold in 1873 as the Society prepared to move to a larger structure at the corner of Harvard St. and Marion St. After a brief stint as a Methodist church followed by several additional changes of ownership, the building was acquired in 1887 by the Bethany Sunday School Association which held it for the next twenty years. The building was torn down in 1928.

The horse-drawn car is being pulled on rails which were first laid in 1859 and has reached its final stop at Washington and School streets. At these final stops the horse(s) would be unhitched and attached to the other end of the car and the route retraced. This car #7 is also seen in another Village photo, that one dated 1873.

[Courtesy of the Digital Commonwealth (CC BY-NC-ND). From the Brookline Photograph Collection published by the Public Library of Brookline]