Streets of Brookline


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Beacon St., circa 1920
The inbound side of Beacon St. looking east. From left to right, all buildings still standing:
  • The “Royal” apartment building at 1469 Beacon St.
  • The “Empire” apartment building (entrance obscured) at 1471 Beacon St.
  • The Community Service Kitchen at 1473-75 Beacon St. There are two delivery wagons parked in front.
  • 1477 Beacon St., apartment building. The visible entrance has been replaced by a window and made part of an apartment.
The Community Service Kitchen was opened in June 1919 by two young Newton brothers-in-law: Guy E. Wyatt and Roger A. Wheeler, both 23. Wyatt had been in the leather business and Wheeler had left Columbia University to serve in the ambulance corps in World War I. (He was awarded the Croix de Guerre for his role in rescuing wounded French soldiers while under fire.) Initially operating solely as a business that prepared and delivered full meals to customers, it expanded two months after opening to #1475, adding an eat-in restaurant. Despite adopting a name more apt to describe a "soup kitchen", Wyatt and Wheeler targeted middle- and upper-class women in Brookline, Newton, and the Back Bay. It’s advertising read: “Dine at home or dine with us. Announcing Brookline’s newest restaurant. A quiet refined home-like dining room.”

From the Arthur Asahel Shurcliff collection of glass lantern slides, Photo. 6.19.468, Massachusetts Historical Society.