A former well-known residence for working women and students, the Franklin Square House provided decent and safe housing for Boston women for more than forty years in the mid twentieth century. In addition to individual rooms, the building had a ballroom on the first floor edged with curtained cubicles with couches, where the women could entertain their guests. A cafeteria provided breakfast, dinner, and box lunches. The Blue Goose restaurant on the main floor was open to the public.
Constructed as the St. James Hotel in 1868, the largest in Boston and able to accommodate 500 guests, the building became the New England Conservatory of Music in 1882. In 1902 the Rev. George L. Perin, minister of the Shawmut Avenue Universalist Church, organized a corporation to purchase it as a self-supporting residence for women. In the early 1970s it was converted to elderly housing.
