In 1873, the Boston YWCA built a six-story double house building on this site for “the good of working women.” The location not only offered housing but also training with the hope of finding “new and proper avenues of employment for women” as well as “to protect them in their rights.” Of the seventy women who lived in the building at the time of the Great Fire that year, thirty-four lost jobs and the YWCA established a sewing business to employ them. In 1908, the building had 212 boarders and had served a total of 2,645 women during the previous year. In 1895, the residents, hoping to escape the summer heat, raised money to create a roof garden on top of the building. They planted window boxes, added deck chairs, awnings and even cots. In anticipation of the opening of new headquarters at 140 Clarendon Street, the YWCA closed the building in 1927.
