Click on thumbnails to view additional images of this piece:
.JPG)
Jesse C. Johnson Memorial Gateway (Johnson Gates)
Artist:
Guy Lowell
Location:
Back Bay Fens
Location
Back Bay Fens
Westland Ave. Hemenway St
Boston, MA United States
See map: Google Maps
Neighborhood:
Fenway
Type:
Memorial fountain
Year:
1902
Medium:
Bronze and Granite
Collection:
City of Boston
Funders:
Description:
Two tall square pylons serve as the Westland Avenue entrance to the Fenway, flanked by bronze lion heads that spout into the basin below. Erected at the bequest of Ellen Cheney Johnson as a memorial for her husband, Jesse C. Johnson, the monument was “a fountain for man and beast,” originally meant to serve as a horse-trough. An epidemic among draft animals in 1919 caused the city to shut off all public animal fountains and the gate became purely decorative, serving as the principle entrance to the Back Bay Fens. In 1980, an extensive restoration project supported by the Edward Ingersoll Browne Fund returned the fountain to its working condition.