Quincy, Mass. Historical and Architectural Survey

40-64 Adams Street (South Shore Buick)

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
Boston architect George Ernest Robinson, who had planned so many of Quincy's fire stations the designer of the new $50,000 garage for the Noyes Buick Co. (now known as South Shore Buick) at 40-64 Adams Street in 1940. Robinson was already well established in Quincy having designed the Central Fire Station, 26 Quincy Avenue (1938) and the West Quincy Fire Station, 160 Copeland Street (1939). Following South Shore Buick he received commissions for the Quincy Point Fire Station, 615 Washington Street (1941) and the Squantum Fire Station, 86 Huckins Avenue (1943).

The South Shore Buick building is on the same site as that belonging to the Horace Baxter Spear family from at least 1876 to 1923. Spear was in the wholesale leather business in Boston with his brother-in-law Charles Marsh for ten years. Then he apparently decided to take advantage of a considerable financial ability for starting in 1868 he held such posts as cashier of the Granite National Bank,, treasurer of the Quincy Savings Bank, cashier of the National Mt. Wollaston Bank and Town Treasurer. By 1923 the property at 40-66 Adam Street was inherited by Lucy Maria Spear (1864-1953), the daughter of Horace Baxter Spear, and later sold to the Noyes Buick Co.

BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES
Assessors Records.
Atlas of Norfolk County, mass, 1876.
Atlas of the city of quincy, 1897.
Atlas of the City of Quincy, 1907.
Quincy.City Directories, 1915, 1930.
Quincy Patriot Ledger, 100th anniversary. January 7, 1937, p. E-10.
"Sprague Genealogy of Old Braintree Families". microfilm at Quincy Historical Society.

ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:
In an apparent effort to relate to its historic colonial neighbors, the Vassell-Adams House, 135 Adams Street and the Quincy Homestead, 34 Butter Road, the architect George E. Robinson designed a fine colonial Revival commercial building replete with Georgian elements, in particular the very visible and dominant end gable with a large chimney piercing it the top which was probably influenced by the side elevation of the Vassell-Adams House. Two years previous, George Robinson had drawn the plans for the Central Fire Station at 26 Quincy Avenue with a similar end treatment. It is an effective design, far more successful than the application of irrelevant two-story square posts in front of a commercial brick building, such as at 24 Adams Street. The two front cross gables projecting slightly relieve the long windowed facade, made necessary by the building's function. Should the signage be ameliorated (removal of letters from the chimneys and the "Buick Leasing" standing sign be replaced by a more appropriate sign) this one and one half story brick commercial building would be one of the finest of its type in the Quincy Center Local Historic District.

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