Ball Square Painters — Broadway and Boston Avenue, toward Medford

Ball Square sits where Broadway crosses Boston Avenue, between Powder House Square and Magoun Square, with part of it reaching over the line into Medford. It takes its name from John Nichols Ball, who opened an insole factory on Broadway. Its Green Line station opened on December 12, 2022.

The city's Historic Preservation Commission has used the area as a walking-tour subject at least twice. A 2009 tour led by Ed Gordon of the Victorian Society in America's New England chapter took in Nathan Tufts Park and houses on Broadway, Powder House Terrace and Kidder Avenue. Gordon told the group that the city has what is probably the finest collection of two-family houses, with some of the grandest on Broadway. One example from that tour, 771 Broadway, went up in 1899 on the original Tufts family homestead; the commission gave its owner a preservation award for a renovation that included the front porch. The same report credits electric trolley expansion around 1900 with doubling Somerville's population. A second commission tour in 2019 started at the Nathan Tufts Park Field House and included two house interiors.

Census figures back up the two-family story. Tract 3504, which contains 701 Broadway and parts of Josephine and Rogers Avenues east of Boston Avenue, counts 2,521 housing units: 80.5% built in 1939 or earlier, 92.8% before 1980, and just 1.1% since 2010. Two-unit buildings hold 46.2% of those units, three- and four-unit buildings 34.1%, and single-family detached houses 10.2%; buildings of 50 or more account for under 1%. Owners occupy 51.3% of occupied homes, a higher share than the citywide 34.2%.

Porches carry the most wear

The front porch was part of the award-winning 771 Broadway renovation, and on any porch the horizontal parts, such as floorboards, rail caps and stair treads, hold water longer than vertical siding does. That is why porch parts can need wood repair and fresh primer before the walls behind them do. The exterior painting page covers how that prep is sequenced.

Two households, one exterior

With 46.2% of units in two-unit buildings, a single exterior may belong to two condo owners, or to one owner with a tenant upstairs or down. Agreeing on color, scope and how the cost is split before the work begins saves a stalled project. Condo associations and shared decisions are covered on the condo painting page.

Nearly every unit falls under lead rules

With 92.8% of Tract 3504's units built before 1980, paid paint work on nearly any building in that tract falls under EPA's lead-safe certification rule for pre-1978 housing. That affects inside jobs as much as outside ones; see our lead-safe painting page for what containment and cleanup involve.

Interiors with a century of coats

In a building from 1899 or earlier, door casings, window stools and stair parts may hold many layers of paint. Before refinishing, it helps to know whether the goal is a smooth new coat over sound old paint or a strip-back of failing layers. Our interior painting page explains the difference.