If you look for signs of life at a decaying block of once-grand row houses on Wellesley Street, you’ll find little more than a pigeon. The beady-eyed bird has made its nest upon an upper window — the higher panes not yet boarded up with plywood like the lower ones, among graffiti flashes and crumbling brick.
This elegantly designed bay-and-gable building, with vines carved into the facade and arched brick entryways, has become a skeleton in the streetscape. Inside, moisture, rot and termites have laid siege to the floors, walls and windowsills, and vegetation has taken root in the dirt basement floors.