19 Brewster Street Condominium (Unit F) | Formerly Silva Cottages
19 Brewster Street. [2010, Dunlap]
Text last updated on 2 January 2017 | An extremely large cottage colony stood here in the early 20th century, running nearly 230 feet along Brewster Street and more than 350 feet along Priscilla Alden Road. The property has since been subdivided into six parcels: Nos. 15, 17, and 19 Brewster Street, and 6, 8, and 18 Priscilla Alden Road. These were known as the Crowell cottages in the 1930s, after Edgar Crowell and his wife, Elizabeth (Shraff) Crowell; then as the Bodian cottages, after Albert M. Bodian and his wife, Betty L. Bodian. They sold the parcel to John R. McKibbin and Thomas B. Rutherford in 1965, who sold it in 1967 to Albert M. Silva. The Silva family owned the property until 1999, when they sold it to Edgewater Ltd., headed by Thomas J. Bombardier, one of the developers of Telegraph Hill in the West End. Edgewater converted the property into a six-unit condo.
This is one of the happier looking buildings in town, but it also hides a sad secret. On the night of Wednesday, 2 June 1965, 24-year-old David Frank Leone of Newark, N.J., hanged himself from a beam in the bathroom in this cottage, which was being rented by Bodians to David McGivney of Quincy. McGivney told police he had discovered Leone’s body on returning to the cottage shortly before 11:45 p.m. Dr. Daniel H. Hiebert pronounced Leone dead on the scene and the cause was ultimately given as asphyxia. The Advocate did not seem to have followed the story, but the Bodians sold the cottages six months later.
¶ Republished on 13 November 2023.
19 Brewster Street on the Town Map, showing property lines.