The American Unitarian Association, peopled and powered by this city’s Brahmin elite, announced its presence here in 1886 with a grand and stately headquarters at the very top of Beacon Hill, right next door to the Statehouse.
If anyone doubted the denomination’s might, its next move made it clear: In 1927, strapped for space, the Unitarians finished building a new home next to the capitol on the other side, even persuading the legislature to change the street’s numbering so they could take their address with them.
But the Unitarian Universalist Association, as the denomination is now known, is selling its headquarters building, as well as two grand homes and an office building it owns in the same neighborhood. It is leaving behind the red brick sidewalks, gas streetlamps and superrich neighbors for a section of South Boston the city has designated an “innovation district,” home to up-and-coming technology and arts businesses.
The move ”” expected to bring tens of millions of dollars to the denomination ”” puts the Unitarians in increasingly familiar company.
They are moving to an “innovation districtâ€. That sounds appropriate. The article notes that membership is flat at 160,000. That gives you some idea of where certain “main line” denominations are headed as they become more and more like the Unitarians in their practices.