The Globe is preparing to move early next year to 53 State St. , a downtown office tower where the newsroom and business department will have considerably less space than at the paper’s current Morrissey Boulevard complex. (Printing will relocate to a new plant in Taunton.) The map’s nine painstakingly carved panels, which together weigh about four tons and stand 18 feet high, are simply too big to fit in the new space.

For nearly 40 years, visitors to The Boston Globe’s Dorchester headquarters have been greeted in the lobby by an impressive two-story-tall marble relief map of New England, studded with bronze icons representing the region’s traditional industries.


Boston Globe Media Partners chief executive Mike Sheehan told National Geographic he is seeking an institution to take possession of the map — originally commissioned by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in 1953 — and display it where Bostonians can enjoy it.

“It’s a beautiful piece and a part of our heritage,” Sheehan said. “We certainly want it to be in a public place where people will see it.”

The curator of the Boston Public Library’s Norman B. Leventhal Map Center, which boasts a large collection of historic maps, expressed cautious interest in the map, saying it was a unique example of the “pictorial” style popular in the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s.

He added that the center was already searching for a signature map to display near the corridor connecting the library’s original building to the newly renovated Johnson addition at the library’s Central Branch in Copley Square, which is set to open this summer.

“We’d have to do measurements, and a lot of other people would have to weigh in, but wow, it really caught my attention,” said Ronald Grim, the curator. “The timing could be fortuitous. We were looking for something dramatic to put in our hallway when the [Johnson Building] opens, and this map would really have a commanding presence.”


A library spokeswoman cautioned that “any item that is being offered for donation to the BPL must be carefully considered, especially an item of this size. We’re interested in taking a look and learning more.”

With help from a Globe reporter and librarian, reporter Betsy Mason pieced together the history of the map for National Geographic's new “All Over the Map” blog.

The Fed hired renowned artist Austin Purves to create the map in 1953, envisioning it as the centerpiece of an opulent addition to its then-headquarters on Pearl Street. Purves likely obtained the slabs of stone from the now-defunct Vermont Marble Co.

According to an old Fed brochure Mason tracked down, the map’s bronze symbols — which include ships, gears, shoes, potatoes, lobsters, and a cranberry scoop — “represent the many forms of activity which provide income and employment for our six-state region.”

The map “stood at the top of a flight of stairs and was the focal point of the foyer of this grand building, which also had 22-foot-tall mahogany doors at its entrance and an 18-ton limestone eagle perched atop it,” Mason wrote. (No word on the fate of the eagle.)

The Fed donated the map to the Globe in 1978, when the bank moved to its current “washboard” skyscraper on Atlantic Avenue. The map appears to have been trimmed down so it would fit in the Globe’s lobby; a black-and-white photo of the map in its original spot at the Fed reveals that the original included a few extra inches of Canada to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the south.


Decades later, and despite the size reduction and a few missing bronze icons, the map remains in excellent condition. Purves’s skill and artistry are apparent in the map’s elaborate three-dimensional topographical layers, which impressionistically trace the Connecticut River Valley, White Mountains, and other features of the New England landscape.

“The details of the map’s coastline and relief must have taken Purves years to execute,” Mason wrote. “Personally, I’d love to see the map in a museum, public library, or museum (I’m looking at you, Boston Public Library), but I could also picture it in the lobby of a grand old Boston hotel, or perhaps a train station or other geographically-minded place.

“And it would seem fitting that its new home be somewhere within the map’s borders.”

The large map, which was created for the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in the early 1950s, dominates the lobby of The Boston Globe offices in Dorchester. Joanne Rathe/Globe Staff

Dan Adams can be reached at dadams@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @DanielAdams86.