Churches

First Baptist Church, Boston

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The First Baptist Church in Boston, at the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Clarendon Street in the Back Bay, as seen around 1890-1901. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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The church in 2015:

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The First Baptist Church was one of many prominent Boston churches that relocated to the Back Bay in the late 1800s, although this building wasn’t originally built for them.  It was designed by Henry Hobson Richardson, whose later works would include Trinity Church a few blocks away at Copley Square.  The top of the tower features carvings by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, who also designed the Statue of Liberty.  The building was completed in 1875 for Brattle Street Church, a Unitarian church that had previously been located where City Hall is today.  However, the church didn’t last long here; they disbanded in 1876 and sold their new building to the First Baptist Church in 1882.  They are one of the oldest Baptist congregations in the country, dating back to 1665, and they are still located here on Commonwealth Avenue over 130 years later.

Trinity Church, Boston (2)

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Another view of Trinity Church at Copley Square, taken around 1909. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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The scene in 2015:

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As mentioned in the previous post, Trinity Church has been a prominent landmark at Copley Square since its completion in 1877, and this scene shows the view from in front of the Boston Public Library facing east across Copley Square and down Boylston Street.  It is essentially the opposite direction of the photos in this post, which were taken from the steps of Trinity Church. The church itself is still standing, but not much else from the first photo survives today.  The original MIT campus, seen in the distance on the left side of Boylston Street, is gone; the school relocated across the river to Cambridge a few years after the first photo was taken.  The other buildings behind the church to the left and right have also since been replaced with modern skyscrapers, so today the only other buildings that remain are the ones on the far left on Boylston Street, which were featured in this post.

Trinity Church, Boston (1)

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Trinity Church at Copley Square in Boston, around 1906. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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Copley Square in 2015:

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Trinity Church has been the defining feature at Copley Square since it was completed in 1877, and over the years it has remained the one constant in this scene.  It was designed by Henry Hobson Richardson, and its architecture helped to spark the Richardsonian Romanesque style that was popular in the late 1800s, especially in the Northeast. The congregation itself is much older than the church building, though; the Episcopalian parish was established in 1733, and for many years it was located on Summer Street.  However, the Great Boston Fire of 1872 destroyed the building, along with the homes of many of the church members.  Many began relocating to the newly-developed Back Bay, so Trinity Church, along with many other city churches, moved as well.

Today, the church still stands essentially unaltered from its original appearance, even as the city has grown up around it.  Behind the church is the old John Hancock Building, now known as the Berkeley Building.  It was completed in 1947, and in 1976 its much taller successor, the current John Hancock Tower, was completed just to the right of the church.  The base of the tower is less than 100 feet from the church, and its construction actually caused substantial damage to the church by disrupting the soil and groundwater levels.  The tower later had other design faults, including problems with the 4′ x 11′ glass windows detaching from the building and falling to the streets below; the problem was eventually resolved by replacing all 10,344 windows, and thankfully there were no injuries from falling glass.

Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Boston

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The Cathedral Church of St. Paul on Tremont Street in Boston, around 1900-1910. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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The building in 2015:

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This historic church was built in 1819 as St. Paul’s Church, making it the third Episcopal congregation in the city after Old North Church and Trinity Church.  It was designed in the Greek Revival style by Alexander Parris, whose other works in the Boston area include the United First Parish Church in Quincy as well as Quincy Market in Boston.  All three of these buildings still stand today, and all of them clearly show the Greek Revival influence of Parris’s work.

Only a few years after the first photo was taken, the church became the cathedral for the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, and it has served in that role ever since, even as the buildings around it have grown taller over the years.  As of the 2015 photo, the church was under renovation, which explains the construction area in front.  The most obvious change to the exterior, though, is the design on the pediment.  The church’s original design called for a relief design of Paul preaching to King Agrippa II, but it never came about.  Instead, in 2013, the church added the nautilus shell design with the bright blue background, which looks completely out of place on a 196 year old Greek Revival church.  As one Episcopal priest put it, “it looks more like the entrance to a fancy seafood restaurant than a cathedral.”

Copley Square, Boston (2)

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Copley Square as seen from in front of the New Old South Church in Boston, in 1893. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

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Copley Square in 2015:

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The first photo shows Copley Square as it appeared only about 20 years after this section of Boston was developed.  In the second half of the 19th century, the Back Bay was transformed from a polluted marsh to one of the city’s premier neighborhoods.  Many of the city’s important cultural institutions moved here, with many of them surrounding the Copley Square area, including the New Old South Church on the left, the Trinity Church in the center, and the Museum of Fine Arts on the right.  Also under construction, but just out of view of the camera on the right, was the main branch of the Boston Public Library.

Today, the Copley Square area has seen some significant changes from the 19th century.  It remains the focal point of the Back Bay, but what started as neighborhoods of Victorian rowhouses evolved into low-rise commercial buildings, and eventually modern skyscrapers, especially in the area south of Boylston Street.  The two churches from the 1893 photo are still standing, but all of the other buildings are gone, including the Museum of Fine Arts, which moved to a larger facility further down Huntington Avenue in the early 1900s.  The old building was demolished, and replaced in 1912 with the Copley Plaza Hotel, which still stands today.

The most prominent new building in the 2015 scene is the John Hancock Tower, which was completed in 1976 and is the tallest building in New England.  Beyond it, near the center of the photo, is the 1947 Berkeley Building, which is also known as the Old John Hancock Building.  Together, these skyscrapers, along with the ones seen facing the other direction in this post, make up Boston’s High Spine, a string of skyscrapers extending west from downtown Boston, roughly along the Boylston Street and the Massachusetts Turnpike.

Arlington Station, Boston

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The entrance to the Arlington subway station, taken from the Boston Public Garden in front of the Arlington Street Church, on March 17, 1937. Image courtesy of the City of Boston Archives.

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The scene in 2015:

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When the present-day Green Line subway tunnel was built in 1897, it only went as far west as Arlington Street; from here, the trolleys came to the surface (as seen in this post) and traveled along the center of Boylston Street through the Back Bay.  However, in 1914 the subway was extended west to Kenmore Square, and from here the closest stations were either a third of a mile to the east at Boylston, or an equal distance to the west at Copley Square.  This gap was resolved in 1921 when Arlington station opened here, with the original entrance being located in the Public Garden at the corner of Arlington and Boylston Streets.

The station has been renovated over the years, and the Public Garden entrance no longer exists, but many of the surrounding buildings from nearly 80 years ago are still standing.  The most prominent is the 1861 Arlington Street Church, which is partially blocked in both photos by the back of a statue and monument honoring William Ellery Channing, a Unitarian minister who was once the pastor of the congregation that later built the church.  Many of the buildings along Boylston Street in the distance are also still there today, but the skyline behind them has dramatically increased; some of the skyscrapers visible today include the old John Hancock Building, the new John Hancock Tower, and the Prudential Tower.