Derek Strahan

Aside from running the Lost New England blog, Derek Strahan is the author of two books: Lost Springfield, Massachusetts and New England Then and Now, along with being the host of the Western Mass History podcast. Derek is a graduate of Westfield State University, with degrees in English and Regional Planning, and he currently works as a land use and environment planner in Western Massachusetts. Derek also serves on the board of directors of the Springfield Preservation Trust, and he lives in Western Massachusetts with his wife Melissa and their two sons.

Matthews Arena, Boston

November 4, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The Matthews Arena on St. Botolph Street in Boston, sometime during the 1920s. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

The building in 2015:

Here’s a question that would stump a lot of people: What is the oldest professional sports venue in Boston? The logical answer, of course, is Fenway Park, which opened in 1912. However, less than a mile away from Fenway Park on the other side of the Back Bay Fens is the Matthews Arena, which was completed two years earlier as Boston Arena. Over the years, this seemingly nondescript building has been used for various sporting events, political rallies, concerts, and other major events. Both Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt held rallies here, and boxers such as Jack Dempsey and Joe Louis participated in matches here.

Many professional sports teams have had Boston Arena as their home arena; the Boston Bruins played their first home game here in 1924, and they remained here until the completion of the Boston Garden in 1928. Later on, several minor league hockey teams played here, and from 1972-1973 the New England Whalers, later the Hartford Whalers and now the Carolina Hurricanes, played here. The Boston Celtics also played here from their founding in 1946 until 1955, when they began playing all of their home games at Boston Garden.

Over the years, the arena has undergone some substantial changes, both outside and inside. After several major renovations, the original exterior windows were bricked up, and the ornate entrance to the left has been replaced by a much simpler arch. As built, it only had one level of seating, but the balcony was added in 1926, and today the it has a capacity of 6,000 for basketball and almost 5,000 for hockey, which is still a respectable capacity for a century-old arena. Northeastern University has used it for their athletic teams since 1930, and they purchased it in 1979 and later renamed it the Matthews Arena in 1982. Today, it is used by their Division I hockey and basketball teams, and it is among the oldest indoor hockey arenas in the world.

Blandford Street Incline, Boston

November 2, 2015 by Derek Strahan

Facing east on Commonwealth Avenue toward Kenmore Square, with the Blandford Street Incline in the foreground, on January 3, 1933. Image courtesy of the City of Boston Archives.

The same location in 1943. Image courtesy of the City of Boston Archives.

The view in 2015:

As mentioned in this post, trolley cars once entered and exited the subway from an incline in the median of Commonwealth Avenue just east of Kenmore Square. However, in 1932 the tunnel was extended a little to the west, with one branch emerging here, at the present-day Boston University campus. The first photo shows the incline shortly after it opened, and not much had changed ten years later when the second one was taken.

The most obvious change in the first two photos is the signs – by 1943 Kenmore Square had become home to many large advertisements, including ones for Dawson’s Pale Ale and Lager, Socony, the Hotel Kenmore, and Gulf. Several of these signs were easily visible from Fenway Park, with the Gulf sign in particular being prominent in photographs of the park from that era. Another sign in the foreground indicates that Park Street is a mere nine minutes away, which either suggests that the trolleys ran much faster than they do now, or that the Boston Elevated Railway was being a little generous in their estimates.

The second photo also reveals a largely forgotten piece of Boston history; the trolley coming up from the tunnel has “National League Park” as its destination. Long before the Red Sox, the Boston Braves were the city’s original Major League Baseball team, and from 1915 to 1952, they played about a mile up Commonwealth Avenue from here. After the team moved to Milwaukee for the 1953 season, the old stadium was purchased by Boston University and converted into Nickerson Field, with some of the original structure still standing today.

In the 2015 scene, the subway incline hasn’t changed much; even the poles supporting the overhead wires appear to be the same ones from the first two photos. To the left, the Boston University campus has continued to expand, and today several of BU’s buildings are visible here. In the distance, many of the buildings in Kenmore Square are still standing, and although none of the 1940s signs still exist, Kenmore Square is now home to arguably the city’s most famous sign, which appears to be located at the same spot as the old Socony sign. This Citgo sign is visible over the Green Monster at Fenway Park, and has been identified with the Boston Red Sox ever since it was first constructed in 1965.

Kenmore Square, Boston

October 29, 2015 by Derek Strahan

Facing east in Kenmore Square, with Beacon Street to the left and Commonwealth Avenue to the right, on November 14, 1911. Image courtesy of the City of Boston Archives.

Kenmore Square in 2015:

The area that makes up Kenmore Square today was originally Sewall’s Point, on the edge of a large tidal marsh along the Charles River. These photos were taken right about where the shoreline once was when European settlers first arrived in 1630, and there was no dry land from here until Boston Common, around a mile and a half away. This “back bay” of Boston remained relatively unchanged for nearly 200 years, and the site of Kenmore Square, which technically wasn’t even part of Boston at the time, remained undeveloped.

Things started to change in 1821, when the Mill Dam was built across the Back Bay from here to Boston Common. The idea was to use the tide to power factories in the area, and although that aspect of it was a failure, the dam was also used as a toll road. Later in the 19th century, when the Back Bay was filled in, the road on the old dam became Beacon Street. The original dam was never actually dismantled, so the wooden structure is still buried under the road today.

Once the landfill projects were completed around 1900, this area became the intersection of three major roads: Beacon Street, Commonwealth Avenue, and Brookline Avenue. The houses along Commonwealth Avenue were primarily built in the 1890s, and within the next few decades larger commercial buildings opened here. The first was the 1897 Hotel Buckminster, which is located just behind where these photos were taken.

In the past century, Kenmore Square has not undergone drastic changes. Many of the houses along Commonwealth Avenue are still standing, as are some of the commercial buildings to the left. Today, the square is probably best known for its association with the Boston Red Sox. Fenway Park, which was under construction when the first photo was taken, is less than 300 yards to the right along Brookline Avenue, and the large Citgo sign that is prominently visible from the park is just out of view to the left, on top of Barnes & Noble building on the far left.

Kenmore Subway Incline, Boston

October 28, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The subway incline at Kenmore Square on October 2, 1914. Image courtesy of the City of Boston Archives.

The scene in 2015:

When Boston’s first subway tunnel opened in 1897, it extended as far west as the Boston Public Garden, where trolleys came to the surface and traveled west along Boylston Street. However, because of the traffic congestion, the tunnel was extended a little over a mile to Kenmore Square, with cars surfacing just east of the square in the median of Commonwealth Avenue. From here, the trolley lines split and either continued on Commonwealth Avenue (today’s B branch), or turned onto Beacon Street (today’s C branch). The first photo was taken a day before the line officially opened in 1914, and the trolley car has a “Special Car” sign on top of it. Less visible on the side of the car is a poster that reads “The Boylston Street Subway will open Saturday,” which was October 3. The first photo was taken just to the left of the one in the previous post, probably only a few years later.

This subway incline ended up being used for just 18 years. In 1932, the tunnel was extended under Kenmore Square, where it split into today’s B and C branches of the Green Line before surfacing just west of the square. The original incline was closed off, and the Commonwealth Avenue Mall reverted back to its pre-1914 appearance. Today, the only remaining trace of it is the arch in the distance, which once formed the top of the tunnel.

Commonwealth Avenue, Boston

October 27, 2015 by Derek Strahan

Looking east on Commonwealth Avenue from near Kenmore Square, around 1910-1914. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

Commonwealth Avenue in 2015:

When the first photo was taken, the Kenmore section of Boston was still being developed. The apartment building on the right, which is missing in the first photo, was built in 1916, and the other houses in the photo aren’t much older. These late Victorian-era homes were built in the late 1890s, around the same time as the Hotel Somerset, which can be seen in the distance in the lower center of the photos. To the left is the median of Commonwealth Avenue, which was part of the original design of the Back Bay to have a wide avenue with a large, landscaped central median. Although today Commonwealth Avenue has one way traffic on each side of the median, this apparently wasn’t the case in the early 1900s; the first photo shows traffic traveling in both directions on what is now the eastbound side of the road.

Around 100 years later, most of the buildings from the first photo are still standing today. The houses to the right now have stores on the ground floors, but despite this there haven’t been any drastic alterations. As mentioned in the previous post, the Hotel Somerset is still standing on the other side of the elevated Charlesgate, but it was converted into condominiums in the 1980s. To the left in the median, part of the old subway portal is visible in the 2015 photo. This section of the subway opened in 1914, probably not long after the first photo was taken, with the trolleys coming to the surface at this spot in the median before crossing Kenmore Square. This portal has since been closed off, but the arch at the top is still above ground.

Hotel Somerset, Boston

October 27, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The Hotel Somerset at the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Charlesgate East in Boston, around 1910-1920. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The building in 2015:

When this historic building was completed in 1897, it was at the very edge of the city. There were parts of Boston further west of here, such as today’s Fenway/Kenmore neighborhood, but at that point there was very little development going on. Even the 1898 city atlas didn’t cover further west of here, and it shows that many of the building lots around the hotel were still vacant.

Although the Hotel Somerset was initially surrounded by vacant lots, the city soon grew up around it, as the first photo shows. It was a prominent city hotel, with notable guests such as The Beatles, who stayed here during their visit to Boston in 1966, as well as visiting baseball teams, since Fenway Park is just a quarter mile away. Ted Williams also stayed here during the baseball season, renting Room 231 for many years.

In the century since the first photo was taken, many of the surroundings have changed. The Massachusetts Turnpike passes within 50 feet of the building on the other side, and on this side an elevated roadway crosses Commonwealth Avenue, with an off-ramp on the right side of the photo in front of the building. The hotel itself was converted to condominiums in the 1980s, but from the outside it still doesn’t look much different from the first photo.