Architecture

Bowdoin Square Baptist Church, Boston

by

The Bowdoin Square Baptist Church in Boston, around 1860. Image taken by Josiah Johnson Hawes, courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

825_1860c bpl

Bowdoin Square in 2015:

825_2015
This scene shows Bowdoin Square facing the opposite direction from the one in the previous post, facing east on Cambridge Street toward Government Center. The most prominent building in the first photo is the Bowdoin Square Baptist Church, a Gothic Revival style church that was built in 1840. Its design is very similar to several other churches that were built in Boston around the same time, including the old Trinity Church on Summer Street and the nearby Bowdoin Street Congregational Church, which is still standing today as the Saint John the Evangelist Mission Church.

The church here at Bowdoin Square gained some notoriety in 1885, when the congregation split after the pastor, William W. Downs, was found in what was alleged to be a “compromising position” with a woman from his church. The scandal was well-publicized in newspapers across the country, and the church split into two factions, with one supporting his removal and the other believing his claims that he was the victim of a conspiracy. He was eventually dismissed from his position, and the church closed, but he maintained his innocence and several years later won a lawsuit against his accusers, with the jury awarding him $10,000 in damages.

Following the Downs scandal, the church became the Bowdoin Square Baptist Tabernacle, and it was extensively remodeled on the exterior and interior in 1898. However, the church sold the building in 1916 to the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company. Around 1930, they demolished the church and the neighboring Coolidge Building to the right, in order to build their new Boston headquarters, which is still standing in the 2015 photo. None of the other buildings remain from the 1860 photo, either; most of this section of Boston was demolished in the 1950s and 1960s as part of the West End and Government Center urban renewal projects.

Parkman House, Boston

by

The Parkman House at Bowdoin Square in Boston, in 1880. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

824_1880 bpl

Bowdoin Square in 2015:

824_2015
The Bowdoin Square area was once a prominent residential neighborhood, and these two attached granite houses were built around 1816 by Samuel Parkman, a wealthy merchant who hired Charles Bulfinch to design them. Samuel Parkman’s daughter Sarah lived in the house to the left, along with her husband, Edward Blake, Jr., who died in 1817, shortly after they moved in. Sarah lived here until her death in 1847. Parkman himself lived in the house to the right until he died in 1824, and another daughter, Elizabeth, lived here with her husband, Robert Gould Shaw, until around 1840.

Both the Parkman and Shaw families were prominent in Boston’s 19th century upper class. Samuel Parkman’s grandson was Francis Parkman, a noted author and historian, and Robert Gould Shaw was one of the wealthiest men in the city. When he and his wife left this house in 1840, they moved to the other side of Beacon Hill, to a house overlooking Boston Common at the corner of Beacon and Joy Streets. By 1846, he had an estimated net worth of a million dollars, much of which he had inherited from his father-in-law. Shaw’s grandson and namesake, Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, would go on to achieve fame as the commanding officer of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, one of the first all-black units to fight in the Civil War.

The two houses stood here at Bowdoin Square until the early 1900s, when they were demolished and replaced with a commercial building. This building is no longer standing either, nor is anything else from the 1880 photo. The entire West End section of the city, aside from a few buildings, was demolished in the late 1950s as part of an urban renewal project, similar to what was done at nearby Scollay Square around the same time, Even the road networks were changed, and today Bowdoin Square bears essentially no resemblance to its earlier appearance.

Washington and Court Streets, Boston

by

The northwest corner of Washington and Court Streets in downtown Boston in 1891. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

822_1891 bpl

The scene in 2015:

822_2015
Boston’s first skyscraper was the Ames Building, which was completed in 1893 and was the tallest building in the city aside from the steeple of the Central Congregational Church. The first photo was taken shortly before these buildings were demolished to make way for the Ames Building. One of them in the distance to the left appears to already be in the process of demolition, and several of the others feature reminders of their impending doom, including a sign on the corner that reads “Our entire stock to be sold at a sacrifice. Summer and winter underwear selling at half price.” Further down Washington Street to the right, another sign reads, “Building coming down. Carpets & furniture at your own price. No offer refused.”

The Ames Building was designed by the Boston architectural firm of Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, and its design reflects the older Romanesque Revival style, which was popular in the 1870s and 1880s, but had largely fallen out of fashion by the turn of the century. In other ways, though, the building represented a transition between the old and the new. Two major limits to early skyscrapers were stairs and structural support; buildings beyond a certain height were impractical because of the amount of climbing to reach the top and the thickness of the walls that would be necessary to support the weight of the upper floors. To solve the first problem, the 13-story Ames Building included modern elevator technology. However, while the 1880s saw the introduction of skyscrapers with a steel skeleton, the Ames Building was instead built with load-bearing masonry walls, which explains the thickness of the granite base. Today, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and it still stands as the second tallest load-bearing masonry building in the world, after Chicago’s Monadnock Building.

Devonshire and Water Streets, Boston

by

The northwest corner of Devonshire and Water Streets in Boston, around 1860. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

821_1860c bpl

The scene in 2015:

821_2015
Based on its architecture, the building in the first photo was probably built sometime around the 1820s to the 1840s, and by the 1860s when the photo was taken it appears to have been a place for all things paper. According to the signs, the tenant on the left was a job printing company, which was a collective term for a printer who made small items such as tickets, cards, letterheads, and other such documents. To the right was Peter C. Jones’s wholesale paper business, which he operated in Boston for many years. He had four sons, so I don’t know which one was the “& Son” that is mentioned on the sign, but it certainly was not his son Peter, Jr., who moved to Hawaii in 1857 and became a prominent businessman and politician both before and after the kingdom was acquired by the United States.

I don’t know exactly when this building was demolished. The great Boston Fire of 1872 hit this area 12 years later, but according to maps of the disaster, the fire stopped just across the street from here. If this building was still standing at that point, it probably survived the fire, but it was certainly gone by 1908, when the present-day Lawrence Building was built on the site. When completed, it housed the Federal Trust Company commercial bank on the ground floor, and professional offices such as lawyers, investment brokers, and real estate agents. Today, the historic building is still standing here at the corner of Devonshire and Water Streets.

Equitable Building, Boston

by

The Equitable Building at the corner of Milk and Devonshire Streets in Boston facing south on Devonshire Street, on June 17, 1875. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

820_1875-06-17 bpl

The view down Devonshire Street in 2015:

820_2015
Like the photo in the previous post, taken just around the corner on Milk Street, this scene shows Boston during the 100th anniversary celebration of the Battle of Bunker Hill, when many of the city’s buildings were decorated with flags and patriotic bunting. The building in the foreground here was the home of the Equitable Life Assurance Society’s Boston branch, and it was also known as the Henry H. Hyde Building, after the company’s founder. This area was devastated by the Great Boston Fire of 1872, but within a few years the city had largely rebuilt, and in 1874 Equitable opened this elegant Second Empire style building as their Boston office, in a prominent location directly across from the Post Office, which can be seen to the left in the first photo.

Based on city maps, the Equitable Building was demolished sometime between 1912 and 1938, and was replaced with the old First National Bank Building. his was, in turn, demolished in the 1970s to build One Federal Street, a 38 story skyscraper that now fills the rectangular block between Milk, Devonshire, Arch, and Federal Streets. Since this is the heart of Boston’s Financial District and the home of many of its skyscrapers, there are no surviving buildings from the 1875 photo in the 2015 scene.

 

Milk Street, Boston (2)

by

Looking west up Milk Street from Devonshire Street in Boston, on June 17, 1875. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

819_1875-06-17 bpl

Milk Street in 2015:

819_2015
When the first photo was taken, the city was celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, and these buildings on Milk Street were covered in patriotic bunting. All three of the buildings in the center of the photo were new; just three years earlier the area had been destroyed in the Great Boston Fire of 1872, as seen in the view looking down Milk Street in this post. However, the city soon rebuilt, and this area quickly became a major commercial center again.

All three of these buildings survive today, although with some alterations. The one on the left, at the corner of Milk and Hawkey Streets, is the Goddard Building. It was completed in 1873, and over the years it has been expanded, with two additional stories on top. The building to the right of it has also grown over the years. It was built on the site of Benjamin Franklin’s birthplace, and the decorative facade includes a bust of Franklin above the second story windows. The third building in the photo, on the right, was also built in 1873, at the corner of Milk and Washington Streets. It was originally the home of the Boston Transcript newspaper, which at the time was the largest circulating daily newspaper in New England. The newspaper has been defunct since 1941, but the historic building is still standing today.