Commercial Buildings Archives - Page 74 of 76

Corner of Blackstone and Hanover Streets, Boston

January 22, 2016November 21, 2013 by Derek Strahan

The corner of Blackstone Street and Hanover Street, in 1956. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.

The same corner in 2011:

There’s something rather depressing about comparing these two photos – the bustling marketplace, contrasted with the shuttered storefronts and empty streets. However, the appearance neighborhood as a whole has improved significantly since 1956 – the first photo was actually taken right in front of the Central Artery – the massive elevated highway that was eventually replaced by the much-maligned yet more aesthetically pleasing Big Dig. Where I was standing to take the 2011 photo is right about where the highway ran through – if I had taken the photo 10 years earlier, the buildings in the foreground would’ve been barely visible.

I hadn’t seen the 1956 photo before taking this photo; what drew me to the building was the fading 19th century advertisements still visible on the bricks. The two most prominent are for Bostonia Cigars (top and right-hand side), and W.P.B. Brooks & Co. Furniture Carpets &c. I couldn’t find out much about either company, but it appears both from the appearance of the advertisements and also some quick online searches about the companies that they existed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The building itself, which was constructed around 1835, is actually the same building that has the Boston Stone mounted on its wall, on the opposite side of where this photo was taken. Behind it is the Blackstone Block, a rare group of buildings from the 18th and 19th century that still maintains the original 1600’s street network. It is completely surrounded by much newer construction, but it is a small enclave of historic structures. On the opposite side of this area is one of Boston’s oldest buildings, the home of the Union Oyster House.

This building itself actually used to have more floors, but at some point before the 1956 photo it was trimmed down to just three. However, recent photos of this same building taken in the past year have shown that a couple more floors have actually been added on to the top of it, which would suggest that its future is brighter than the boarded up storefronts and deserted streets would seem to suggest.

Buckman Tavern, Lexington, Massachusetts

April 11, 2024November 12, 2013 by Derek Strahan

The Buckman Tavern in Lexington, between 1890 and 1901. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

Between 1910 and 1920. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

In 2013:

This building, located just to the east of the Lexington Green, was built around 1710 by Benjamin Muzzy. His son John operated it as a tavern for many years, and the tavern was eventually acquired by John Buckman after his marriage to John’s granddaughter Ruth Stone in 1768.

It was during Buckman’s time here that the tavern gained attention as the site where many of Lexington’s militiamen gathered on the morning of April 19, 1775, just before the Battle of Lexington. This battle—really more of a small skirmish—occurred directly in front of the tavern on the Green, and it marked the start of the American Revolution. There was at least one bullet that passed through the front door of the tavern, and later in the day there were two wounded British soldiers who were brought here, and one of them died here in the tavern.

After the battle, John Buckman continued to operate this tavern until his death in 1792. Two years later, it was acquired by Rufus Merriam, who had witnessed the battle nearly 20 years earlier as a 13-year-old boy. He later became postmaster, and the town’s post office was located here starting in 1813, but the building does not appear to have been used as a tavern for much longer after that.

The property would remain in the Merriam family for many years, and it was eventually acquired by the town of Lexington in 1913. The interior was subsequently restored to its colonial-era appearance, and the old tavern is now leased by the Lexington Historical Society, which operates it as a museum.

2023 update: I have added some photos from the interior of the tavern, which were taken during a May 2023 visit:

*The room in the northwestern corner of the ground floor*

*The front entryway. On the left side, behind the plexiglass, is the original front door, with a yellow arrow pointing to the bullet hole.*

*The tap room, where the militiamen gathered prior to the battle.*

Long Wharf, Boston

January 22, 2016November 12, 2013 by Derek Strahan

Long Wharf in Boston, around 1910. Image courtesy of Boston Public Library.

Long Wharf around 1930. Image courtesy of Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.

The same view in 2006:

Boston’s Long Wharf was originally much longer than it is now, although the wharf didn’t get shorter – the city grew outwards. At the beginning of the 18th century, a longer wharf was needed to extend further into the harbor, in order to accomodate deeper oceangoing ships. Originally, it started where Faneuil Hall is today, but as time went on, the city expanded by filling in Boston Harbor, sometimes with dirt and rocks, and sometimes with sunken ships and construction debris. Either way, the city ended up filling in much of the space between Long Wharf and other wharves, and the city built up around it. In the 1930’s, the wharf was much the same as it is today, but at the time this part was used by the United Fruit Company, hence the cargo ships. Today, the cargo ships are gone, replaced by ferries to other parts of Boston and surrounding communities. Some of the older buildings remain, including the granite 1848 Custom House Block, which is visible on the far left of both photos. The cargo ships in the two photos, however, do not exist anymore. I don’t know what happened to the Vera, the steamer in the first photo, but a ship of the same name was sunk by a German U-boat in World War I. The same fate definitely did happen to the ship in the 1930 photo, the Oriskany, though; it was sunk by a U-boat in 1945 off the coast of England.

Union Oyster House, Boston

January 22, 2016November 11, 2013 by Derek Strahan

Union Oyster House in Boston, sometime in the 19th century. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library:

The historic building around 1898. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library:

In 1930, courtesy of Boston Public Library:

Sometime between 1934 and 1956. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.

The Union Oyster House in 2010:

The above four photos show over 100 years of the history of the oldest restaurant in the United States, the Union Oyster House in Boston. Although the restaurant opened in 1826, the building itself is far older, having been built around 1704. The second floor was once used as the publishing office of the Massachusetts Spy in the 1770’s, and in 1796 the future King Louis Philippe of France lived in exile, also on the second floor. Since becoming a restaurant, the Union Oyster House (originally Atwood & Bacon Oyster House, as seen in the 1898 photo) has served many notable patrons, including Daniel Webster, John F. Kennedy, and other members of the Kennedy family.

Massasoit House, Springfield, Mass

December 21, 2022September 23, 2013 by Derek Strahan

The Massasoit House in Springfield, around 1882. Image from Springfield Illustrated by James D. Gill (1882)

The same scene around 1908, with the stone railroad arch in the distance. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The same scene in 2017:

This scene on Main Street in Springfield was prime real estate when the first two photos were taken. The hotel building in those photos, the Massasoit House, opened in 1843, right next to the railroad depot (the building partially hidden by a tree in the right-center of the 1882 photo), just four years after the railroad came to Springfield. It was the perfect place for a hotel, because the railroad depot made this location the transportation hub of the city, and the building was soon expanded, first with a wooden wing to the south along Main Street in 1847, and then a brick wing to the rear of the original building in 1853. Then, in 1857 the wooden section here on Main Street was demolished and rebuilt in brick. The first two photos show the original 1843 section of the hotel, which stands in the distance in the center of the photos. On the left side of both photos is the 1857 expansion, with its Italianate-style architecture.

With these additions, the Massasoit House had 130 guest rooms. It was one of the premier hotels in the region, and over the years it had many prominent visitors. Among these were authors such as Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Civil War generals William T. Sherman and George B. McClellan; abolitionist John Brown; prominent politicians such as Henry Clay, Jefferson Davis, Stephen Douglas, William Seward, and Daniel Webster; and at least four US presidents: Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt’s visit occurred right around the time that the first photo was taken, when he and his first wife Alice spent their wedding night here in 1880.

Also around the time that the first photo was taken, the Massasoit House hosted a series of meetings that helped to establish many of the important rules of football. This sport had become popular in the post-Civil War era, especially in Ivy League schools, but there were few standardized rules; some schools played a sport that was similar to modern soccer, while others had rules that were similar to rugby. Because of the need for unified rules, delegates from various schools gathered here at the Massasoit House in 1876 to iron out the details. The result was the adoption of 61 new rules, which helped form the basis for modern American football. Similar meetings would occur here on a regular basis through 1882, giving Springfield a strong claim to having been the birthplace of modern football, in addition to its more famous role as the birthplace of basketball.

In the meantime, the exterior of the hotel saw few changes between the 1882 and 1908 photos. However, within a few years it would undergo dramatic changes. In 1912, the Main Street façade of the building was rebuilt with a Classical Revival design, as shown in the present-day scene. It would remain a hotel until 1926, and then the building was again altered. The hotel rooms were converted into offices, and in 1929 the Paramount Theater was added behind the building. It was one of the finest movie theaters in the area during its heyday, but by the 1960s it was in decline. It was later renamed the Julia Sanderson Theater, and then in 1999 it became the Hippodrome nightclub.

Today, despite the many additions and alterations over the years, portions of the old 19th century hotel still stand behind the newer façade, although it is hard to tell in this scene. In recent years, the building has seen only sporadic use, aside from the ground floor storefronts along Main Street, but it nonetheless stands as an important landmark in downtown Springfield. As was the case nearly 180 years ago, it still enjoys a close proximity to the railroad station, being just a short walk away from the newly-restored Union Station. This building has likewise been the subject of revitalization plans, although none of these have quite come to fruition yet.

One thing lacking in the 1882 photo is the iconic stone arch, which wasn’t built until 1890. It helped to alleviate congestion on Main Street by elevating the railroad, and it also coincided with the opening of a new Union Station just a short walk away on Lyman Street. By the 1908 photo, the railroad arch is there, and the scene captures an interesting combination of transportation modes. Along with the railroad in the distance, it shows trolleys alongside a roughly equal number of automobiles and horse-drawn carriages, during the period of transition from draft animals to internal combustion engines. Today, as seen in the 2017 photo, buses have replaced the trolleys, and automobiles clearly won out over horses; not a single horse-drawn carriage is to be seen on Main Street anymore.

Hotel Worthy, Springfield

February 9, 2018September 23, 2013 by Derek Strahan

The Hotel Worthy, at the corner of Main and Worthington in Springfield, around 1908. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The building in 2017:

Unlike many of the other views of downtown Springfield from the turn of the last century, almost nothing has changed in this scene. Taken from the corner of Main and Worthington, with Worthington to the left and Main to the right, most of the buildings in this photo have survived. The only exception is the building to the immediate right of the Hotel Worthy, which is now a public square. The historic hotel itself is now an apartment building, and the buildings beyond it to the left down Worthington Street now house a variety of bars and restaurants. One of these, Smith’s Billiards, has actually been open since before the 1908 photo was taken, and it is supposedly the oldest pool hall in the United States.