Hotels

Tremont House, Boston

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The Tremont House on Tremont Street in Boston, sometime in the 1890s. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library.

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The scene in 2014:

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The Tremont House in the first photo was built in 1829, and it holds a significant place in American history – it was the first hotel with running water and indoor plumbing. It opened to much fanfare, with mayor Josiah Quincy (of Quincy Market fame) presiding over the event. The guest list included a number of distinguished Bostonians, including Congressmen Daniel Webster and Edward Everett. Webster would go on to become one of the most influential men in 19th century America, and Everett also went on to bigger and better things, serving as governor, ambassador, senator, and Secretary of State. He gave a speech at the ceremony, and some 34 years later he would be the keynote speaker at another event – the dedication of the national cemetery at Gettysburg, although his two hour speech was overshadowed by President Lincoln’s two minute remarks.

The building stood at the corner of Tremont and Beacon Streets until 1895, and during its existence it had a number of notable guests, including Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Alexis de Tocqueville, and President Andrew Jackson. It was also where, in 1848, Abraham Lincoln, at the time a virtually unknown Illinois Congressman, stayed during a visit to Boston. Coincidentally, years later John Wilkes Booth would also stay at the hotel, not long before he assassinated Lincoln.

Central House, Boston

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The Central House on Brattle Square, Boston, in 1860.  Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library.

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The scene in 2014:

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Located next to the Quincy House, immediately to the right of the building in the 1860 photo of this post,  the Central House was at one point its own hotel, but was later absorbed into the Quincy House.  Eventually, like the rest of the Quincy House, this section was expanded to seven stories in the 1880s, although it isn’t apparent whether the existing floors were added on to, or if the brick section was entirely demolished.  In any case, the entire neighborhood is gone, along with the street network, so this photo and the other one of the Quincy House are recreated based on estimates from comparing historic and modern maps; no landmarks remain from either of the two 1860 photos.

Quincy House, Boston

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The Quincy House on Brattle Street in Boston, taken in 1860. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library.

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The scene in 2014:

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Located just as short distance from Scollay, Adams, Dock, and Faneuil Hall Squares, the Quincy House enjoyed a prominent location in downtown Boston.  The hotel was built around 1819, and was constructed of granite, only a few years before similar materials were used to build Quincy Market just a few block away.  In its heyday, it was one of the best hotels in Boston, and was also used by many different labor unions as a meeting place.

The 1860 photo, taken by photography pioneer Josiah Johnson Hawes, shows the hotel’s original appearance, before a renovation in the 1880s that added an additional three stories and a clock tower, as seen in this photo from the City of Boston Archives. However, by the 1920s the aging hotel suffered from increased competition, and closed in 1929. The building itself was demolished in 1935, less than 30 years before the entire neighborhood was taken down to build City Hall and the City Hall Plaza, as seen in the 2014 photo.

Hotel Boylston, Boston

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The Hotel Boylston, at the southeast corner of Tremont and Boylston Streets in Boston, sometime in the 1870s.  Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library.

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The scene today:

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Like the Hotel Pelham right across Tremont Street, the Hotel Boylston was built as a residential building, with the term “hotel” at the time referring to what we would today call an apartment building.  It was at a prominent location, at the corner of Boylston and Tremont Streets, at the southeast corner of Boston Common.  However, it was demolished in the 1890s and replaced with the Hotel Touraine building, which still stands today.

The Northfield Hotel, Northfield Mass

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The Northfield Hotel around 1904.  Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

Northfield

The site in 2014:

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Northfield Massachusetts was never a particularly prominent town for much of its history, but this changed after one of its residents, D.L. Moody, gained worldwide fame as a Christian evangelist.  In addition to work that he did in Chicago and overseas in England, Moody also had an impact on his hometown, opening the Northfield Seminary for Young Ladies in 1879.  This brought an increase in demand for services such as hotels, including The Northfield, which opened in 1887, just a short distance away from the Northfield Seminary.

Facing dwingling guests, the hotel closed in the 1970s and was demolished, although its well-landscaped grounds became home of the Northfield Golf Club.  A few reminders of the old hotel still exist, including the pond in the foreground, the stone wall, and the footbridge across the stream.

Cafe Martin, New York City

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Cafe Martin, at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 26th Street, New York City, around 1908. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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The scene in 2014:

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The building in the first photo was the site of the famed Delmonico’s restaurant from 1876 until 1899. Located directly across Madison Square from Madison Square Garden, it was one of several locations owned by the Delmonico family, and was considered one of the best fine dining restaurants in the country.  This building was sold in 1901, and became the Hotel Martin.  I don’t know what became of this business, but the building obviously no longer exists; based on the architecture of the current building, this was probably sometime by the 1920s.  However, most of the surrounding buildings in the 1908 photo still exist, including the building immediately to the left, which looks looks out of place in the first photo, but blends in well in the present-day photo, now that it is no longer three stories taller than its neighbors.