Buildings

Franklin Street, Boston (3)

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Looking west on Franklin Street from Devonshire Street in Boston, sometime in the late 1850s. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

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Franklin Street in 2015:

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This view of Franklin Street shows the former Tontine Crescent section of the street from the opposite direction of the photos in these posts here and here. When this area was developed by architect Charles Bulfinch in the 1790s, it was an upscale residential neighborhood. Just a few years before the first photo was taken, this curve was lined with elegant townhouses, but by the late 1850s nothing remained of Bulfinch’s design except for a few trees in the middle of the street and the curve of the street itself.

The new commercial buildings in the first photo represented Boston’s growth and development as a prominent city, but they would turn out to be short-lived. Just over a decade later, the entire area was destroyed in the Great Boston Fire of 1872. They were rebuilt within the next year or so with similar-looking buildings, and many are still standing today. The 2015 photo shows a number of these 1870s buildings, although the background is dominated by Boston’s newest skyscraper, the Millennium Tower, which was under construction in the first photo and is scheduled to be completed in the summer of 2016.

New South Church, Boston

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New South Church at the corner of Summer and Bedford Streets in Boston, around 1855-1868. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

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The scene in 2015:

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Not to be confused with the Old South Meeting House, or the New Old South Church, this church at the corner of Summer and Bedford Streets was known as the New South Church. It was octagonal in shape and made of granite, and it was designed by Charles Bulfinch, a prominent early American architect who designed a number of buildings in Boston, including the Massachusetts State House, the expanded Faneuil Hall, and Boylston Market.

When the church was completed in 1814, this neighborhood in the present-day financial district was an upscale residential area. A few block away on Franklin Street was Bulfinch’s famous Tontine Crescent, and here on Summer Street there were also a number of high-end townhouses. Daniel Webster lived in a house at the corner of Summer and High Street, just a few steps back from where these photos were taken, and although he died before the first photo was taken, this would have essentially been the view he would have seen whenever he left his house.

By the 1860s, though, Boston was running out of land, and this area was eyed for redevelopment. Most of the townhouses were taken down as the neighborhood shifted from residential to commercial, and in 1868 the New South Church was also demolished and replaced with a bank. The new building didn’t last long, though; it was destroyed in the Great Boston Fire of 1872, and the present-day Church Green Building was completed the following year. Although the historic church is long gone, its eventual replacement has become historic in its own right. Despite being in the heart of the Financial District, it has survived for nearly 150 years, and it is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Boylston Market, Boston

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Boylston Market, at the corner of Boylston and Washington Streets in Boston, around 1870. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

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The scene in 2015:

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Boylston Market was built here in 1810, and it was designed by noted architect Charles Bulfinch. It functioned as a market on the first floor, and a meeting space and performance hall on the third floor, known as Boylston Hall. Both the building and the street were named for Ward Nicholas Boylston, a Boston philanthropist who gave substantial donations to Harvard in the early 19th century. Prior to its construction, the city’s primary marketplace was Faneuil Hall, which was a considerable distance away from here. At the time, this area was in the southern end of the city, and some of its residents, including future president John Quincy Adams, formed the Boylston Market Association to built the market here

Aside from its use as a marketplace, the building was also used by organizations such as the Handel and Hadyn Society, which held concerts in the third floor hall, and the New England Anti-Slavery Society, which held conventions in the same hall. In 1859, it was expanded, and in 1870 it was moved 11 feet south away from Boylston Street. This is presumably why the building to the left in the first photo, home of the White Bear Billiard Room, has a sign that reads “Building to be Torn Down.”

Although moving the large brick building was a significant undertaking, Boylston Market was demolished just 17 years later, in 1887. It was replaced by the Boylston Building, which served much the same function as its predecessor, with retail space on the first floor and warehouse and office space on the upper floors. As seen in the 2015 photo, it is still standing today, and it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. There is at least one surviving element from the original building, though. The cupola was saved, and it now forms the steeple of the Calvary Methodist Church in the nearby town of Arlington.

Charles Street Meeting House, Boston (2)

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Looking north on Charles Street toward the Charles Street Meeting House in Boston, around 1889. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

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The scene in 2015:

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As mentioned in the previous post, this historic church was built in 1807 as the Third Baptist Church. It played a major role in the abolitionist movement in Boston, and it was later the home to the Charles Street African Methodist Episcopal Church from 1876 until 1939. It was converted into offices in the early 1980s, but from the exterior it looks essentially the same as it did over 125 years ago. It is one of the 15 landmarks that comprises the Boston African American National Historic Site on Beacon Hill.  The buildings beyond it on Charles Street haven’t changed much, either. They date back to the second half of the 19th century, and like so many other buildings in the Beacon Hill neighborhood, they have been well-preserved over the years.

Charles Street Meeting House, Boston (1)

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The Charles Street Meeting House, at the corner of Charles and Mt. Vernon Streets in Boston, around 1889. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

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The church in 2015:

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This historic church in the Beacon Hill neighborhood was built in 1807 as the Third Baptist Church. It was designed by Asher Benjamin, a New England native who was one of the leading American architects of the Federal era, and at the time it was located right along the waterfront. The building hasn’t moved in the past two centuries, but the shoreline has; Charles Street once ran along the Charles River at the western edge of the city, but after widespread landfill projects in the 19th century the church is now a considerable distance from the water.

Prior to the Civil War, this church was prominent in Boston’s abolitionist movement, and it hosted speakers such as Frederick Douglass, Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, and Sojourner Truth. After the war, though, the congregation declined, and merged with the First Baptist Church by 1876. The building was sold to the First African Methodist Episcopal Church, and became the Charles Street A.M.E. Church.

When the first photo was taken around 1889, the A.M.E. Church still owned it, and they remained here until 1939. By then, Boston’s black population had shifted away from its historic roots in Beacon Hill, and the congregation relocated to Roxbury. The building was later used as an Albanian Orthodox church and later as a Unitarian Universalist church until the late 1970s. A few years later, it was converted into offices. The interior was completely renovated, but the exterior was preserved, and today it is a part of the National Park Service’s Boston African American National Historic Site.

Beacon Street from Arlington Street, Boston

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Looking west on Beacon Street from the corner of Arlington Street, in 1870. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

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Beacon Street in 2015:

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The houses on the right side of this scene are the oldest buildings in the Back Bay, dating back even before the large-scale landfill project had begun. The origins of Beacon Street date back to 1818, when construction began on a dam across the Back Bay, which at the time was a tidal marsh connected to the Charles River. The dam used the power of the tides to operate factories nearby, but it also had an added benefit of serving as a second route in and out of Boston, by extending Beacon Street across it.

The dam, which was completed in 1821, turned out to be a failure, and by the 1850s there were plans in the works to fill the Back Bay and expand Boston’s land area. The houses here on the right side of the street were built around 1856 on land that had already been filled; they can be seen in the distance in the first photo in this post, which was taken from the top of the State House in 1857. By the time the 1870 photo above was taken just 13 years later, the landfill project was well underway, and both sides of Beacon Street had been developed as far as Dartmouth Street, three blocks in the distance.

Nearly 150 years after the first photo was taken, many of the buildings from the first photo are still standing, including most of the 1850s houses to the right. The only major change in the foreground is the pair of houses on the far right, numbered 100-102 Beacon Street. Half of the building was demolished in 1924 to build the apartment building that stands there today. The other half at 102 Beacon is still standing, although it was altered beyond recognition in 1938, when it was converted into an 18-unit apartment building with a new facade. However, the next seven houses in a row, numbered 104-116 Beacon Street, also date back to around 1856. They are all virtually identical, and 160 years later all seven are still standing, essentially unchanged on the exterior. The use of the buildings has changed, though; today, all seven, along with the neighboring properties at 102 and 118 Beacon Street, are owned by Fisher College and are used for classrooms and dormitories.

For more information on the history of these houses, see the Back Bay Houses website.