Buildings Archives - Page 243 of 327

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After several major renovations, the original exterior windows were bricked up, and the ornate entrance to the left has been replaced by a much simpler arch.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.

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.

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.

Back Street, Boston (2)

October 26, 2015 by Derek Strahan

Looking east on Back Street in Boston from Hereford Street, probably in 1907. Image courtesy of the City of Boston Archives.

Back Street in 2015:

These photos show the scene only a block further down Back Street from the ones in this post, and the old photo here was probably taken on the same day as the other one. As mentioned in the other post, Back Street is a narrow alley that is used to access the rear of the houses along the north side of Beacon Street. When the first photo was taken, Back Street was the very northern end of the Back Bay, with only a flimsy-looking wooden guardrail separating the street from the Charles River.

Over time, this has changed, with the first change coming soon after the photo was taken. In 1910, the Charles River Esplanade was completed along the Charles River, creating a long, narrow strip of public parkland between Back Street and the Charles River. However, later in the 20th century much of the original park was taken to build Storrow Drive, a parkway connecting downtown Boston to the western parts of the city. It isn’t visible because of the dumpster in the foreground, but Storrow Drive runs right next to the street, with only a low chain link fence separating the two. On the other side of Storrow Drive, the Esplanade has been expanded, and can be accessed from Back Street via several pedestrian bridges.

Back Street, Boston

October 25, 2015 by Derek Strahan

Looking east along Back Street in Boston from Massachusetts Avenue, on October 14, 1907. Image courtesy of the City of Boston Archives.

Back Street in 2015:

When the Back Bay was filled and developed into a residential neighborhood in the late 1800s, the houses on the north side of Beacon Street were only a few feet away from the Charles River, separated only by the narrow Back Street, which serves as an alley to access the back of the houses. Within a few years after the first photo was taken, though, this area began to change. In 1910, the Charles River Esplanade was completed as a public park along the banks of the Charles River, and the first photo was probably taken as part of the city’s preliminary work on the project.

By the late 1940s, traffic congestion in Boston required some of the land to be used to build a parkway, so in 1951 Storrow Drive was completed as a six lane, automobile-only road with low clearances and no shoulders. Most of the original parkland was lost, so more land was reclaimed from the Charles River on the other side of Storrow Drive. As a result, this section of Back Street is now over 250 feet from the Charles River, which isn’t even visible from the ground level anymore. Many of the 19th century rowhouses are still standing here, but the view from the north-facing windows has been drastically changed now that they have a highway in their backyards.