Buildings Archives - Page 247 of 329

Old City Hall, Boston

January 20, 2019October 19, 2015 by Derek Strahan

Johnson Hall, which served as a courthouse and later as City Hall, on School Street around 1855-1862. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

Boston’s old City Hall, which replaced Johnson Hall, as seen in 1865. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

Old City Hall in 2015:

This site on School Street has had two different City Hall buildings, as seen in the photos above, but the history here goes back even further. From 1704 to 1748, Boston Latin School was located here, and during this time many of the Founding Fathers attended the school, including Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Robert Treat Paine. Years later, Charles Bulfinch designed a courthouse that was built here in 1810; this building, which is shown in the first photo, was used as both a county and federal courthouse in the early 19th century. From 1841 until 1862, it was Boston’s City Hall, before being demolished and replaced with a newer, larger building.

The new City Hall was completed in 1865, and was one of the first examples of Second Empire architecture in the United States. This French-inspired style would become very popular in the late 1860s and 1870s, especially in government buildings. Boston’s old post office, which was built a decade later and just a few blocks away, shares many similar features. On a much larger scale, the Old Executive Building next to the White House in Washington, DC also reflects the influence of Second Empire designs.

During its time as City Hall, this building saw the rapid growth in the city during the late 1800s and early 1900s. When it was completed, the city had fewer than 200,000 people, but by the 1950s there were over 800,000, and the city government had long since outgrown this building. The City Hall Annex, located behind this building on Court Street, was built in 1912 to accommodate more offices, but by the 1960s the city was looking to build a new City Hall. The current building was completed in 1968, and since then the old building has been extensively renovated on the inside for commercial uses, but the exterior is essentially unchanged from 150 years ago.

Post Office, Boston

December 5, 2015October 17, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The old post office at Post Office Square in Boston, around 1906-1920. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2015:

The triangular intersection of Congress, Pearl, and Milk Streets has been known as Post Office Square since 1874, with the completion of the post office seen in the first photo. The square was actually the result of the Great Boston Fire of 1872, which destroyed most of the buildings around the post office, which was under construction at the time. The small park is still there, although most of the buildings around it have changed.

The old post office was demolished to build the John W. McCormack Post Office and Courthouse, which was completed in 1933 and is still standing today. It features Art Deco architecture, and at 22 stories and 600,000 square feet it is substantially larger than its predecessor. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places, and it is still used as a federal courthouse, post office, and federal office building. Just to the right of it is the former National Shawmut Bank Building, which was built in 1906 and can be seen in both photos. At least one other building from the first photo, the 1893 International Trust Company Building, is still standing today; it is visible in the distance on the left, at the corner of Devonshire and Milk Streets.

Boston and Maine Station, Boston

March 6, 2016October 17, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The Boston and Maine Railroad station at Haymarket Square in Boston, around 1894. Image courtesy of the City of Boston Archives.

The Boston City Hospital Relief Station, on the site of the former railroad station in 1905. Image courtesy of the City of Boston Archives.

The location in 2015:

Of the eight major railroads that served Boston in the late 1800s, the Boston and Maine came the closest to the downtown area, with its depot at Haymarket Square. It was opened in 1845, and over the years Boston and Maine became the dominant railroad in northern New England, with many of its lines converging here. However, because there were four different railroads that had their own stations within a few blocks of here, the companies built North Station in 1893, about 300 yards up Canal Street from here.

The old station had been built in the early years of railroad travel, and it stood until 1897, when it was demolished to make way for a new type of rail travel. Boston’s Tremont Street Subway was the first subway tunnel in the country, and the northern entrance of the tunnel was built on the site of the station. From here, the tracks ran along the surface between Canal and Haverhill Streets, where the station platforms used to be. The only new building on the site was the Boston City Hospital Relief Station, as seen in the 1905 photo. It was built in 1902 as a branch of the Boston City Hospital, in order to provide emergency services in the downtown area, and it stood until the early 1960s.

Today, there isn’t much left from either of the first two photos. A few of the buildings on Canal Street are still standing, such as the one on the far left in both the 1891 and 1905 photos. It is barely visible on the left of the 2015 photo, above the bus in the foreground. Haymarket Square itself is completely changed, though, through a series of urban renewal projects in the 20th century. To the left is a parking garage, with the Haymarket Square subway station underneath it. On the right-hand side of the photo, the elevated Central Artery once passed through here. Built in the 1950s, it cut a swath through downtown Boston until 2003, when the highway was rerouted through the Tip O’Neill Tunnel as part of the Big Dig. The building under construction in the background is being built on land that the Central Artery once passed through.

Cocoanut Grove, Boston (4)

October 5, 2015 by Derek Strahan

One more view of the Cocoanut Grove from Shawmut Street, following the November 28, 1942 fire. Image courtesy the Boston Public Library.

The scene in 2015:

The first photo here shows almost the same scene as the one in this post, but this one was taken earlier, before the debris was cleaned off the sidewalk and the windows boarded up. Around a thousand people were in the nightclub at the time of the fire, and only about half survived. The fast-moving flames, combined with the few unlocked exits, trapped hundreds of victims in the building. Here in the dining room, the fire was largely confined to the ceiling, but many died from carbon monoxide poisoning or from the superheated air. The debris outside gives some indication of the pattern of the fire; while the flammable ceiling decorations quickly burned, other objects in the room such as chairs, artwork, and even music sheets survived relatively unscathed.

Today, the entire area has been redeveloped, and a street now crosses through where the dining room was once located. As seen in the 2015 photo, it is named Cocoanut Grove Lane, in memory of the 492 people who died here over 70 years ago.

Cocoanut Grove, Boston (3)

October 5, 2015 by Derek Strahan

Another view of the aftermath of the November 28, 1942 fire at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston, seen from the Shawmut Street entrance. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

Shawmut Street in 2015:

These two photos weren’t taken from the exact same spot, because the original one was taken from what is now a parking garage. However, the two rowhouses just beyond the Cocoanut Grove serve as a point of reference; they are the same ones still standing in the 2015 view. The Cocoanut Grove nightclub was located to the left of and behind these buildings, but they survived the fire as well as the late 20th century redevelopment of this neighborhood. I couldn’t find an exact date for their construction, but they were probably built in the first half of the 19th century, when the Bay Village section of the city was first developed.

The 1942 photo doesn’t have an exact date, but it was probably taken before the one in this post, which shows the same scene from the opposite angle. Notice how in this photo here the pile of chairs and other debris has not yet been cleaned up yet, and the windows have not been boarded up, suggesting that the photo was probably taken the morning after. The section of the building photographed here was the main dining room, which also featured a dance floor and a stage for the orchestra. Many of the 492 people who were killed in the fire died here, in part because the large plate glass windows, which could have offered an escape route for the panicked crowds, were concealed behind a layer of wood veneer on the inside.

Cocoanut Grove, Boston (2)

October 3, 2015 by Derek Strahan

Another photo of the exterior of the Cocoanut Grove nightclub, in the aftermath of the November 28, 1942 fire. This view shows the club from the Shawmut Street side of the block. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

The scene in 2015:

As explained in the previous post, the Cocoanut Grove fire was the second-deadliest single-building fire in American history. The fire completely engulfed the nightclub in just five minutes, and 492 people were killed here. The previous post shows the original section of the club, which opened in 1927 on Piedmont Street. Over time, it expanded to include many different buildings in the block, including the building seen here, as well as the older brick buildings in the distance to the left. Taken from Shawmut Street on the other side of the block from Piedmont Street, the 1942 photo shows the entrance to the main dining room and dance floor. Signs above the windows also advertise for the Melody Lounge, a dimly-lit bar and lounge in the basement where the fire started.

In the years following the fire, the neighborhood was completely changed. The building’s former footprint is now occupied by a parking garage and a condominium building that is under construction. A short street, appropriately named Cocoanut Grove Lane, now crosses through the former location of the main dining room, connecting Shawmut and Piedmont Streets. The only thing left from the 1942 scene is the building on the extreme right of both photos. Despite being located right next to the club, this 19th century brick rowhouse survived the fire, and later survived the city’s urban renewal projects later in the 20th century.