Buildings Archives - Page 249 of 327

Ladder 15/Engine 33 Firehouse, Boston

September 11, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The firehouse at the corner of Boylston and Hereford Streets in Boston, on October 27, 1911. Image courtesy of the City of Boston Archives.

The building in 2015:

This structure is made up of two connected buildings: the Ladder 15/Engine 33 firehouse to the right, and the Boston Police Station 16 on the left. Both were completed in the mid 1880s, on land that had just recently been filled in the city’s Back Bay neighborhood. It was designed by Arthur H. Vinal, based on the Richardsonian Romanesque style that was popular in the late 1800s, especially in the Back Bay.

Today, the buildings still stand with few changes to the exterior. The building to the right is still an active fire station; Engine 33 can barely be seen in the shadows of the 2015 photo, and a fireman is standing in front of the Ladder 15 door. However, the former police station to the left has changed occupants a few times. It was used by the Boston Police Department until the early 1970s, and from 1973 until 2006 it was the home of the Institute of Contemporary Art. Since then, it has been used by the Boston Architectural College.

Sherman Building, Boston

September 10, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The Sherman Building at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Newbury Street in Boston, on October 28, 1911. Image courtesy of the City of Boston Archives.

The building in 2015:

This building at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Newbury Street was built in 1908, and housed a few of the many car dealerships in the Back Bay in the early 20th century. The first photo shows two different companies occupying the first floor: Oldsmobile had the more prominent corner storefront, and the Thomas B. Jeffery Company had the storefront on the far right. Like most early car companies, Jeffery didn’t survive the 1910s, but Oldsmobile lasted for almost another century.

Over time, car dealerships moved out of city centers and into the suburbs, so the building as used for a variety of other purposes, from apartments to an indoor golf course. It narrowly escaped demolition for the construction of the Massachusetts Turnpike; the building directly across Newbury Street was replaced with a highway on-ramp when the Turnpike was extended through Boston in the 1960s. Today, the building is the Boston location of the Room & Board furniture store. It opened in 2014 following a massive renovation that modernized and expanded the building while retaining its original appearance from the street.

Boston University East, Boston

September 9, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The Boston University East MBTA station on Commonwealth Avenue, around 1939. Image courtesy of the City of Boston Archives.

The scene in 2015:

The first photo shows passengers boarding a Boston Elevated Railway trolley at the Boston University East station, in front of the Charles Hayden Memorial Building at Boston University. It appears to be a Type 4 trolley, which was found on Boston’s many streetcar lines from 1911 until 1950. Most of those lines have long since been converted into buses, but the line along Commonwealth Avenue is still in use, as the MBTA “B” branch of the Green Line.

The Charles Hayden Memorial Building in the background of both photos was completed in 1939, and it provides an earliest possible date for the photo, which the City of Boston Archives estimated as being in the 1930s. The building was the first to be built on BU’s Charles River Campus, and just over two years after it opened the United States entered World War II, postponing other construction projects on the campus. The other buildings along this section of Commonwealth Avenue would not be completed until 1948, but today this area between the Massachusetts Turnpike to the south and the Charles River to the north has become the school’s main campus.

Hotel Buckminster, Boston

September 6, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The Hotel Buckminster at Kenmore Square in Boston, around 1911. Image courtesy of the City of Boston Archives.

The hotel in 2015:

The present-day Kenmore Square area was once just swampy land along the edge of the Charles River, separated from Boston the tidal flats of the Back Bay. Boston began to fill in this land starting in the late 1850s at Arlington Street and steadily moving west. The landfill project in the Fenway area was completed by the 1890s, and in 1897 the Hotel Buckminster opened as the first hotel at Kenmore Square, in between Brookline Avenue to the left and Beacon Street to the right. Even by 1911, as seen in the first photo, the neighborhood was still sparsely developed. Just a year after the photo was taken, the Red Sox would open Fenway Park on a vacant lot just two blocks south of here along Brookline Avenue.

Because of its proximity to Fenway Park, visiting teams would often stay at the hotel while they were in town. Babe Ruth had a favorite room on the top floor along the Brookline Avenue side that overlooked Fenway Park, and it was also here that Boston bookmaker Joseph “Sport” Sullivan met with Chicago White Sox first baseman Chick Gandil and conspired to fix the 1919 World Series. Later on, the radio station WNAC had its studio in the hotel, and in 1929 the world’s first network radio broadcast was sent from here. From 191 to 1953, the Storyville nightclub was located in the building, and featured a number of notable jazz musicians, including Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, and Charlie Parker.

Over a century after the first photo was taken, the Hotel Buckminster is still around, although the neighborhood around it has grown significantly. Although visiting teams probably don’t stay at this hotel anymore, the Kenmore Square is the primary subway station for fans going to and leaving Fenway Park, and there are a number of restaurants and other businesses that benefit from the sizable gameday crowds. It is also a major intersection, with Beacon Street, Commonwealth Avenue, and Brookline Avenue all converging here above ground, and the “B”, “C”, and “D” branches of the Green Line meeting underground. State Route 2 passes through here as well, and US Route 20, the longest road in the country, ends at Beacon Street, right in front of the hotel.

Enfield Congregational Church, Enfield, Connecticut

September 4, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The Enfield Congregational Church on Route 5 in Enfield, around 1911. Image from Some Old Time Meeting Houses of the Connecticut Valley (1911).

The church in 2015:

In terms of churches, Enfield is probably best known as the place where Jonathan Edwards preached his famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” The actual church that he preached in no longer exists, but it stood about a third of a mile south of here along present-day Route 5. In 1775, a new church was built on this spot, and it was later moved across the street, where it still stands today as the Enfield Historical Society. The current church, seen here, was built in 1849, in the Greek Revival style that was popular in the first half of the 19th century. Its design was outdated almost as soon as it was finished, though. Not long after its completion, Greek Revival architecture went out of style, and most new church buildings in the second half of the century were either Gothic Revival or Romanesque. However, over the years it has been the wood, white-steepled churches of the early 19th century that have become a symbol of small-town New England, and Enfield’s example survives today, essentially unchanged on the exterior from the photo over a century earlier.

J.R. Montgomery Company Buildings, Windor Locks, Connecticut

September 4, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The J.R. Montgomery Company, along the canal in Windsor Locks in October 1939. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, FSA-OWI Collection.

The factory in 2015:

The town of Windsor Locks gets its name from the canal locks that were located here, which allowed boats to bypass the Enfield Falls just to the north. More of a series of rapids than a true waterfall, the Enfield Falls are the natural head of navigation on the Connecticut River, and were a significant obstacle to river trade with Springfield and other cities to the north. This problem was resolved in 1829, with the opening of a 5.25 mile long canal that ran parallel to the river. However, it never became a major transportation route, because like many other early 19th century canals it was soon superseded by railroads. However, at least one notable visitor did pass through here on the canal; author Charles Dickens traveled along the river on a steamboat in 1842, just two years before the construction of the Hartford and Springfield Railroad, which can be seen next to the canal in the foreground of both photos.

Although the heyday of transportation canals was short-lived, the Enfield Falls Canal was soon put to a different use. Here in Windsor Locks, at the southern end of the canal, the 30-foot drop from the canal to the river made it an ideal location for factories. Industrialist J.R. Montgomery established a thread and yarn factory here in 1871, eventually producing a variety of, as the sign atop the building reads, “Novelty Yarns” and “Tinsel Products.”

The brick building in the distance was built in 1891 and expanded to the north (further from the camera) in 1904. The white concrete section was added in 1920, so the entire structure combines 30 years of factory architecture styles into one building. However, the Montgomery Company closed in 1989, and the building has stood vacant ever since. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but three fires and over 25 years of neglect have certainly taken their toll, so at this point the future of the historic property is certainly in question.