Buildings

William Gray House, Boston

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The William Gray House, at the corner of Prince Street and Lafayette Avenue in Boston’s North End, around 1898. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library.

The location in 2014:

The house in the first photo, known as the William Gray House, was built around 1750, and was used by the British as a hospital after the Battle of Bunker Hill.  It survived until around the turn of the 20th century – it appears in the 1898 Boston atlas, but is gone by the 1908 atlas.  Nothing else from the first photo survives today, although Lafayette Avenue is still there, to the left.  Despite its name, it is actually a narrow alley that is barely wide enough to fit a single vehicle between the curbs – a holdover from Boston’s pre-automobile street network.

 

 

Wells Adams House, Boston

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Looking up Salem Street from the corner of Cooper Street, in Boston’s North End, before 1894. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library.

The same scene in 2014:

The building in the first photo was known as the Wells Adams House, and according to late 19th century sources was built sometime in the late 1600s, probably around the same time as the Paul Revere House.  Like many other historic colonial-era North End buildings, it was demolished in 1894, and the current building was probably built shortly after that.  The only building that appears in both photos is the one on the far right; it was built in the 1840s, and is one of the few bow fronted houses that remains in the North End.

Corner of Lewis & North Streets, Boston

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The eastern corner of Lewis and North Streets in Boston’s North End, sometime in the 1860s. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library.

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The street corner in 2014:

This ancient building in the first photo probably dated to the early 18th century, but it didn’t last for too long after the photo was taken.  The present-day building on the site was completed around 1874, so the days were numbered for the old building by the 1860s.  At that time, the North End was somewhat of a slum, and the building itself looked like it wasn’t in the greatest condition (note the broken windows on the second floor), so its demolition and replacement was probably hailed as a 19th century version of urban renewal.

 

Ebenezer Hancock House, Boston

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The Ebenezer Hancock House in Boston’s Blackstone Block, before 1886. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library.

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The scene in 2014:

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Boston’s Blackstone Block is in an odd location; the collection of historic 18th and 19th century buildings and narrow, 16th century alleys sits as sort of a time capsule, surrounded by modern development.  On one side is the Government Center area, where street scenes like this were demolished wholesale and replaced with concrete monoliths and open paved areas, and on the other side is the Central Artery, where the elevated highway was originally built in the 1950s before being put underground as part of the Big Dig.

However, the Blackstone Block appears virtually unchanged in over 125 years.  A few notable landmarks are visible in these photos, including the Ebenezer Hancock House in the center.  In the 19th century, it was home to William H. Learnard’s shoe store, who operated out of the building from the 1820s until 1886.  He wasn’t the only person to own a shoe store here, though.  The building functioned as a shoe store from 1798 until 1963, and is today used for offices.  Originally, though, it was a house, and was built around 1767 and later owned by Ebenezer Hancock, the brother of John Hancock.

Also of note in this photo is the Boston Stone, seen in the background, embedded in the wall of the building to the left of the Ebenezer Hancock House.  Supposedly, this stone, which actually predates the circa 1835 building, was once used as the zero milestone for Boston, but this doesn’t appear to be likely.  The building, though, is probably the one thing that has changed the most since the first photo was taken.  At some point in the mid 20th century, the building was trimmed down to just three stories.  Today, it has all of its floors again, but this is a recent addition; photos in this post, from the other side of the building, show that the extra stories weren’t there in 2011.

Old Feather Store, Boston

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The Old Feather Store at Dock Square in Boston, around 1860. Image courtesy of Boston Public Library.

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The location in 2014:

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The building in the 1860 photo looks like it belongs in Elizabethan England, not in 19th century Boston.  However, the building actually dates to the same century as Queen Elizabeth – it was built around 1680, and survived until around the time that this photo was taken.  Despite its age and unique architecture, historical preservation was not a major concern in the 1860s, and it was demolished.  At least one of its contemporaries survives to this day, though.  Just a few blocks up North Street (the road in the foreground of the 2014 photo) is the Paul Revere House, which was built around the same time, and is the only remaining 17th century building in downtown Boston.

As an example of the way Boston has expanded in the past few centuries, the Old Feather Store was built right on the waterfront, but by the time it was taken down, it was over a quarter mile from the harbor.  This area was originally known as Dock Square, because of its proximity to the Town Dock.  As a result, it has long been a center of commercial activity in the city.  Although the buildings that replaced the Old Feather Shop are also long gone, there is one commercial building that is in both photos; Faneuil Hall can be seen behind and to the right of the Old Feather Shop, and on the right-hand side in 2014.

Scollay Square, Boston

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Scollay Square in Boston, around 1906. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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The same scene in 2014:

Scollay Square is one of the more dramatic, and perhaps infamous examples of urban renewal in Boston.  Located at the corner of Tremont and Court streets, it was a busy commercial center for several centuries.  However, by the 1950s it was a seedy neighborhood with low-income residents, so the entire area was demolished in the 1960s and replaced with Government Center, which included City Hall and City Hall Plaza (just to the right of where the 2014 photo was taken).

The two small buildings in the center of the square in the 1906 photo are two different subway stations; the one in the foreground is Court Street on the East Boston Tunnel (present-day Blue Line), and the larger, more ornate one in the background is the Scollay Square station on the Tremont Street Subway (today’s Green Line).  This was the original terminus of the East Boston Tunnel when it opened in 1904; it extended from Maverick Station in East Boston, and ran under Boston Harbor and up State Street to here.  In 1916, the line was extended to Bowdoin, and the Court Street Station was closed, and a new station was opened under the Scollay Square station; not surprisingly, it was called Scollay Under.

Today, very little remains from the 1906 photo.  Only two buildings survive; the one on the far left (modern-day Bank of America), and the Suffolk County Courthouse, visible in the distance in left-center (and no longer visible from this spot today, although it’s still there).  Even the subway station has changed; the Blue and Green lines still meet here, but it is now the Government Center station, and the entrance is further to the right, at City Hall Plaza.  The station itself was reconstructed in the 1960s, and is currently being reconstructed again.  It was closed earlier this year, and is not scheduled to reopen until 2016.