Aerial Views

View from Bunker Hill Monument, Boston (2)

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The view from the Bunker Hill Monument, sometime between the 1860s and 1880s. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library.

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The view in 2010:

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Looking west from the Bunker Hill Monument, the approaches to the Tobin Bridge dominate the landscape in the 2010 photo.  In the foreground, there is a stark contrast between the 19th century buildings to the right and the 1960s era redevelopment to the left.  Many of the buildings are easily recognizable in both photos, especially the ones along the street in the lower center of the 2010 photo.  In the background, beyond the approaches to the bridge. is the site of the former navy yard, which was still in active use in the first photo.

View from Bunker Hill Monument, Boston (1)

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The view from the Bunker Hill Monument, sometime between the 1860s and 1880s. Photo courtesy of New York Public Library.

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The same view in 2010:

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The view from the top of the Bunker Hill Monument, looking east across the Mystic River.  The bridge in the first photo was the Chelsea Bridge, which was built in 1803.  It was replaced by the present-day Tobin Bridge, and much of the Charlestown neighborhood in the foreground was redeveloped in the 1960’s, giving it a far different appearance from the 19th century photo.

Lincoln Memorial from the Washington Monument, Washington DC

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The view of the Lincoln Memorial on May 30, 1922, the day that it was dedicated, from the Washington Monument. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Harris & Ewing Collection.

The scene in 2021:

Both the Lincoln Memorial and the Reflecting Pool are iconic images of Washington DC, but in 1922 they were brand new features on previously swampy, vacant land.  Today they remain largely the same, but the surrounding area has changed. Across the river, the city of Arlington has been built up, and two bridges are now visible in the scene, connecting it to Washington, D.C.  In D.C. itself, one obvious difference is the Main Navy and Munitions Buildings, which are on the right-hand side of the photo.  The “temporary” buildings were built in 1918, but they remained in use until 1970, when they were demolished and replaced with the Constitution Gardens as seen in the 2006 photo.

Back Bay, Boston

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The view of the Back Bay, from the top of the State House, in 1857. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

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The same view from the same spot, between 1900 and 1910. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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This post is a bit unusual, since I don’t have a modern-day view of the scene, but I thought that the differences between these two photos, taken only about 50 years apart, was particularly compelling, and illustrates just how much of Boston is built on reclaimed land.  If I did have a present-day photo, it would show the John Hancock Building, the Prudential Tower, Hynes Convention Center, the Massachusetts Turnpike, and one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Boston.  Yet, less than 160 years ago it was just a heavily polluted mud flat.

To help identify a few prominent locations in the swamps of 1857, the row of trees at the end of the water is present-day Arlington Street, and the road built across the water is Beacon Street, originally built in 1814 as a dam and toll road.  The dam was intended to use the power of the outgoing tides for factories in the area, but it had the unintended consequence of preventing the mud flats from being washed out twice daily by the tides, leading to a shallow basin filled with sewage, garbage, and other pollution. Another dam connected Beacon Street to the point of land in the distance on the left.  The left-hand side of the dam ended at the present-day intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Commonwealth Avenue.  In the extreme distance of the 1857 photo, Beacon Street reaches the mainland at present-day Kenmore Square.

Most of the Back Bay up was filled in only a short time after this photo was taken, and completely filled in by 1882.  The Fenway section (so-called because of the swamps, or “fens” in the area) was mostly finished by 1900, putting the finishing touches on the Boston that we now know today.

View from Summit House, Mount Tom, Holyoke, Mass.

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The view of Easthampton from the Summit House atop Mount Tom, between 1905 and 1915.  Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2019:

The Summit House no longer exists, so I wasn’t able to perfectly re-create the early 20th century photo, but the 2019 photo shows the remains of the promenade that is in the foreground of the older photo.  President William McKinley once walked along it, but now all that remains is the concrete that once supported the wooden boardwalk and the rusty metal railings that tourists once admired the view from alongside.  The Summit House from the older photo was built in 1901, replacing the 1897 structure that had burned just three years later.  The 1901 building also burned, in 1929, and the third one was closed in 1938.  The site of the summit houses is now off-limits; it is the site of numerous radio and TV antennas for the Springfield area.

Easthampton from Mount Tom, Holyoke, Mass

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The view of Easthampton from Mount Tom, between 1900 and 1910.  Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2019:

Not much has changed in Easthampton in 100 years, at least nothing that it particularly noticeable from the summit of Mount Tom. President William McKinley would’ve seen a very similar view during his visit in 1899, but another famous visitor to the mountain, Jonathan Edwards, would’ve seen a very different view in the 1730s.