Landscapes

Great Boston Fire (2)

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Facing south at the corner of High Street (to the left) and Summer Street (to the right), following the Great Boston Fire of 1872.  Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library.

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The scene in 2014:

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The Great Boston Fire of 1872 was one of the most devastating urban fires in American history, and this photo shows the scene near the epicenter on Summer Street.  The fire began just a few blocks behind the photographer, leaving very little standing in the southern part of downtown Boston.  The city recovered, though, and today this location is part of Boston’s financial district.  However, while the buildings were rebuilt, Boston’s convoluted street network remained unchanged.  Unlike many other major cities in America, and unlike even some other sections of Boston, downtown Boston does not have a regular street grid.  The result is small, non-rectangular building lots like this one, a triangle bounded by Summer, High, and Federal Streets.  In the 1970s, however, architects got creative and built the Fiduciary Trust Building, a hexagonally-shaped building that appears to be precariously balanced atop a much smaller base.

Great Boston Fire (1)

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Fire-damaged building on Milk Street, between Batterymarch and Oliver Streets, following the Great Boston Fire of 1872. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library.

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The scene in 2014:

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Only a year after the far more well-known fire in Chicago, Boston suffered a similarly disastrous fire of its own.  It devastated much of the southern part of Boston’s downtown, reaching all the way up to Milk Street, where this photo was taken.  The building in the 1872 photo advertises “glue, curled hair, and sandpaper” which seems like an odd combination to today’s readers.  But, “curled hair” in this case referred not to a hairstyle but to some sort of industrial product made with animal hair.  As to its specific use, I am not sure, but today neither the buildings nor the glue, curled hair, and sandpaper industry are still at this location.  Today, the building at the site is identified above the ground floor windows as the Oliver Building, and was built in 1903, suggesting that at least one other building occupied this spot after the 1872 photo was taken.

Copp’s Hill Burying Ground, Boston (3)

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Another view from Copp’s Hill Burying Ground in the North End, around the 1880s or early 1890s. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library.

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The cemetery in 2014:

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The house in the background is the Johnson-Singleton House, and was built in the mid 1700s.  Located on Charter Street, it and the surrounding buildings were demolished in the 1890s to create Copp’s Hill Terrace, a public park between Charter Street and Commercial Street.  Boston Harbor is in the background, but it is obscured by buildings in the first photo and trees in the present-day photo; the only hint of its presence is the tip of the masts of a sailing ship in the first photo.

Copps Hill Burying Ground, Boston (2)

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The view looking toward Boston Harbor and the Charlestown Navy Yard from Copp’s Hill Burying Ground in the North End, around 1898. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library.

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The same scene in 2014:

Aside from the missing wrought-iron railing around the tomb in the foreground, not much has changed in the cemetery in the past century or so.  Even the gate and the fence around the cemetery are the same. The background is different, but it’s hard to tell with the tree blocking the view.  Most of the navy yard buildings are still there, although it is no longer an active military facility.

See this post for another scene in Boston’s second oldest cemetery.

Copp’s Hill Burying Ground, Boston

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Copps Hill Burying Ground, around 1904. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

Cemeteries

The cemetery in 2014:

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It’s almost a little eerie to see how little the cemetery has changed in the past 110 years.  Many of the headstones are even still tilted the same way as they were in 1904, and a few of the trees are still there; the tall, skinny tree in the 1904 photo just to the left of the corner of the building in right-center appears to be the same one that is there today.

The cemetery is located just up the hill from Old North Church, and is a stop on the Freedom Trail in Boston’s North End.  Although it doesn’t have as many famous interments as the Granary Burying Ground, there are still some notable people buried here, including Puritan ministers Increase and Cotton Mather, and Edmund Hartt, a shipbuilder whose most famous work, the USS Constitution, still sits right across the harbor from here.

Boston Molasses Disaster (4)

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The remains of the molasses storage tank following the Boston Molasses Disaster in 1919. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

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The same view in 2014:

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The storage tank that was responsible for the January 15, 1919 Boston Molasses Disaster had been hastily constructed in 1915.  At the time, World War I was ongoing in Europe, and although the United States remained officially neutral, American companies were supplying munitions and other items to Europe.  One important product was industrial alcohol, and the increased demand led the Purity Distilling Company to quickly build a 50 foot tall and 90 foot diameter tank to store molasses, which would later be transported and distilled into alcohol.

The tank was known for its frequent leaks, but the company’s response was to paint it brown to camouflage the molasses that dripped down the side.  Often, residents would help themselves to some of the leaking sweetener, likely unaware of the danger that the tank posed.  However, on January 15, 1919, the tank burst, likely due to the internal pressure caused by the fermentation of the molasses, along with the rapid rise in air temperature from the previous day.

The resulting flood created a 25-foot wave that killed 21 people, injured around 150, and caused extensive property damage.  Today, the area has been redeveloped as a park, with the actual location of the tank being approximately where this baseball diamond is located today, at what is now known as Langone Park.  Notice the Charlestown waterfront in the distance, including the masts of the USS Constitution.