Photographers Archives - Page 103 of 163

Copley Plaza Hotel, Boston

October 30, 2019September 26, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston, sometime between 1912 and 1920. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The hotel in 2015:

These photos were taken from about the same spot as the ones in the previous post, just facing to the left of Huntington Avenue. This view shows the Copley Plaza Hotel, which has had few exterior changes in the past century, and remains a prominent Boston hotel today. This site was once home to the Museum of Fine Arts, before they relocated to their present site further down Huntington Avenue. The hotel was completed in 1912, and since then has hosted a number of distinguished guests, including most U.S. presidents as well as many foreign dignitaries and heads of state.

Boston mayor John F. Fitzgerald presided over the opening ceremonies, five years before his grandson, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was born. The hotel also has another, more tragic connection to the grandfather of a prominent national politician; in 1921, the grandfather of present Secretary of State John Kerry committed suicide in a bathroom here. Less than 20 years later, another notable suicide occurred here when Cincinnati Reds catcher Willard Hershberger became the only Major League Baseball player to commit suicide during the baseball season, on August 3, 1940. Normally the team’s backup catcher, he had to play full-time in the middle of a pennant race after the starting catcher was injured, but became distraught after blaming himself for several poor games, including a 4-3 loss to the Boston Bees the day before. The Red would ultimately go on to win the World Series that year, in part out of a desire to honor Hershberger’s memory.

By the mid-1900s, the hotel had begun to decline, and it was rebranded as the Sheraton Plaza hotel, complete with a tacky neon sign on the roof. For some time it was more of a budget hotel than the grand hotel that it had once been, but in 1972 it was purchased by John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company, the same company that was building the John Hancock Tower next door. They restored the historic building, and today it is operated by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts as the Fairmont Copley Plaza. More than a century after it opened, it is still one of the city’s premiere hotels, and probably its most recent notable visitor was President Obama, who gave a Labor Day speech here earlier this month.

Copley Square, Boston

September 22, 2015 by Derek Strahan

Copley Square as seen from the steps of Trinity Church in Boston, around 1900-1910. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

Copley Square in 2015:

Today, Copley Square is one of the focal points of the Back Bay neighborhood in Boston. The park is often used for public events, such as the farmers market seen in the first photo. However, it wasn’t always that way. In a neighborhood where everything was meticulously planned by 19th century planners and landscape architects, Copley Square as we know it today did not come about until the 1960s.

Like the rest of the Back Bay, Copley Square was once just a polluted tidal mudflat, but throughout the second half of the 19th century it was steadily filled, providing the overcrowded city with a new, upscale neighborhood. As the wealthier citizens moved west, so did many of the city’s major institutions. Many were located in the vicinity of Copley Square, including Trinity Church, Old South Church, the Museum of Fine Arts, MIT, and later the Boston Public Library. However, Copley Square itself was originally just a triangular intersection, where Huntington Avenue and Boylston Street met just west of Clarendon Street.

The first photo shows Huntington Avenue crossing diagonally through the square, with a small triangular park on the right. Originally, even this was not intended to be a park; an atlas from 1874 shows a building on part of the triangle, and the rest of it was divided into housing lots. Because the Museum of Fine Arts was located here, it was called Art Square until 1883, when it became Copley Square. The new name was keeping with the art theme, though; it was named for John Singleton Copley, an early American painter from Boston.

The two most prominent buildings in both photos are the Boston Public Library in the center and the New Old South Church to the right. Completed in 1895 and 1873, respectively, they are two major Copley Square landmarks that have survived largely unchanged. The only major difference in the buildings is the church tower, which was replaced in the 1930s after the ground under it began to subside, causing a three foot lean at the top of the tower.

The most dramatic change in the two photos is the surrounding neighborhood. Huntington Avenue now ends at St. James Avenue, so now the square is literally a square. In the 2015 photo, much of it is in the shadow of the John Hancock Tower, which is located just behind and to the left of where I took the photo. The background shows some of the other high-rise construction that the Back Bay has seen over the years, including the Prudential Tower, 111 Huntington Avenue, and several other buildings in the Prudential Center complex.

Boston Public Library, Boston

February 27, 2023September 21, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The Boston Public Library’s McKim Building at Copley Square in 1899. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The building in 2015:

This style of Renaissance Revival architecture was common for public libraries in the United States in the early 20th century, but Charles Follen McKim’s design for the Boston Public Library was the first. It was constructed between 1888 and 1895, and is one of the most architecturally significant library buildings in the country. It set the stage for similar grand libraries in American cities, including the main branch of the New York Public Library, which opened just over a decade later. Like many of Boston’s other cultural institutions, the library was strategically located in the Back Bay neighborhood, which had gone from polluted tidal marsh to affluent residential neighborhood in less than 50 years. However, one of the challenges in constructing large buildings here was the high water table and the tendency of the filled-in ground to subside. As a result, the 19th century Back Bay buildings are supported by wooden piles; the library alone has about 4,000 piles that were driven 25 to 31 feet into the ground in the 1880s.

Today, the McKim Building is well-preserved on both the exterior and interior. The interior includes a grand staircase and the massive Bates Hall reading room, along with a central courtyard, all of which was, as the inscription reads, “dedicated to the advancement of learning.” The main branch of the Boston Public Library has since outgrown the original building, so in 1972 an addition was put on the back, expanding the building to include the entire city block between Dartmouth and Exeter Streets. Named after its architect, Philip Johnson, this building houses the library’s circulating collections, leaving the original building for the library’s extensive research collections. Many of these collections are also available online, including a large number of historic photographs on Digital Commonwealth, which has been a great resource for this blog.

The greatest change in this scene, however, is the city around the library. The section of the Back Bay to the north of Boylston Street has been largely preserved in its original Victorian appearance. However, to the south of Boylston Street, as seen here, the area has become home to some of the city’s tallest buildings, including the Prudential Tower to the right, the second-tallest in New England after the nearby John Hancock Tower. Probably the oldest building in the 2015 photo other than the library is the Lenox Hotel, barely visible on the far right beyond the library. It was built in 1900, so it may have even been under construction when the first photo was taken.

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.

Saint Thomas Cemetery, Southington, Connecticut (3)

September 1, 2015 by Derek Strahan

Another photo of the All Souls’ Day Mass in Southington’s Saint Thomas Cemetery, in May 1942. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, FSA-OWI Collection.

The cemetery in 2015:

As seen in the previous two posts, photographer Charles Fenno Jacobs took a number of photos of the All Souls’ Day Mass. This event probably had a special significance for those attending; it was right around Memorial Day, and some perhaps had already lost a loved one in the war. Many of the others certainly would have had a son, grandson, brother, or husband serving in the military, and although they wouldn’t have known how long the war would last, it would end up being over three years before it ended.

Today, this section of the cemetery has hardly changed. The two large crosses that Jacobs used to frame his 1942 shot look the same, and the only obvious difference – aside from the lack of people – is the addition of a few more headstones in the foreground.

Saint Thomas Cemetery, Southington, Connecticut (2)

September 1, 2015 by Derek Strahan

Another photo of the All Souls’ Day Catholic Mass at the Saint Thomas Cemetery in Southington, in May 1942. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, FSA-OWI Collection.

The cemetery in 2015:

Like in the previous post, this is a rather eerie contrast. By now, nearly all of the people from the first photo have since died, and many of them are probably buried in the same cemetery that they once attended Mass in some 73 years ago. The cross on the right side of both photos is the main focal point of the cemetery, and the headstones in the western half of the cemetery are arranged in circles radiating outward from the central cross. It was from here that Reverend Francis J. Mihalek can be seen officiating the Mass in the 1942 photo, as explained in photographer Charles Fenno Jacobs’s caption, which reads: “Southington, Connecticut, an American town and its way of life. On All Soul’s Day the Catholic congregation is gathering in the Saint Thomas cemetery for an outdoor Mass which in 1942 was officiated by the Reverend Francis J. Mihalek.”