Street Scenes

Boston University East, Boston

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

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The scene in 2015:

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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

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

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The hotel in 2015:

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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.

Main Street, Southington, Connecticut (2)

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The view looking north on Main Street in Southington, from just south of Columbus Avenue, around 1885-1891. Image courtesy of the New York Public Library.

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Main Street in 2015:

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This view is very similar to the photos in this post, which were taken just a little further up the street beyond the intersection.  Unlike the other Southington photos that I have featured here, this one was not taken by the Office of War Information during World War II; instead, this image was from a 19th century stereocard.  In this scene, the Soldiers’ Monument on the green had just recently been dedicated, and most of the town’s Civil War veterans would have still been alive.  World War I was still a generation away at this point, and it would be more than 50 years before the OWI would capture photos of the town in the early years of World War II.

The only building from the first photo that is still standing today is the First Congregational Church. It is essentially unchanged from its appearance when it was built in 1830, and it is one of several nearly identical church buildings of the era that can still be seen in small towns throughout Connecticut.  Across Main Street is the town green, where the Soldiers’ Monument still stands today, although it is now accompanied by monuments to the veterans of the wars of the 20th century. The dirt roads around the town green in the first photo have several horse-drawn carriages, but within a decade or so automobiles would begin to appear, eventually leading to the paved roads and traffic lights of the present-day scene.

School Children in Southington, Connecticut

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A group of children, made up of teenagers and younger children, on the town green in Southington in May 1942. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, FSA-OWI Collection.

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The scene in 2015:

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The caption of the first photo is “Southington school children staging a patriotic demonstration,” and it is probably related to the town’s Memorial Day observances.  It is part of a series of photos taken in Southington by the Office of War Information, to be published in a propaganda pamphlet overseas.  The intent of this photo was probably to show American sympathizers and other potential allies about the patriotism expressed even by young children, although the only overt display of patriotism in this particular scene is the American flag that the young girl on the tricycle is holding.

Today, the scene has not changed too much.  The two buildings in the background are still there: the town hall on the left, and a brick commercial building on the right.  The town hall opened less than six months before the first photo was taken, and it is still in use today, and the commercial building was probably built in the early 1900s.  The storefront once housed Southington’s post office, and in the 2015 photo it is apparently vacant and boarded up.  Both buildings can also be seen in this post, which was taken from a similar angle.

Main Street, Southington, Connecticut (1)

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Looking north on Main Street in Southington from along the town green, in May 1942. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, FSA-OWI Collection.

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The scene in 2015

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These two photos were taken less than 75 years apart, but over that time most of the east side of Main Street has changed.  The First Congregational Church on the far right is still there, but all of the buildings beyond it are gone.  To the left, the Soliders’ Monument is still visible in both photos,

Town Green, Southington, Connecticut

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The town green in Southington, seen from across Main Street facing west, in May 1942. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, FSA-OWI Collection.

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The same view in 2015:

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The first photo shows two houses that once stood on the west side of the town green.  They appear to have been built in the late 1800s, and were probably single family homes originally.  The one on the right was probably the older of the two; its Italianate architecture was popular for American homes in the 1860s and 1870s.  The house to the left, with its tower and many different gables, resembles the Queen Anne style that became popular in the 1880s and 1890s.

The older house still stands today, although it is now a real estate agency and a Masonic lodge.  It has clearly been modernized on the exterior, but it still retains some of its original features.  The American Legion building to the right of it, seen closer in this post, is also still standing, but the Queen Anne house to the left has since been demolished, and a large commercial building now occupies the lot.