Transportation Archives - Page 11 of 22

Boylston Street, Boston (2)

October 24, 2015 by Derek Strahan

Looking east on Boylston Street from near Hereford Street, on June 7, 1912. Image courtesy of the City of Boston Archives.

Boylston Street in 2015:

These two photos don’t line up perfectly, but they are close. The building just beyond the trolley on the left is the same one on the far left of the 2015 photo, so the 1912 photo just shows the view from a little further back. Both illustrate some of the dramatic changes to Boylston Street, especially on the right side. This section of the Back Bay south of Boylston Street was once a rail yard for the Boston & Albany Railroad, and there were no buildings on this side of the street west of the Hotel Lenox at Exeter Street.

Today, many of the early 20th century buildings on the left side of the street are still standing, but the right side has been completely redeveloped. This section between Boylston Street an Huntington Avenue now includes the Prudential Tower, the rest of the Prudential Center complex, as well Hynes Convention Center, which is in the foreground of the 2015 photo. The rail yard is gone, but the main tracks are still there, parallel to the Massachusetts Turnpike. Both the tracks and the Pike run underneath the Hynes Convention Center, just to the right of where the photo was taken.

Boylston Street, Boston

October 21, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The view looking east on Boylston Street from just west of Exeter Street, on July 19, 1912. Image courtesy of the City of Boston Archives.

Boylston Street in 2015:

These photos were taken a little over a block away from where the the photos in the previous post were taken, and they show Boylston Street in the area just west of Copley Square. The first photo was taken during construction of the Boylston Street Subway, which was completed in 1914 and allowed trolleys, such as the one seen in the photo, to travel under Boylston Street along the present-day Green Line.

Most of the older brownstone buildings seen on Boylston Street in the first photo have since been demolished, but many of the newer commercial buildings are still standing today. These include, on the left side of the street, the small white building, which was built around 1908, and the larger red brick building beyond it. In the distance is the tower of the New Old South Church, which was rebuilt in 1940 and today is partially hidden in this view.

On the right-hand side of the street, the McKim Building of the Boston Public Library can be seen in the distance; it was completed in 1895, and is still the main branch of the Boston Public Library today. However, the library has long since outgrown the original building, so today the circulating collections are housed in the much more modern-looking Johnson Building, which was completed in 1972 and can be seen in the right center of the photo. On the far right of both photos is the Hotel Lenox, which was built around 1901 and is still a hotel today, with few changes to the building’s exterior appearance.

One item of interest from the first photo is the trolley to the right. It is overflowing with passengers, some of whom appear to be hanging on to the outside of the car. There is a poster on the front of the car that reads “Baseball To-day, American League,” so these passengers were probably heading to Fenway Park, which had opened just a few months earlier. On this particular day, the Red Sox were playing a doubleheader against the White Sox; Boston would end up winning both games, and later in the season they defeated the New York Giants in the World Series to win the team’s second championship title. Over a century later, many Red Sox fans still take this route to Fenway Park, although today the trolleys run under the street in the tunnel that was being built in the first photo.

Park Street Subway Station, Boston (4)

October 20, 2015 by Derek Strahan

Another view of the Park Street station on the Tremont Street Subway, taken on July 31, 1897. Image courtesy of the City of Boston Archives.

The station in 2015:

The first photo shows the interior of Park Street station as it appeared about a month before it opened as one of the first two subway stations in the United States. It was taken from around the same location as the one in the previous post, just facing the opposite direction. These two photos, taken nearly 120 years apart, show some of the changes that have taken place over the years inside this historic station. The original 1897 trolley platforms soon became inadequate for the number of passengers that used the station, so from 1914 to 1915 they were extended to the south, which is why the station appears much larger in the 2015 photo. Other changes have included removing the two stairwells that can be seen at the southern end of the platforms in the first photo; today, the station can only be accessed through the entrances closest to Park Street.

Not everything has changed, though. One of the defining features of the Green Line is that it still runs trolleys rather than conventional rapid transit subway cars like those on the other three subway lines. As a result, the station platforms are level with the tracks, and there is no third rail, with power instead being supplied by overhead wires. Many of the destinations haven’t changed either. Although Boston’s trolley network is significantly smaller than it was in 1897, many of the places on the sign in the first photo can still be accessed from here, including the Back Bay, Copley Square, Brookline, Allston, Brighton, and Newton.

Park Street Subway Station, Boston (3)

October 20, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The outbound platform at the Park Street station in Boston, on August 5, 1901. Image courtesy of the City of Boston Archives.

The same station platform in 2015:

As mentioned in previous posts showing the interior of Park Street Station here and here, Park Street was one of the first two subway stations in the country, along with Boylston about a quarter mile to the south, when it opened in 1897. The photos in those two posts show the station before it opened, but this 1901 photo here is interesting because it gives a glimpse into the day-to-day activity inside the station. Because of the long exposure time, most of the figures are blurred, except for the woman seated on the bench in the foreground. Another fairly clear figure is the man standing at the entrance in the distance. In the years before turnstiles, passengers would purchase a ticket at one of the kiosks, and then give the ticket to the attendant at the gate, similar to the way movie theaters operate. There were also separate entrances for entering and exiting passengers, hence the “This Is Not An Exit” sign above the gate.

Park Street station, along with the rest of the Tremont Street Subway, was originally designed for trolley cars rather than rapid transit subway cars, and this distinction can still be seen today in the trolleys that run on the Green Line, as opposed to the more conventional subway cars on the other three lines. However, from 1901 to 1908, the tunnel was also used by the Boston Elevated Railway, so the station platforms had to be retrofitted to accommodate the higher subway cars, which is why the first photo shows wooden platforms along the track. During this time, these cars used the two outer tracks in the station, while trolleys used the inner two tracks. In 1908, the Boston Elevated Railway was rerouted through its own tunnel under Washington Street, which today forms the downtown section of the Orange Line.

A few years later, in 1912, the Boston Elevated Railway built another subway line through Park Street, forming what is now the Red Line. Separate platforms were built underneath the existing station, with stairs now located around the spot where the passengers were waiting on the benches in the 1901 photo. Other significant changes to the station over the years have included lengthening the Green Line platforms, as well as some of the more cosmetic changes that are seen in the 2015 photo, such as tiles on the floor and sheet metal covering the original columns.

Boston and Maine Station, Boston

March 6, 2016October 17, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The Boston and Maine Railroad station at Haymarket Square in Boston, around 1894. Image courtesy of the City of Boston Archives.

The Boston City Hospital Relief Station, on the site of the former railroad station in 1905. Image courtesy of the City of Boston Archives.

The location in 2015:

Of the eight major railroads that served Boston in the late 1800s, the Boston and Maine came the closest to the downtown area, with its depot at Haymarket Square. It was opened in 1845, and over the years Boston and Maine became the dominant railroad in northern New England, with many of its lines converging here. However, because there were four different railroads that had their own stations within a few blocks of here, the companies built North Station in 1893, about 300 yards up Canal Street from here.

The old station had been built in the early years of railroad travel, and it stood until 1897, when it was demolished to make way for a new type of rail travel. Boston’s Tremont Street Subway was the first subway tunnel in the country, and the northern entrance of the tunnel was built on the site of the station. From here, the tracks ran along the surface between Canal and Haverhill Streets, where the station platforms used to be. The only new building on the site was the Boston City Hospital Relief Station, as seen in the 1905 photo. It was built in 1902 as a branch of the Boston City Hospital, in order to provide emergency services in the downtown area, and it stood until the early 1960s.

Today, there isn’t much left from either of the first two photos. A few of the buildings on Canal Street are still standing, such as the one on the far left in both the 1891 and 1905 photos. It is barely visible on the left of the 2015 photo, above the bus in the foreground. Haymarket Square itself is completely changed, though, through a series of urban renewal projects in the 20th century. To the left is a parking garage, with the Haymarket Square subway station underneath it. On the right-hand side of the photo, the elevated Central Artery once passed through here. Built in the 1950s, it cut a swath through downtown Boston until 2003, when the highway was rerouted through the Tip O’Neill Tunnel as part of the Big Dig. The building under construction in the background is being built on land that the Central Artery once passed through.

North Station, Boston

July 7, 2024October 16, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The original North Station on Causeway Street in Boston, around 1893-1899. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2015:

The scene in 2024, showing recent development in front of TD Garden:

Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote about Boston as being “The Hub of the Solar System,” and although he was using the phrase sarcastically, the city would soon become the transportation hub of New England. By the late 1800s, there were at least eight railroads that radiated outward from Boston, with each one having its own separate terminal. However, these eight different stations were both inconvenient for passengers and also a poor use of valuable land.

Here in the northern part of the city, four different railroads each had their own stations within a several block radius: the Boston and Maine, Boston and Lowell, Eastern Railroad, and the Fitchburg Railroad. All but the Boston and Maine had their passenger terminals in a row here along Causeway Street, so in 1893 the North Union Station opened here, consolidating all four railroads into one building. It was designed by Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, a prominent Boston architectural firm that would design South Station six years later, when the four south side terminals were likewise consolidated.

The original North Station was demolished in 1927 to build the Boston Garden, which also included a reconstructed station. Boston Garden was home to the Boston Bruins from 1928 to 1995, and the Boston Celtics from 1946 to 1995, and the it was demolished in 1998, three years after the completion of the present-day TD Garden. Today’s North Station is located directly underneath the TD Garden, although today none of the four railroads that opened the first station even exist anymore. Amtrak has only one passenger route, the Downeaster, that stops here, although it is the terminal for four of the MBTA Commuter Rail lines. Above the station, the Bruins and Celtics still play here, just behind the spot where the Boston Garden once stood.