1910s Archives - Page 39 of 59

903-911 Boylston Street, Boston

October 23, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The rowhouses at 903-911 Boylston Street, on the north side of the street between Gloucester and Hereford Streets, sometime between 1909 and 1914. Image courtesy of the City of Boston Archives.

The buildings in 2015:

Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood was developed over the second half of the 19th century, beginning at the eastern end on Arlington Street and progressing west over the decades. By the 1890s, the project was mostly complete, so in 1892 these Victorian rowhouses were among the last to be built. Today, they are among the few 19th century residential buildings still standing on Boylston Street; most had been demolished in the early 20th century when the street became a major commercial center.

By the time the first photo was taken, the houses had already transitioned into commercial properties, with extensive renovations on the ground floor to make storefronts. Many of the buildings along these few blocks of Boylston Street had automobile dealerships on the ground floor, including all three of these rowhouses. On the far right is the Warren Motor Car Company, which helps provide a date for the photo. Like many early car manufacturers, they didn’t last long, only manufacturing cars from 1909 to 1914.

In the middle is the Whitten-Gilmore Company, who according to the window lettering sold Chalmers cars, and the dealership on the left sold Stevens-Duryea and Waverley cars. Stevens-Duryea was founded in 1901 by J. Frank Duryea, who along with his brother had invented the first gasoline powered automobile in America in the 1890s. The company operated out of Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts, until closing in 1927. Waverley did not have the same success that Stevens-Duryea or Chalmers had, but they were one of several early 20th century manufacturers of electric cars. Although electric cars are usually associated with the 21st century, they were fairly popular until the 1910s, when their limited range and slow recharging times made gasoline-powered cars a more attractive alternative.

Today, the building on the left is still standing, although it has seen some drastic changes, especially the removal of all but the lower two floors. However, the other two rowhouses look basically the same on the upper floors, giving a small surviving glimpse into 19th century Boylston Street. The car dealerships are long gone, of course, and today cars are sold on large suburban lots rather than in converted Victorian houses. The building on the left now houses McGreevy’s, which is advertised on the sign as “America’s first sports bar.” It is named after Michael T. McGreevy, the owner of the Third Base Saloon and the leader of the Boston Red Sox “Royal Rooters” fans. His baseball-themed bar closed during prohibition, but his extensive collection of photographs that once hung on the wall were donated to the Boston Public Library, and I have recreated several of them in this blog, here and here. The current McGreevy’s bar seen here has no direct connection to the original Third Base Saloon, though; it opened in 2008 and is owned by Ken Casey, the bassist for the Dropkick Murphys.

Corner of Boylston and Gloucester Streets, Boston

October 21, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The building on Boylston Street at the corner of Gloucester Street in the Back Bay, seen on April 5, 1912. Image courtesy of the City of Boston Archives.

The building in 2015:

This building is one of many surviving examples of early 20th century commercial buildings that line the north side of Boylston Street in the Back Bay. It was built in 1907, and designed by noted Boston architect firm Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, and according to the 1908 city atlas it was owned by Charles F. Adams 2nd, who was likely Charles Francis Adams, Jr., the great-grandson of John Adams, grandson of John Quincy Adams. It was rented out to to several businesses, and like many other commercial storefronts along Boylston Street at the time, it had a car showroom on the first floor. Based on the lettering on the windows, the dealership sold cars by E-M-F, American Underslung, and Knox, three early car manufacturers that would all be out of business by 1914. The middle floor of the building was vacant when the 1912 photo was taken, but the top floor was apparently the home of Sheafe’s Dancing Academy.

Today, the distinctive building is still standing, although there have been some alterations to the original design. The first floor storefronts have since been renovated, and is now Whiskey’s Steakhouse. The terra cotta and oriel windows of the second and third floors are essentially unchanged, but the most significant exterior change has been the brick fourth floor, which was added to the original building at some point later in the 20th century.

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.

Post Office, Boston

December 5, 2015October 17, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The old post office at Post Office Square in Boston, around 1906-1920. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2015:

The triangular intersection of Congress, Pearl, and Milk Streets has been known as Post Office Square since 1874, with the completion of the post office seen in the first photo. The square was actually the result of the Great Boston Fire of 1872, which destroyed most of the buildings around the post office, which was under construction at the time. The small park is still there, although most of the buildings around it have changed.

The old post office was demolished to build the John W. McCormack Post Office and Courthouse, which was completed in 1933 and is still standing today. It features Art Deco architecture, and at 22 stories and 600,000 square feet it is substantially larger than its predecessor. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places, and it is still used as a federal courthouse, post office, and federal office building. Just to the right of it is the former National Shawmut Bank Building, which was built in 1906 and can be seen in both photos. At least one other building from the first photo, the 1893 International Trust Company Building, is still standing today; it is visible in the distance on the left, at the corner of Devonshire and Milk Streets.

Hotel Bristol, Boston

September 27, 2015 by Derek Strahan

The Hotel Bristol on Boylston Street, just west of Clarendon Street, on October 4, 1912. Image courtesy of the City of Boston Archives.

The scene in 2015:

The Hotel Bristol was built at the corner of Boylston and Clarendon Streets sometime in the 1870s, probably soon after the land was filled in as part of the massive Back Bay landfill project. I couldn’t find too much information on the hotel, and it does not appear to have been one of the city’s top hotels. It was probably more of a residential hotel, catering to long-term occupants as opposed to temporary visitors. In the 1912 photo, there were also several businesses on the ground floor, including an auto supply company on the left and a drugstore, T. Metcalf Co., to the right. Barely visible on the extreme right is the Walker Memorial Building, part of the original Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus before the school moved across the river to Cambridge. That building was demolished in 1939, but I don’t know how long the Hotel Bristol survived. It was still listed on the 1938 city atlas, but today the site is occupied by a modern office building.

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.