Park Street Subway Station, Boston (3)

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

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The same station platform in 2015:

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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.

Beacon and Park Streets, Boston

Looking east on Beacon Street from in front of the State House, sometime around 1885. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

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The scene in 2022:

 

Despite all of the changes in downtown Boston during the past 130 years, there are several buildings from the first photo that survive today.  The building at the corner doesn’t bear much resemblance to its former self, but it is the same one that is seen in the first photo.  It was built in 1804 for merchant Thomas Amory Jr., and was one of several houses on Park Street that were designed by Charles Bulfinch.  The home occupies a prominent position next to the Boston Common and across the street from the Massachusetts State House, but the cost for the massive house ruined Amory’s finances, and he had to sell it in 1807.

After Amory sold it, the house was divided into four different units, which were rented to some of Boston’s most prominent citizens.  Senator and Cabinet member Samuel Dexter lived here, and Christopher Gore took advantage of the house’s proximity to the State House and lived here while serving as governor in 1809 and 1810.  In 1824, the Marquis de Lafayette stayed here during his tour of the United States, and Boston Public Library founder George Ticknor lived on the Park Street side of the house from 1830 until his death in 1871.  Around 1885, the house was extensively renovated on the exterior, with iron storefronts replacing the original first floor windows, oriel windows on the third and fourth floors, and three dormers on the right-hand side of the roof.  Today, several different businesses occupy the first floor storefronts, including Fox 25 News in the corner storefront.

The other historic building that has survived from the first photo is the Claflin Building, located just beyond the Amory-Ticknor House on Beacon Street.  It was completed in 1884, and is one of architect William Gibbons Preston’s several surviving buildings in Boston, along with the Armory of the First Corps of Cadets and the Museum of Natural History building.  The Claflin Building was built for the newly-founded Boston University, who used the upper floors for school offices and rented the first floor storefronts.  The school owned the building until the 1940s, when it moved to its present campus on Commonwealth Avenue, and today it has been renovated into condominiums.

Old City Hall, Boston

Johnson Hall, which served as a courthouse and later as City Hall, on School Street around 1855-1862. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

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Boston’s old City Hall, which replaced Johnson Hall, as seen in 1865. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

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Old City Hall in 2015:

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This site on School Street has had two different City Hall buildings, as seen in the photos above, but the history here goes back even further.  From 1704 to 1748, Boston Latin School was located here, and during this time many of the Founding Fathers attended the school, including Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Robert Treat Paine.  Years later, Charles Bulfinch designed a courthouse that was built here in 1810; this building, which is shown in the first photo, was used as both a county and federal courthouse in the early 19th century.  From 1841 until 1862, it was Boston’s City Hall, before being demolished and replaced with a newer, larger building.

The new City Hall was completed in 1865, and was one of the first examples of Second Empire architecture in the United States.  This French-inspired style would become very popular in the late 1860s and 1870s, especially in government buildings.  Boston’s old post office, which was built a decade later and just a few blocks away, shares many similar features.  On a much larger scale, the Old Executive Building next to the White House in Washington, DC also reflects the influence of Second Empire designs.

During its time as City Hall, this building saw the rapid growth in the city during the late 1800s and early 1900s.  When it was completed, the city had fewer than 200,000 people, but by the 1950s there were over 800,000, and the city government had long since outgrown this building.  The City Hall Annex, located behind this building on Court Street, was built in 1912 to accommodate more offices, but by the 1960s the city was looking to build a new City Hall.  The current building was completed in 1968, and since then the old building has been extensively renovated on the inside for commercial uses, but the exterior is essentially unchanged from 150 years ago.

Post Office, Boston

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

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The scene in 2015:

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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.

Boston and Maine Station, Boston

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

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

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The location in 2015:

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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

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

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The scene in 2015:

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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.