Back Bay Boston Archives - Page 7 of 8

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.

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.

Copley Square, Boston (2)

October 20, 2015 by Derek Strahan

Copley Square as seen from in front of the New Old South Church in Boston, in 1893. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

Copley Square in 2015:

The first photo shows Copley Square as it appeared only about 20 years after this section of Boston was developed. In the second half of the 19th century, the Back Bay was transformed from a polluted marsh to one of the city’s premier neighborhoods. Many of the city’s important cultural institutions moved here, with many of them surrounding the Copley Square area, including the New Old South Church on the left, the Trinity Church in the center, and the Museum of Fine Arts on the right. Also under construction, but just out of view of the camera on the right, was the main branch of the Boston Public Library.

Today, the Copley Square area has seen some significant changes from the 19th century. It remains the focal point of the Back Bay, but what started as neighborhoods of Victorian rowhouses evolved into low-rise commercial buildings, and eventually modern skyscrapers, especially in the area south of Boylston Street. The two churches from the 1893 photo are still standing, but all of the other buildings are gone, including the Museum of Fine Arts, which moved to a larger facility further down Huntington Avenue in the early 1900s. The old building was demolished, and replaced in 1912 with the Copley Plaza Hotel, which still stands today.

The most prominent new building in the 2015 scene is the John Hancock Tower, which was completed in 1976 and is the tallest building in New England. Beyond it, near the center of the photo, is the 1947 Berkeley Building, which is also known as the Old John Hancock Building. Together, these skyscrapers, along with the ones seen facing the other direction in this post, make up Boston’s High Spine, a string of skyscrapers extending west from downtown Boston, roughly along the Boylston Street and the Massachusetts Turnpike.

Beacon Street looking west from Charles Street, Boston (2)

November 25, 2016July 31, 2014 by Derek Strahan

Another view, around 1887, looking west on Beacon Street from Charles Street. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library.

The scene in 2014:

A similar view to the photos in this post, these photos show how Beacon Street has changed in the past 127 years. Not a whole lot of dramatic changes have occurred; the street is now a paved, four lane thoroughfare, but the Public Garden is still there on the left, and many of the rowhouses on the right are still there, including the granite ones from 1828 on the far right of the photos.