Tremont Street Boston

Tremont Street from Eliot Street, Boston

by

The view looking up Tremont Street from Eliot Street (modern-day Stuart Street) in 1869. Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library.

286_1869-2Bbpl

The scene in 2014:

286_2014

The first photo was taken before Tremont Street was widened in 1869. All of the buildings on the left-hand side were (presumably) demolished, except for the Hotel Pelham, which was moved 14 feet to the left and survived until 1916. Although the buildings on the right were unaffected by the widening, none of them appear to have survived to the present day. Today, the location is in the middle of the Theater District, with several of the theaters visible on either side of Tremont Street in the 2014 photo.

Hotel Boylston, Boston

by

The Hotel Boylston, at the southeast corner of Tremont and Boylston Streets in Boston, sometime in the 1870s.  Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library.

285_1870-1879c-2Bbpl

The scene today:

285_2014

Like the Hotel Pelham right across Tremont Street, the Hotel Boylston was built as a residential building, with the term “hotel” at the time referring to what we would today call an apartment building.  It was at a prominent location, at the corner of Boylston and Tremont Streets, at the southeast corner of Boston Common.  However, it was demolished in the 1890s and replaced with the Hotel Touraine building, which still stands today.

Hotel Pelham, Boston

by

Facing the southwest corner of Boylston and Tremont in Boston around 1859, toward the newly-constructed Hotel Pelham.  Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library.

1850s

The same scene 2014:

Constructed in 1857, the Hotel Pelham was possibly the first apartment building of its type in the United States.  Although named a hotel, the term in the mid 19th century was commonly used to refer to what today we would call an apartment building – they catered more toward long-term residents than temporary visitors.

The date on the first photo is probably 1859, but some sources date it to 1869.  In either case, 1869 is the latest possible date for the photo, because in that year Tremont Street (the street that the photos are facing down) was widened.  Rather than demolishing and rebuilding, the owners moved the 5,000 ton building 14 feet to the west (right), a move that took three months to complete.  Following the move, the hotel remained in business for nearly 50 more years, before being demolished in 1916 and replaced with the present-day office building.

 

 

Scollay Square, Boston

by

Scollay Square in Boston, around 1906. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

266_1906c-loc

The same scene in 2014:

Scollay Square is one of the more dramatic, and perhaps infamous examples of urban renewal in Boston.  Located at the corner of Tremont and Court streets, it was a busy commercial center for several centuries.  However, by the 1950s it was a seedy neighborhood with low-income residents, so the entire area was demolished in the 1960s and replaced with Government Center, which included City Hall and City Hall Plaza (just to the right of where the 2014 photo was taken).

The two small buildings in the center of the square in the 1906 photo are two different subway stations; the one in the foreground is Court Street on the East Boston Tunnel (present-day Blue Line), and the larger, more ornate one in the background is the Scollay Square station on the Tremont Street Subway (today’s Green Line).  This was the original terminus of the East Boston Tunnel when it opened in 1904; it extended from Maverick Station in East Boston, and ran under Boston Harbor and up State Street to here.  In 1916, the line was extended to Bowdoin, and the Court Street Station was closed, and a new station was opened under the Scollay Square station; not surprisingly, it was called Scollay Under.

Today, very little remains from the 1906 photo.  Only two buildings survive; the one on the far left (modern-day Bank of America), and the Suffolk County Courthouse, visible in the distance in left-center (and no longer visible from this spot today, although it’s still there).  Even the subway station has changed; the Blue and Green lines still meet here, but it is now the Government Center station, and the entrance is further to the right, at City Hall Plaza.  The station itself was reconstructed in the 1960s, and is currently being reconstructed again.  It was closed earlier this year, and is not scheduled to reopen until 2016.

Park Street Station, Boston

by

The entrances to the Park Street station, taken from in front of Park Street Church, around 1900. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

260_1900c-loc

The scene in 2014:

260_2014

The entrances to the subway are still there, as is Boston Common, but the background is very different, with the skyline of Boston’s Back Bay rising above the trees on Boston Common.  Boston’s two tallest buildings can be seen here: the John Hancock Tower, which is in the center of the photo, and the Prudential Center, barely visible to the right of the John Hancock Tower.  The Freedom Trail passes through this intersection, with the brick path echoing the cobblestone rows that once crossed Park Street.

Temple Place from Tremont Street, Boston

by

Looking up Temple Place from Tremont Street, facing away from Boston Common.  Photo taken between 1910 and 1916, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

258_1910-1920c-loc

The scene in 2014:

258_2014

This area was a major shopping center around the turn of the last century, and it still is today.  Temple Place doesn’t look all that different, with many of the same buildings still there.  However, the street has since been truncated at Washington Street (the next block down), with Macy’s and other retail stores occupying the area where the street (actually called Avon Street on the other side of Washington) used to be.  The building on the far left, the R.H. Stearns Building, is essentially unchanged, although it has different tenants now.  The R.H. Stearns department store occupied the building from its completion in 1908 until 1977, when the company closed.