South Department, Boston City Hospital, from the Corner of Mass Ave and Albany Street, c. 1895. Click photo to enlarge. (Image copyright the City Record and Boston News-Letter, all rights reserved)
I've had this photograph for a while, with the intention of writing a short piece on Boston City Hospital. Fortunately, a history of architect Gridley J. F. Bryant's involvement with the Boston City Hospital has already been written by Roger G. Reed for Old Time New England, an essay titled "'To Exist for Centuries': Gridley Bryant and the Boston City Hospital". You can download the PDF here and read it at your leisure and while you're doing so consider donating a few dollars to Historic New England for making material like this available. Gridley J. F. Bryant also designed the Charles Street Jail and the Old Boston City Hall--his influence on Boston's mid-19th century architecture cannot be underestimated.
A few notes: this photo shows the South Department, which was the location of the buildings for people with infectious diseases such as diptheria and scarlet fever. The location is significant, because it is just about the farthest distance one could get from downtown Boston when the hospital complex began to be laid out in the late 1850s early 1860s. The site is right by the Boston/Roxbury borderline, which you can read more about in a series of posts I did a few weeks ago.
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