The City Record and Boston News-Letter

The Institutions of Copley Square

Section of the 1898 map to Accompany Report of State Board on Docks and Terminal Facilities.  Area in red is New York, New Haven, & Hartford Railroad right-of-way, stations, and yards; yellow is Boston & Albany.  Shaded area is the original land mass of Boston. Click to enlarge. (Copyright the City Record and Boston News-Letter, all rights reserved).

In his Boston Globe Metro column, Adrian Walker fleshes out the proposal to add "BPL" or "Boston Public Library" to the Copley Station name by speaking with Boston Public Library President Bernard Margolis.  One item jumped out at me:  "Margolis told me he took an informal survey three years ago asking people on the street to identify Kendall, Kenmore, and Copley squares.  he was surprised by how many people could no identify these well-known areas."

Kendall Square really isn't much of a square at all, so I can understand drawing a blank, although the MIT Press bookstore is a favorite place of mine for architecture books.  Kenmore Square should be easy to identify, one would think, given the number of people who spent countless hours in the clubs there (RIP Mr. Butch and RIP The Rat, as well), got off the T to go to Red Sox games, or have seen the Citgo Sign.  I will turn over Copley Square to someone who knew far more about the function of cities than me.  Kevin Lynch, an urban planner who concerned himself with how people view and navigate through cities, wrote The Image of the City (1960), which examined, in part, what Lynch called the "legibility" of cities (the preceding link is an excellent introduction to the book and Lynch's work).  Some of the conclusions Lynch made were drawn from field work conducted in the late 1950s, in which people in Boston were surveyed about their knowledge of the city--how to get from one place to another, notable landmarks, hard to find places, etc.  Out of this research, Lynch concluded the following about Copley Square:

"A node like Copley Square, on the contrary [compared to old Scollay Square], which is of less functional importance and has to handle the angled intersection of Huntington Avenue [Huntington Avenue used to continue across Copley Square, terminating at Boylston Street], was very sharply imaged, and the connections of various paths were eminently clear.  It was easily identified, principally in terms of its unique individual buildings: the Public Library, Trinity Church, and the Copley Plaza Hotel, the sight of the John Hancock Building.  It was less of a spatial whole than a concentration of activity and of some uniquely contrasting buildings." (Lynch, The Image of the City, p. 76)

While Lynch conducted his study almost fifty years ago, I find it hard to imagine that Bostonians have suddenly forgotten about the location of the Boston Public Library in Copley Square and the addition of the Hancock Tower (Lynch was referring to the first John Hancock Building, the one with the weather beacon) and the filling in of the Back Bay railyard (see the Boston & Albany portion of the map above) to create the Prudential Tower complex have, if anything, strengthened Copley Square.

The Third Decade comes to the same conclusion.

Below are pictures of Copley Square institutions c. 1895 from King's Boston Views.

 

A Map of Boston Which Won't Help You Get to the Parade In Southie

Boston and Vicinity During the American Revolution, click to enlarge. (Image copyright the City Record and Boston News-Letter, all rights reserved)

For Evacuation Day I've posted a map of the Boston area as it looked during the American Revolution and numbered some present day locations for reference.  The heavy lines, like the one seen crossing Boston Street at point 3, are military fortifications.  Much of what will become present day South Boston is still tidal flats which were covered with water at high tide.

1.  Present day Edward Everett Square in Dorchester.

2.  The location of the Dorchester Historical Society's Lemuel Clap House, which served as a barracks during the Revolution

3. Boston Street, the historic road leading to the salt marshes where early Dorchester settlers grazed cattle.

4. Dorchester Heights (update:  I've made an error--Dorchester Heights is not at number 4.  It is directly to the right of number 3--the two six sided redoubts are on Dorchester Heights.  What I've marked as number 4 was known as Nook's Hill.  The smaller two solid lines to the right of the redoubts on Dorchester Heights are three gun batteries, which were pointed directly at the British fleet in the harbor, a very strong argument for the British to evacuate.

5. Boston Common

6. Mount Whoredom

7. Long Wharf

8.   Mill Pond

9.  Back Bay

10. Sewall's Point (Kenmore Square)

11. Washington Street

12. Dudley Square Roxbury

13. Dudley Street, the historic road linking Roxbury and Dorchester.

14. Shirley-Eustis House and also the location of General Ward's Division in Roxbury.

15. Uphams Corner, Dorchester.

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Do you love Boston history?  Stop by the Gibson House Museum in Boston's Back Bay to view the only intact Victorian Era interior in the city.  The house is open for ours Wednesday through Sunday, with tours at 1, 2, and 3 PM.  The Gibson House Museum.

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A Christmas Eve Celebration and a Present for You

The City Record and Boston News-Letter Christmas Tree, December, 2006.

I'd like to wish all of my readers a happy and joyous holiday season.

City Record readers are invited to a Christmas Eve Service at First Parish Church in Dorchester (Unitarian Universalist), 6 P.M.  This will be a singing and readings service in a classic New England meeting house.  There will be instrumentalists: guitar with the choir on "What Child Is This", flute accompanying "Bring a Torch Jeanette Isabella" and a candlelit "Silent Night".  There will be cookies and hot chocolate to follow and I will be giving tours talking about the history of First Parish Church.  Children and welcome and encouraged.

Did you know that Unitarians had an important role in popularizing Christmas in the mid-19th century?  I'll be happy to tell you all about it, as well as Puritan attitudes towards Christmas.  As is oft repeated at this time of year, Massachusetts Puritans outlawed Christmas celebrations in 1658, passing an order "For preventing disorders arising in several places within this jurisdiction, by reason of some still observing such festivals as were superstitiously kept in other countrys, it is therefore ordered by this Court and authority thereof, that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labour, feasting, or any other way, upon such accounts as aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for every such offence five shillings, as a fine to the county."

Map to First Parish Church in Dorchester.

 

As a gift to my readers, I am making available the file to produce the map seen below, which is one of my favorite maps of downtown Boston from the late 1800s.  The file is rather large (around 2 MB) but you can click and download it to your computer and print it or simply open it up in your favorite image viewer.   The resolution is high enough to support some close viewing, so be sure to use the zoom function to discover long gone streets and buildings!  I will post the file until my bandwidth is exhausted and if that happens, I will email the file to those requesting it.

Download 1894mapBostonlarge016.jpg (1921.9K)

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Motor Vehicle Accidents and Fatalities in Downtown Boston, 1927

Location of Motor Vehicle Accidents Resulting in Personal Injury or Death in Down Town Boston for the First Ten Months of 1927.  Click to enlarge. (Image copyright The City Record and Boston News-Letter, all rights reserved).

The recent hit and run accident which resulted in the tragic death of Linda Cruz in the South End jogged my memory about some historic Boston traffic statistics.  The map above shows that in the first ten months of 1927 there were 23 or so fatal motor vehicle accidents in downtown Boston, a number which seems extraordinarily high.  Does anyone have any insight into historic levels of traffic accidents in Boston?  My hypothesis is that it is related to the number of people walking in the city and possibly streetcars as well--it seems to me that people stepping on and off streetcars into roads shared with automobiles is a recipe for disaster.  Did it take a number of years for people to become accustomed to automobiles on city streets?  I know that every time I go to London I have to double and triple check before crossing a street.  If you have a thought, please leave a comment.

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Have you signed up for the winter snowfall prediction contest yet?

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One Point Over Hundreds of Years

Jay Fitzgerald has a story today in the Boston Herald about Historic Map Works Inc., which is connecting present day addresses to historic maps so that people can enter an address and pull up a series of maps of the address over time.  This is an ambitious undertaking and I recommend reading Jay's story.

Link: BostonHerald.com - Business: Mapping out business: Maine co. is like MapQuest on a time machine.

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How Soon is Now? Or, Where's the South End Subway?

View of Washington Street in 1948 and "soon" from Surging Cities published in 1948 by the Greater Boston Development Committee. (as always, click photo to enlarge)

Attention:  If you really, really hate the Silver Line and wanted to have light rail on Washington Street, either stop reading here or take your blood pressure medication.

Surging Cities is a remarkable document, a textbook published in 1948 for secondary school students which looks at how cities have grown in the past and the prospects for Boston's future. It is filled with maps, charts, and photographs--the I-95 and Inner Beltway make an appearance, the need for urban renewal is discussed (watch out West End!), housing projects are promoted.  Some of it seems quaint now--Filene's helicopter delivery of packages never really took off (no pun intended)--and some of it seems downright crazy, like the plans for South Bay.  What really caught my eye this morning were the projects listed under the heading "Most Urgent Transit Projects" and the photo above of Washington Street. 

From Surging Cities:

"When the Legislature created the M.T.A. [Metropolitan Transit Authority], it specified that the following projects should be given first attention:
    (a) Enlargement and improvement of the Scollay Square, Park Street, and Boylston Street stations and the construction of two additional tracks between Scollay Square and Park Street stations.  At present, there are four tracks between North Station and Scollay Square; and four tracks from park Street to Boylston Street.  As the section between Scollay Square and Park Street has only two tracks, it is now the most serious bottleneck in central Boston.  The above improvements were authorized by the 1948 legislature at an estimate cost of $11,500,000.
    (b)  The removal of the elevated structures and the construction of subways in their place.  The 1948 Legislature authorized $19,000,000 for extension of the Washington Street Tunnel to a point near Cedar Street, Roxbury and for tearing down a long section of the Washington Street El.
    (c)  Extension of rapid transit service service as far as Braintre by the use of the lines of the Old Colony Railroad, which is one of the steam railroad commuting lines that has been losing money.  Notice of suspension of its service has been given.  Various alternate plans to meet this situation are being considered.
    (d) Extension of the Cambridge Subway to a point near Porter Square.  This proposal is described in more detal in the previous section "Plan of the Rapid Transit Commission." [I may try to post this later]

Projects A, C, and D were ultimately completed. [Update:  Ron Newman comments below that Project A wasn't completed and I have no reason to doubt him.  So C and D which serve non-Bostonians get built but the projects within the City of Boston don't get built.  I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist but this is worth further investigation.]  But in 1948 the Legislature authorized $19,000,000 to put a subway under Washington Street through the South End and into Roxbury past Dudley Square.  The only questions that remain are (a) What happened to the money? and (b) Where's our subway?

The map below shows where the elevated line would have gone underground, at approximately the intersection of Cedar Street and Washington Street in Roxbury, before reaching Dudley Square as one headed toward Boston.

Update:  A commenter below asks if this wasn't just a simple planning change.  It wasn't, at least in my reading of it, for a number of reasons. According to Surging Cities, money was appropriated for the project, but was never spent. I find this odd. This tunnel was listed as an "urgent project" and was part of the reason for the creation of the MTA, yet the old elevated didn't come down until almost 40 years later.  No one in 1948 envisioned the Orange Line in its present location--they envisioned a highway.  For one reason or another, the project never got built and now I'm going to have to do the research and figure out why not.  From a purely engineering standpoint, Washington Street was the only logical place to put a subway since it was the only part of that area of Boston which had historically not been underwater.

The 1948 Highway Plan (a fascinating read) included a number of projects which were never built for a number of reasons--political, financial, etc.  When the I-95 plan was stopped in 1970 or 1971, work had already progressed to clear part of the corridor where the Orange Line now runs (a corridor which was, at least out to Forest Hills, part of a historic rail corridor anyway so putting a train line through there certainly wasn't a new idea).  The elevated line along Washington Street ultimately came down around 1987 or so.

The idea of a highway coming into Boston from the southwest is even older than 1948.  The 1930 Thoroughfare Plan has a highway running parallel to Blue Hill Avenue through Roxbury and then along where Albany Street runs through the South End to the South Station Area. There was also a Roxbury Crosstown road which would have run through North Dorchester, the Dudley Square area, and on through the Fenway.

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Boston Boundary Changes to 1926

Map showing the growth of Boston up to 1926.  Click to enlarge. (Map from the collection of the City Record and Boston News-Letter, all rights reserved)

Today's map comes from the Report on a Thoroughfare Plan for Boston, published in 1930 by the City Planning Board.  I don't have much to add, except to note that all of South Boston was once part of Dorchester.  It is also worth noting that most of the Back Bay was historically part of Roxbury, the story of which I delve into more deeply in my review of the new book Boston's Back Bay: The Story of America's Greatest Nineteenth-Century Landfill Project which will be posted some time next week.

A Hill By Any Other Name

Detail of "A plan of the town of Boston with the intrenchments &ca. of His Majesty's forces in 1775, from the observations of Lieut. Page of His Majesty's Corps of Engineers, and from those of other gentlemen" by Sir Thomas Hyde Page (Image from the Library of Congress American Memory Collection)

 

A big welcome to all the folks coming from nerve.com and fark.com!  If you like funny place names, you may also wish to visit "Big Bone Lick State Park" in Kentucky.

John Keith over at Boston Real Estate Blog has a post about the "Ladder District" in downtown Boston and a couple of his commenters asked about the origin of the "Ladder District" name so he sent me an email and asked if I had any idea where the name came from.  I don't have a clue, but that won't stop me from writing a post about the importance of a good name in selling real estate in Boston. 

The map above was created in 1775 by a British officer stationed in Boston.  A number of points are immediately familiar: Cambridge Street, Boston Common, Beacon Street, Beacon Hill, West Street, and Winter Street have all survived as place and street names to the present day.

But what's that to the left of Beacon Hill?  Mount Whoredom, that's what, the approximate location of which (at least as far as I can tell) is better known today as Louisburg Square.  Can you imagine trying to sell a house on Mount Whoredom?  Mount Whoredom used to be taller, but was cut down and dumped into the Charles to make some of the land west of Charles Street.  Mount Whoredom wasn't used to create the Back Bay (a much later endeavor) but it did become the flats of Beacon Hill.

On a related note, a book about "inflammatory toponyms" has recently been published and you can read an essay by its author here.

J.L. Bell over at Boston 1775 writes about British officers and their habit of referring to the area as "Mount Whoredom" and a certain future president's delicate sensibilities, which leads me to believe that Ray Charles really knew what he was talking about when he sang "Greenback Dollar Bill":  "Whenever you're in town and looking for a thrill/if Lincoln can't get it, Jackson sure will."

Update:  I'd like to thank the emailers and commenters.  I didn't make myself clear.  I know that the "ladder district " (sometimes known as the "ladder blocks", which appears on this BRA map of the area) suddenly appeared around 2000 as a way of designating the streets running between Tremont Street and Washington Street from Stuart to Winter Streets.  What I'm unclear about is whether or not there is a historical precedent for the name, which was the claim in 2000.  I'm skeptical that it is simply the reappearance of historic name.  There was a brief period of time when the area was known as the "Midtown Cultural District" in city planning documents, but this name seems to be used primarily by planners.

Click on the image below for a closer look for those who may not be able to read the map above:

 

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Government Center, Late 1960s/Early 1970s

Government Center Area Model, from a late 1960s Boston Redevelopment Authority pamphlet.  Click for a larger image.

While cleaning up my bookshelves recently, I came across the "Government Center" pamphlet, which was published by the Boston Redevelopment Authority in the late 1960s.  I thought people might be interested in seeing exactly how much of the Government Center urban renewal plan was ultimately carried out.  For example, Number 24 in the illustration, a proposed motel/office building that would have fronted Congress Street was never built and is now the site of the New England Holocaust Memorial.  Likewise, the tower for the State Service Center (No. 31) never came to fruition.  An aerial map makes for a good comparison.  I've also written about Government Center before.

Buildings shown: (1) Ames Building  (2) Boston City Hall  (3) Boston Company Building * (4) Boston Press Club (5) Boston Public Welfare Building (6) Bulfinch Building  (7) Center Plaza Office Building  (8) City Bank and Trust Company  (9) City Hall Square  (10) Dock Square*  (11) Edison Substation   (12) Faneuil Hall*  (13) First Harrison Gray Otis House * (14) Government Center Parking Garage and Bus Terminal (15) Jewish Family and Children's Service Center (16) John F. Kennedy Federal Office Building (17) New England Merchants National Bank Building  (18) New England Telephone Company (19) Old State House*  (20) Old West Church * (21) One Washington Mall  (22) Pemberton Square (23) Precinct 1 Police Station (24) Proposed Motel and Office Development (25) Quincy Market* (26) Row House Rehabilitation * (27) St. Botolph's Chapel (28) Sears Block (29) Sears Crescent (30) State Office Building* (31) State Service Center (32) Suffolk County Court House* (33) 30 Hawkins Street (34) U. S. Post Office (35) Veterans, Administration Building (36) WNAC-TV * Outside the Government Center Urban Renewal Area

Pamphlet Text:

Government Center is a complex of buildings, plazas and pedestrian malls that has revitalized the downtown core of Boston. Carried out under a master plan given final form by the architectural firm of I.M. Pei and Partners in 1961, Government Center has tried to respect the historic character of Old Boston while expressing the energy and growth of the New Boston.

A Federally-aided urban renewal project covering 60 acres in the heart of Boston, Government Center includes city, state and Federal office facilities as well as private office buildings. The new Boston City Hall (2), set in a nine-acre plaza, is the Center's major focus.

It was one of the first urban renewal project's undertaken by the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA}, with assistance from the Government Center Commission. Approaching completion under the leadership of Mayor Kevin H. White, it will ultimately contain nearly 30 buildings worth $260 million.
Government Center was conceived in 1954 when it became apparent that the city, state, and Federal governments were contemplating new construction in Boston. The BRA believed that major government construction would encourage massive private investment in the same area and this has proved to be the case.

The site chosen for this large scale government and private construction was Scollay Square--a rundown entertainment and retail district. It was considered an ideal location for development partly because of the area's desperate need for physical improvement, but also because of its accessibility and proximity to established retail and office centers in Boston.

Government Center is close to the shopping district concentrated along Washington Street. It is near Boston's business and financial center. It is next to Beacon Hill, with its residential area, the State House, the Suffolk County Court House (32), and to the residential West End urban renewal area. Served by three subway lines, it is also adjacent to the downtown expressway, the Central Artery. Encompassed within Government Center are several historic buildings--the Old State House (19), Faneuil Hall (12) and the Sears Crescent (29).

Government Center is best explored on foot, through its many malls, shops, pedestrian passages and plazas. One of its aims is to restore this part of the city, which dates back to Colonial times, to the pedestrian scale it had originally.

The following are buildings that comprise Government Center. A key at the back of the booklet [see key above] indicates their location in the Center. Boston's New City Hall is the result of an architectural competition in 1962 won by the firm of Kallmann, McKinnell and Knowles. Built at an estimated cost of $27 million (financed by municipal bonds issued by the Government Center Commission), it encloses 318,000 square feet of office space.

The City Hall houses three separate functions of city government that are reflected in the design and structure of the building. The lower floors, built into the side of Beacon Hill, contain the offices most often visited by the public and most easily reached. The upper four floors, in the "cap", house city departments requiring flexible office space and visited less often by the public. Suspended between these two sections are the Mayor's office and the City Council Chambers, visible to all and directly accessible by a large brick stairway.

Adjacent to the City Hall is the nine acre City Hall Square (9). Its red brick continues through the City Hall, as an extension of Beacon Hill, and down to Dock Square (10) and Faneuil Hall.

The Sears Block and Sears Crescent (28, 29) are reminders of Boston's past, in scale, location and building materials. Built in the early 19th century, they soon became the nucleus of Boston's book center. The area attracted writers, artists and poets, Hawthorne and Emerson among them. The Sears Crescent housed "The Christian Freeman", an abolitionist journal, in the mid-1800s.
The buildings are now being renovated. The granite Sears Block (28), the corner building, is the home of the 294-gallon "Steaming Kettle", and the brick Sears Crescent (29) will contain shops and offices when completed.

The John F. Kennedy Federal Office Building (16) consists of a 26-story tower and a 4-story lower section. The tower houses Federal agencies serving the New England region. District offices, more often visited by area residents, are in the low building along with an employees' cafeteria. A glass bridge links the two and contains a mural by Robert  Motherwell. The tower is split, with elevators in the middle, to make the building less massive and provide direct daylight to almost all offices.

United States Branch Bank, 1825

(Above) United States Branch Bank, (Below) Ground Plan of the United States Bank, both from the City Record and Boston News-Letter, 5 November 1825, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Images copyright the City Record and Boston News-Letter, all rights reserved)

Abel Bowen not only edited the City Record and Boston News-Letter, he was a wood engraver of some renown and created the illustrations of the United States Branch Bank for the first issue of his new newspaper.  One interesting (and hitherto unknown to me) item from Bowen's description of the new bank:  the original site of the bank was to have been on the site where the Old State House still stands today.  The replacement of the seat of British colonial power with a bank emblematic of the financial strength of the United States would have made sense as a symbolic statement and it also would have been an important urban planning decision.  The new bank would have sat at the head of Boston's most important street, looking down to Long Wharf, making the bank the focal point of commerce in Boston.

Bowen's description of the bank:  "The new Banking-house, which is intended for the accomodation of the United States Bank at Boston, is situated at the corner of State-street and Wilson's lane [see map below].  The building is of granite, about 44 feet in front, and 96 feet deep.  The portico is imitated from the primitive form of the Grecian temple, with little variation, excepting what was necessary to adapt it to the location, and to the refractory material, of which it was to be built.  The form of the Portico belongs to the first class of Temples which is described by Vitruvius, and is denominated the Temple of Antis.  The columns are of the Grecian Doric, 4 feet in diameter, and 24 feet high, the shaft being of a single piece.  [More on columns here.]

In the front part of the building, on the first floor, there is an entry, and two rooms, for the president and cashier; and in the second story over them, a large room for the accomodation of the directors.  The centre of the building is occupied for the Banking room, which is a rotundo, 36 feet in diameter, and 44 feet high to the top of the curb stone.
The rear of the building contains the vaults, which open into the Banking room, and also a number of rooms which are to serve for the various purposes of the Bank.  The building is warmed by an air stove of the Wakefield kind, which is set in the cellar.  The construction of the whole is of the most solid kind,  The first floor and principal room are vaulted in with bricks, and the dress is intended to be of a severe and masculine character becoming a National Edifice of a young Republic.

The first outline was made for the situation which is occupied by the old State-house, and was intended to be an imitation of the purest example of the Grecian Doric Order, with two porticos; but the scite which was finally obtained required a different arrangement.  One of the porticos was dispensed with, and Antae at the angles introduced, according to the primitive form of the Grecian Temple.  The shafts of the columns are frustums of cones, the sides being right lines, which being the most severe and simple form, seemed the best adapted to the occasion....

Mr. Solomon Willard was the designer and architect; Mr. Gridley Bryant, mason; and Mr. James M'Allaster, carpenter.  The foundation was commenced, May 17, 1824; corner stone laid, July 5, (the plate, which may hereafter be found beneath it, says July 4;) the outside work was completed, Jan. 1, 1825."
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From the 1896 Annual Report of the Street Laying Out Department:

Wilson's Lane, B.; from King (now State) street to Dock Square; called Crooked lane, 1708; name changed to Wilson's lane, May 12, 1712; Devonshire street extended through Wilson's lane to Dock square, June 6, 1872.

In this excerpt from John Hales's 1814 map of Boston, Wilson's Lane can be seen running parallel to Exchange Street.   Also note that Quincy Market has yet to be built.