Downtown Boston
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Downtown Boston captures many of Boston's intriguing changes with photographs of the past and present. Since the advent of photography one hundred and fifty years ago, Boston has seen many topographical changes, such as the infilling that created new land in the Dock Square and Long Wharf areas and the rebuilding of the Financial District with magnificent structures that have become a representation of Boston's banking and investment endeavors. At the height of commercial success, the Great Boston Fire of 1872 brought mass devastation-forty acres of the business area were destroyed and downtown Boston had to be rebuilt. Downtown Boston magnificently portrays Boston's rebuilding and rise as a historically beautiful city.
Anthony Mitchell Sammarco
Anthony Mitchell Sammarco is a noted historian and author of over sixty books on Boston, its neighborhoods and surrounding cities and towns. He lectures widely on the history and development of his native city.
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Downtown Boston - Anthony Mitchell Sammarco
House.
INTRODUCTION
No man who consents to the destruction of an ancient building has any right to pretend that he cares about art. or has any excuse to plead in defence of his crime against civilization and progress save sheer brutal ignorance.
—William Morris
Boston was settled in 1630 by a group of Puritans from England who were seeking religious freedom, as well as liberty, from the oppressive policies of Charles I. They created in the New World a city upon a hill.
Initially called Shawmut, the Massachusetts Indian name that is supposed to have meant a spring of water, the town was also referred to as Trimount, an acknowledgment of the three hills later to become known as Mount Vernon, Beacon, and Pemberton Hills. Trimount was later corrupted as Tremont by both spelling and pronunciation, and a street perpetuates it toda. In September1630, the Puritans officially called their settlement Boston, after Boston in Lincolnshire, England. When settled, the town was an 800-acre land mass that was connected to the mainland at Roxbury by a narrow strip of land that became known as the Neck. This area, which was to be infilled and developed in the 19th century as the present South End of Boston, is the current area of Washington Street.
In the first two centuries (1630–1830) after the peninsula was settled by the Puritans, Boston saw the laying out of streets, the building of houses, and the erection of places of worship. It also observed the development of the waterfront with wharves that projected into Boston Harbor, a move that increased Boston’s mercantile econom. Beginning with the turn of the 19th century, the town was to see tremendous topographical changes over the next five decades, especially the leveling of the three hills and the infilling of such areas as the Dock Square and Long Wharf. These areas became the site of Quincy Market and the Boston Custom House, each of which signified the development of the city’s commercial aspects.
Boston was incorporated as a city by its citizens on March 4, 1822, after which it saw tremendous growth under the first three mayors: John Phillips (1822), Josiah Quincy (1823–1828), and Harrison Gray Otis (1829–1831). These three men would see to it that Boston was perceived as not just the Athens of America,
but as Oliver Wendell Holmes called it, the Hub of the Universe.
Though much of the old South End, the area of present-day Downtown Boston, was one of the most architecturally elegant sections of any city on the eastern seaboard, it was rapidly changing. By the time of the Civil War, the formerly residential streets, such as Summer, High, Pearl, and Franklin Streets had given way to commerce and were being rebuilt with four- and five-story commercial blocks that changed the character of the cit. However, all of this rapid development came to an abrupt halt due to the mass devastation wrought by the Great Boston Fire of November 9–10, 1872. The fire destroyed 40 acres of the downtown business area and wreaked economic devastation on the econom. In 1873, the city appointed George A. Clough as the first city architect of Boston. Clough oversaw the rebuilding of the burnt district,
with high-rise office buildings and commercial blocks. By the turn of the 20th century, Downtown Boston had become an important banking and financial center in the United States, and the often elaborate and architecturally impressive buildings reflected that importance.
As the great John Ruskin once said, True taste is forever growing, learning, reading, worshipping, laying its hand upon its mouth because it is astonished, lamenting over itself, and testing itself by the way it fits things.
Maybe the readers of this book will grow in their appreciation of the history of Downtown Boston, learn of its changes since the advent of photography that recorded its evolution, and lay their hands over their mouths in astonishment at what has changed in the city, but realize, equally astonished, how much has really remained the same.
In the early 20th century, the Massachusetts State House had an impressive addition built to the rear of the original Bulfinch building of 1795, which was also on the site of the original Beacon Hill. Designed by noted architects Charles E. Brigham and John C. Spofford of Brigham & Spofford, it was completed in 1893 and greatly expanded the office space by sixfold. The extension was built of glazed yellow brick and limestone to match the original building, which was then painted yellow. The space constraints at the state house had been addressed in 1853, with an addition designed by Gridley J. Fox Bryant, and in 1867, when William Washburn made interior changes, but not until Brigham & Spofford’s extension was built did the overcrowded conditions become alleviated. In the foreground is a sweeping drive that was obliterated when the white marble wings were added in 1917, designed by Chapman, Sturgis, and Andrews. To the left is an equestrian statue of Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker, the famous Civil War hero.
Chapter 1
THE OLD SOUTH END: DOWNTOWN CROSSING
Summer Street, laid out in 1683 and originally known as Mylne Street, was a fashionable residential neighborhood in the decades following the American Revolution. Known as the South End until the 1830s, when the present neighborhood of that name was being developed on filled land, it had impressive brick mansions with lavishly planted and well-tended gardens.