Recent content by qubbin

Definitely we're in a longlived reaction phase to that mid-century urban renewal-highway construction over reach. The 1955 NIMBY licks her tail and slinks away; her 2024 descendent prevails over every public good initiative--many of them at least.

Old enough to remember a visit to Norumbega Park in Auburndale before they demolished it for the Newton Marriott. And the "To Be Continued" lettering on the Court St end of the unfinished Center Plaza building-- I guess they built the other sections first. The Nantasket boat from Long Wharf and...

But many of them are not non-connected. They’re not literally attached to each other but so many of these wooden structures are so closely spaced and stand along the street in concert with one another in a way that creates a street wall that is often as lively as maybe more lively than many row...

That is the biggest difference between Boston and so many other US cities: places to store automobiles are so much less evident. parking lots created at a time of high taxes, low values and slack demand for upper story space are almost gone. Parking garages aren’t such a routine sight along the...

Such great pictures. I was thinking of European city centers but Japanese and other Asian cities have more intense contrasts between leafy settings and urban ones. Boston really does have trees everywhere—only pavement or mowing stops them from growing. Street trees are a particular category...

Cutting/removing street trees, especially mature plantings, upsets people for good reasons. Melnea Cass is the latest case. There's a famous example from the '60s of people protesting a plan to remove the sycamores along Memorial Drive between the Anderson and the Eliot bridges, presumably to...

I don't know the whys. From the photos it would appear the older postal building dates from the 1930s. The newer one has a much bigger footprint. You probably know all this but the bigger building took up the space of several tracks and platforms in South Station. Everything visible in the 1967...

Not to be a pedant but that is Thompson Square, Charlestown, not City Sq. :) After all these years still with that ordinary little package store at the corner that needs a nice triangular structure to anchor the space.

This is Frederick Douglass Square. The building in the middle of the picture contained the Douglass Square pharmacy. Tremont street streetcar shown in this view.

The picture of the horse-drawn wagon is from Walter Muir Whitehill and Katherine Knowles, "Boston: Portrait of a City" published 1964. Whitehill did the text, Knowles the photography. Strictly old Boston. Whitehill's caption under the photo reads "A late survival plods along Charles Street."...