Aerials

Thanks! Nice to see Braves Field in its entirety. Much bigger than Fenway Park, which was marked for football when the photos were taken.
 
wow, there are more parking lots than buildings in those pictures! I can't believe I'm saying this, but overall, Boston looks much better today than it did back then, even with the raping of the West End.
 
Some of those parking lots are the intermediate stage of 'urban renewal' -- after demolition and before construction began for whatever was replacing the torn-down blocks.
 
Was the West End run down, with a large amount of dilapitated and abandoned buildings? Was it a poor area back then?
 
Cojapo said:
Was the West End run down, with a large amount of dilapitated and abandoned buildings? Was it a poor area back then?
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Everyone looks back nostalgically, but I parents always said it was a terrible slum( I had an uncle living there at the time).
 
It was a working-class area, similar in character to the North End (which fortunately didn't get urban-renewed), though more Jewish and less Italian.
 
BostonObserver said:
Everyone looks back nostalgically, but I parents always said it was a terrible slum( I had an uncle living there at the time).
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"Slum" is an interesting word. People didn't think about cities the way we do now, and a notable example would be Jane Jacobs' feelings towards the N. End (similar to our thinking today) vs. the general public perception at the time, that it was a terrible slum. Now, I won't pretend to know what it was actually like (I'm 22), but I'd venture a guess that, like Ron said, it was similar to the N. End (with different immigrant groups of course).

What about those rail roundhouses (that's what they appear to be anyway) in East Cambridge? Were they worth preserving? Maybe it's just my love of rail travel, but it would be nice to have seen some of them saved and renovated (with the rotating piece in the middle being turned into a plaza/park space that acknowledges it's working past). I know it's not practical most of the time, but roundhouses are a dying breed and I'd like to see some saved in a non-museum form.
 
Cojapo said:
Wow! Outstanding pics!
So, the logic behind gutting the old West End was.......?
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Because they could..."Urban renewal" and "eminent domain" were the catch-phrases at the time. There was a need perceived to "jump start" the city of Boston after a long period of decline. The West End was just one of a series of sections in Boston (Scollay Sq., Cathedral Housing project, parts of Tremont St., the "New York St." section, all in the South End, sections of Chinatown, parts of East Boston near the airport, the Rt. 93 corridor through Medford and Somerville, and more) deemed to have sub-standard housing or no political clout, and therefore good candidates for removal and for the establishment of Bauhaus-style apartment blocks, highways, etc.

The truth is the tenements in the West End were hardly up to today's standard; many shared toilets and had no bathing facilities; they were walk-ups with no elevators, and the footprint of each apartment building was small. (The last tenement standing can be seen off to the side of the O'Neill building near North Station. How this one survived the taking of land all these years is beyond me.) The idea of gentrification or of rehabbing an existing neighborhood was still foreign to many Americans, and anyway, if they had, the rents probably would have skyrocketed and long-time residents would still have been pushed out, unless the city imposed rent control of some sort.
 
Is this the building you mean?

http://maps.google.com/maps?client=...bp=1,54.65359090538266,,0,-14.950237170983252

Padre Mike said:
The truth is the tenements in the West End were hardly up to today's standard; many shared toilets and had no bathing facilities; they were walk-ups with no elevators, and the footprint of each apartment building was small. (The last tenement standing can be seen off to the side of the O'Neill building near North Station. How this one survived the taking of land all these years is beyond me.)
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Any idea who owns/lives in these buildings? The ones in the West End look like they're still occupied.
 
^The rumor was always that a mafioso owned the above building near North Station, and was able to pay off anyone coming to get it. This story always added cache to the situation, esp. when this building was practically the only thing standing in the area for a long time, right next to the Green Line tracks when they were above ground. Currently the apartments are indeed occupied.
 
And I believe Mass. General Hospital owns the one on North Anderson Street.
 
And think of what the landlord is making on rent from billboards!
 
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