Back Bay Maps 1951-Present

[resisttheist]

It is my impression that there are some people on this board who are pretty good at hunting down maps. I am doing a project and need to find maps with building footprints for the Back Bay from the time of its inception to today. Bromley and Sanborn get me from 1874 to 1951, and there's a good map from the BRA that shows the current state. Ideally I'd love to see even one map with building footprints from each decade from the 1960s to today. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[datadyne007]

The 1960s were all about tearing down Boston as fast as possible. There are tons of BRA maps for urban renewal from this decade, but I have yet to come across one of existing conditions. They didn't give two shits about documenting what existed.

See these links for some urban renewal maps:
http://www.archboston.org/community/showpost.php?p=176928&postcount=237
http://www.archboston.org/community/showpost.php?p=144659&postcount=195

You might be able to piece some of the info together.

 

[davem]

http://www.wardmaps.com/search.php?search=boston

It's better for pre 1950s atlases, but you get lucky every once and a while.

Not building footprints, but historic aerials is invaluable too.

Edit:
Also, check out Bainbridge Bunting's Houses of Boston's Back Bay. It has the history of 98% of every house built. It does not (unfortunately) cover commercial buildings, only residential. You could also try contacting Arthur Krim, who teaches a class on the back bay at the BAC and is on the MHC. He's been working on supplementing and updating the aforementioned book.

 

[BostonZest]

Back Bay Residential District: Guidelines for Exterior Rehabilitation and Restoration has a footprint map from circa 1971 on page 36. You can download a copy from:

https://ia700809.us.archive.org/26/items/backbayresidenti00bost/backbayresidenti00bost.pdf

This is also residential but the commercial streets are also shown.
Penny

 

[resisttheist]

Ward Maps got me up to 1951 between the Bromley and Sanborn atlases, and I do indeed have the Bunting book. It is interesting that the latter is out of sync in a number of cases with the former two sources, as it will sometimes give a later date to a building even when it shows up on an earlier atlas and vice versa. I am trying to do as little digging through building permits and deeds as possible, but it may be necessary. I will check out these other links though. Thanks folks.