"Dirty Old Boston"

citydweller said:
Following the previous post by stick n move .... what intrigues me is the various modes of transportation, the rail fright in the upper right, the commuter rail heading into the garage, the trolleys which go everywhere and even the horse-and-buggy taxi service with a strategically placed water trough and not to forget the archway of the massive garage which is very impressive. It's a fascinating picture highlighting architecture and transportation during the late 1800s.


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Never knew this existed so I had to do some searching. Found some additonal photos I thought worth sharing, plus this document on the history of the station & railroads in the area.

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Source: http://www.worcesterthen.com/Shorts/Arches/Arches.htm


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Source: https://www.historicnewengland.org/explore/collections-access/gusn/197221/
 
kz1000ps said:
Slightly outside the usual DOB content, but I found this on a Tumblr

Fanieul Hall central information kiosk, 1989

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Some hardcore "festival marketplace" vibes here.
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I grew up in Southern NH in the 80s and 90s and my parents took us to Boston pretty regularly for daytrips. The one constant of these trips was Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market. We would wind up at Faneuil Hall to eat, or shop, or just walk around. We might go to a museum, or the North End, or Cambridge, but we'd always spend some time at Faneuil Hall. When we'd visit other cities, my sisters and I would often ask, "Where is their Faneuil Hall?" It took us a while to catch on that not every city had a similar place.

Now that I live in the city, it's amazing how rarely I go to Faneuil Hall.
 
chrisbrat said:
Damn, what a loss! Wish that had been spared.
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Nope. No time. Rip it down. I need to park my giant Buick somewhere.
Cars! Cars! Cars! Cars!

“
Some of Boston’s most notable examples of Victorian architecture lined the triangular junction of Congress, Pearl and Milk Streets and surrounded the open areas of Post Office Square. The Mutual Life Insurance Company building combined with Arthur Gilman’s Equitable Building at Federal and Milk Streets, created an elegance of location unusual for the Boston of that period.

America’s mutual life insurance industry had its first home in Post Office Square. In 1835, the Governor of Massachusetts granted Judge Willard Phillips a charter founding the New England Mutual Life Insurance Company. In 1874, the majestic Mutual Life Insurance Company building, designed by Nathaniel Bradlee, opened on the site of the Norman B. Leventhal Park and Garage at Post Office Square, with its main entrance on Post Office Square. The building was demolished in 1945, making way for the first Post Office Square parking garage, which was completed in 1954.”

History of Post Office Square | Norman B. Leventhal Park

History of Boston’s Post Office Square Post Office Square, located in the heart of Boston’s Financial District, has had many faces throughout the years. Bordered by Milk, Congress, Franklin and Pearl Streets, Post Office Square has evolved from a maritime district amid swamp and marshlands to a...
www.normanbleventhalpark.org www.normanbleventhalpark.org
 
Parks not parking lots.
In many places, parking lots are still classified as a public good and taxed at a fraction of what they should be. Horrible land use continues apace.
 
Java King said:
The park is an amazing amenity now for the city, but this building loss is truly tragic!
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The loss of the Old Post Office, demolished in 1929, is also a bummer as well. According to the Wikipedia article, space needs and the fact that the building had "become an object of derision in the face of a modernist backlash against Second Empire architecture" led to the demolition. That latter part sounds like a stupid reason to demolish a building as ornate as this one. It would have made for a cool conversion to City Hall or some other municipal need.

United_States_Post_Office_and_Sub-Treasury_Building_%28Boston%29_ca_1900_4a07553a.jpg

en.wikipedia.org

United States Post Office and Sub-Treasury Building (Boston) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
Another Tumblr find.... this time an FAO Schwarz store that opened in Copley Place in 1991. The post has the location listed as Boylston Street but the brown hexagonal tile and double height space with escalators is a dead giveaway that this is Copley Place.

Quite the sizeable space and holy hell those neon colors :love:

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kz1000ps said:
Another Tumblr find.... this time an FAO Schwarz store that opened in Copley Place in 1991. The post has the location listed as Boylston Street but the brown hexagonal tile and double height space with escalators is a dead giveaway that this is Copley Place.

Quite the sizeable space and holy hell those neon colors :love:
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Love the photos (quite the nostalgic aesthetic for me), but are you sure this was Copley Place? FAO was definitely at 440 Boylston for many years and I remember it there. A New York Times article from 1991 discusses its opening in a 2-level space at 440 Boylston that year:
www.nytimes.com

NORTHEAST NOTEBOOK: Boston; F.A.O. Schwarz For Back Bay (Published 1991)

AN F.A.O. Schwarz toy store in a new $135 million Back Bay office tower is proving the value of its location for retailing even as office leasing lags in the same building. The store is in the 505,000-square-foot tower designed by Robert A. M. Stern for Gerald D. Hines Interests. The building...
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

And there are lots of pictures of it at this intersection here:
https://goo.gl/maps/7TYEjQBfzEyYuJex6
E.g.: https://www.gettyimages.ae/detail/n...n-and-berkley-in-boston-news-photo/1372681689

So, maybe the question is whether 440 Boylston had a 2nd floor/interior mezzanine with such tiles? They are pretty late-80's/early-90's-fabulous; I wouldn't be surprised if they were used in a building that opened in 1991. I personally can only remember going in/out from that main entrance with the teddy bear at Boylston/Berkeley.
 
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Oh hmm.... on the one hand, it's clear there was a store at 440 Boylston, so I can't dispute that. On the other, I'd be awfully surprised if a R.A.M. Stern building from 1991 was using those disco-tastic brown tiles that Copley Place used ad naseum. Plus that's definitely brass framing the plate glass that all looks like it's the frontage to a mall entrance, which would be odd to have that sort of design/access to the lobby of an office building completed in 1991.

Here's some lobby shots from Stern's website. Typical buttoned-up Stern style, don't know where brass and brown would fit in here....

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Again, can't dispute there was a store here, but those brown hexagonal tiles are triggering my spidey sense that at least that first shot comes from Copley Place.
 
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