Lost Boston

Toy Theatre – Copley Theatre // 1914-1921

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Photo courtesy of Boston Public Library collections.

When the Toy Theatre on Lime Street in Beacon Hill (last post) was formed in the early 20th century, the members of the small theatre group of well-connected artists and actors had their sights on something with permanence. By 1914, the group had funding and acquired land on Dartmouth street, a block away from Copley Square, and ground was broken to build a large new theatre. Designed by the architecture firm of Putnam & Cox, the fashionable Colonial Revival style building featured a large, rounded facade and was constructed of brick with a marble base and detailing. The theatre was designed with a retail space for supplemental income. Inside, decorations were refined and also included a staircase and railings donated by Isabella Stewart Gardner’s Fenway Court mansion, that were removed when she created the Tapestry Room in her home. The organization could not support running the building through shows, and the space was sold and rebranded as the Copley Theatre within a couple years. Continuing the bad luck, the City of Boston decided to extend Stuart Street by 1921, and this building was along the proposed route. The Toy Theatre was demolished in 1921, after just seven years.

Hotel Pelham // 1857-1916

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Built in 1857 at the prominent intersection of Boylston and Tremont streets in Boston, the Hotel Pelham is said to have been the first apartment building of its type in America. Seen as a high-end apartment building, not like the slum-like tenements in New York and elsewhere in Boston, the units were like French-flats for medium-term renters, rather than short-term stays. The Hotel Pelham was developed by Dr. John Homer Dix, a doctor who took a keen interest in providing healthy accomodations for city-folk. The Hotel Pelham was designed by architect Alfred Stone, as an early example of the Second Empire style, with a French Mansard roof and stone facades. Just about a decade after the building was completed, Tremont Street (which runs along the side of the building) was set to be widened. This work would require the partial (and likely full) demolition of the Pelham Hotel. Rather than see his building face the wrecking ball, Dr. Dix, in 1869, had the Hotel Pelham slid off its foundation, and moved westward thirty feet to accommodate the expanded Tremont Street. This incredible feat of engineering was undertaken by John S. Blair, with architect Nathaniel Bradlee overseeing updates to the facades and interiors. The building would survive a gas main explosion in 1897, but succumbed to redevelopment during WWI, when the building was demolished for the present building on the site, the Little Building.

Old Boston Public Library // 1855-1898

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Courtesy of BPL collections.

Established in 1848, the Boston Public Library was the first large, free municipal library in the United States. The Boston Public Library’s first building of its own was a converted former schoolhouse located on Mason Street that opened to the public in 1854. As soon as the library occupied the building, it was apparent that the amount of visitors and collections could not effectively be held in the cramped quarters. Planning began almost immediately for it’s first purpose-built library. Less than a year later, in December 1854, library commissioners were authorized to purchase a lot and fund the construction of the new library. A desirable building lot on Boylston Street, opposite the Boston Common, was purchased and a public invitation for proposals from architects was held. The requirements for the building included: a library hall with alcoves capable of containing on fixed shelves at least 200,000 volumes, a general reading room with ample accommodations at tables for at least 150 readers, a ladies reading room, an adjacent library room for the arrangement of 20,000 books “most constantly demanded for circulation,” and quarters for the Trustees and Librarian. The facade was to be of brick, with stone dressing”. The selected design by architect, Charles Kirk Kirby, was for this handsome Italianate style building which took nearly three years to build, opening in September 1858. Twenty years later, as the library outgrew that space, the Trustees asked the state legislature for a plot in the newly filled Back Bay, and planning began on the McKim Building, built in 1895 down Boylston Street. This building, the first purpose-built Boston Public Library building, was demolished in 1898, and replaced by the ten-story Colonial Theater Building. It stood just 40 years.

Lincoln Street Garage // 1956

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Few buildings in Boston showcase the evolution of its neighborhood (or bring out the architectural critics) quite as well as the Lincoln Street Garage in the Leather District of Boston. This Post-WWII mixed use building was originally constructed in 1956, on the former site of the United States Hotel (1839), one of the first major hotels in the nation, which was razed in 1930. The original building was designed by architect Archie Riskin, and stood three stories high with parking on half of the second floor and on the 3rd floor and roof. A fifth floor of office space was designed and constructed by 1959 also by Riskin. Due to its site at the edge of a historic commercial/industrial district and adjacent to the Central Artery, a raised highway that snaked its way through Downtown Boston, the building was minimally visible and faded away to obscurity until the late 1990s when the highway was buried under the city as part of the “Big Dig”. The open scar and subsequent re-greening of much of the former highway spaces necessitated the owners to re-work the building, due to its newfound gateway presence into the neighborhood. Brian Healey Architects renovated the building, adding an additional floor of offices and reworked facades. The result is a Post-war mixed-use hodgepodge of a building that expresses its use visually on each floor in a no-nonsense way, making it a unique urban building. Additionally the building has long been rented to small businesses, almost all Asian-owned with direct ties to the Chinatown and Leather District neighborhoods. Recent plans have been approved for a new office tower on the site and supported by preservation groups stating that “the existing garage is historically significant or beneficial to the neighborhood”, but to me, the further erasure of quirky buildings for more out-of-context developments is not the way to go.

Boston & Albany Depot // 1881-1958

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Courtesy of Digital Commonwealth

When the Erie Canal opened in 1825, New York City’s advantageous water connection through the Hudson River threatened Boston’s dominance as a historic trade center. Since the topography of the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts made construction of a canal infeasible, Boston turned to the emerging railroad technology for a share of the freight to and from the Midwestern United States. The Boston and Worcester Railroad was chartered in 1831 and construction began the next year. Stations and rail lines were built westward of Boston and would eventually reach the Berkshires and the Hudson Valley with three existing lines merging in 1867 as the Boston and Albany Railroad, becoming the longest and most expensive point-to-point railroad yet constructed in the United States. The B&A undertook a significant program of improvement and beautification in the 1880s and 1890s, when the railroad hired architect Alexander Rice Esty to design this building, the Boston passenger station which was completed in 1881, the year of Esty’s death. That same year, the B&A hired architect Henry Hobson Richardson to design a series of passenger stations, connecting suburban villages west of Boston to the city. This station was located on Kneeland Street and serviced passenger service from Boston until the new South Station, a consolidated train station of various lines, was completed in 1899. This station later became a freight and storage warehouse for the railroad until the 1950s when the building was razed for the Central Artery, signaling the death of train travel as we knew it for decades to come. The site of the former station has remained undeveloped since then.

Hotel Manger // 1930-1983

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Built on the site of the former Boston & Lowell Train Station the Hotel Manger (later renamed the Madison Hotel in 1959) was part of the first redevelopment of North Station in Boston. When the Boston & Maine Railroad announced that plans had been finalized for the construction of a new North Station facility, which would include a sports arena, hotel, office building, and distributing terminal, Manger Hotels, a national hotel chain, and the Boston & Maine Railroad announced that the two parties had signed a contract for the construction of the hotel on the site with each party holding a 50% stock in the building. Designed by the architectural firm of Funk & Wilcox in the Art Deco style, the 17-story hotel was completed in 1930 and contained 500 rooms and at the time of its opening, the hotel was said to have had proportionately more marble than any other building in New England! As railroad traffic declined, the neighborhood surrounding North Station lost its importance as a commuter center and the hotel began to suffer financially, leading the hotel to close in 1976. Plans to convert the old hotel into elderly housing fell through, and in March 1983, the Boston Redevelopment Authority purchased the hotel and demolished it as part of their urban renewal plan for the area. The site is now occupied by the mundane Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. Federal Building.

North Station & Boston Garden // 1928-1998

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In the 1920s, plans began to build a contemporary train station that tied in both the Boston subway and regional train lines. The complex would replace the former North Union Station and help propel Boston as a more contemporary city. Seeing the opportunity, Boston real estate developer James Walsh realized the potential of adding a sporting stadium atop the station. Walsh had also contacted New York boxing promoter Tex Rickard, who built the third iteration of New York’s Madison Square Garden, and was eyeing boston as a location for a second Madison Square Garden. The duo hired the New York firm of Fellheimer and Wagner (designers of New York Grand Central Station) to design the exterior of the building in the Art Deco style. The building opened in November 1928 as the Boston Madison Square Garden, later shortened to the Boston Garden. The arena was built specifically with boxing in mind, with Rickard believing every seat should be close enough to see the “sweat on the boxers’ brows”. Due to this layout, fans for decades later were much closer to the players during Bruins and Celtics games than in most arenas, leading to a distinct hometown advantage. Storied franchises became dynasties and the grit and determination of Boston sports was fostered under this roof. The small size of the Boston Garden, paired with electrical issues and lack of air-conditioning, led to its demise. The present Boston Garden opened in 1995, behind the old Garden and was known as the Fleet Center, later renamed the TD Garden. The 1920s Garden sat vacant for three years before it was demolished in 1998. The site where the building once stood is currently a commercial development called The Hub on Causeway.

Old Boston North Union Station // 1893-1927

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Photo courtesy of Library of Congress.

By the 1890s, many of the regional train lines in New England consolidated and as a result, union stations were built. All north-bound train lines including the Boston & Lowell and Boston & Maine railroads would consolidate into North Union Station with southbound trains consolidated into South Station. North Union Station, actually three adjoined buildings, was completed in 1893 and included the former Boston & Lowell Station, a Second Empire masterpiece which dated from 1873. The other sections of Union Station were designed by the firm, Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, and comprised of an office tower at the rightmost section and a central building serving as the main entrance and concourse with waiting rooms and baggage holding. The central entrance exhibited an elaborate columned block of brick with stone trimmings. The station lasted until 1927 when the entire complex was razed for the new North Station (The Boston Garden), which itself was replaced. The demolition of the Old North Union Station was one of the biggest architectural losses in Boston’s history, a stain on its historical legacy only compounded by the sterile development we see there today.

Former Boston & Lowell Railroad Depot // 1871-1927

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Courtesy of Boston Public Library collections

The Boston and Lowell Railroad was established in 1830 as one of the first rail lines in North America. The first track was completed in 1835, and freight service began immediately connecting Boston to the newly established town of Lowell, which had just 6,400 residents at the time (compared to Boston which had 10x that). The original Boston depot was a modest structure, but after the Civil War, it was decided that a new station connecting two of the most important industrial cities in Massachusetts, should be built. Architect Edgar Allen Poe Newcomb and his father’s firm, L. Newcomb & Son, was selected to design a new station on Causeway Street. The French Second Empire masterpiece was built between 1871-1878. Inside, the concourse was lined with oak walls and marble flooring. The depot was added onto in 1893 and incorporated into a Union Station of multiple former lines, and ultimately demolished in 1927 for the first North Station.

Boston City Hospital Relief Station, Haymarket // 1902-1960s

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Image courtesy of City of Boston Archives

In 1858, as Boston began to see a massive influx of immigration into the city and rapid industrialization, the City of Boston authorized the creation of a new hospital whose purpose was the “reception of those sick and injured: citizens of Boston who, from any cause, were unable to otherwise obtain care and treatment,” especially in cases of “acute illness and for the victims of accident or injury.” This was the Boston City Hospital, which was established in the South End, and is now known as the Boston Medical Center. The hospital was thought to be too far away for victims of injury of illness to get to promptly, so a relief station was built in Haymarket Square, replacing the recently demolished Boston & Maine Railroad Station. The new, standalone hospital building was constructed of brick and stood three stories tall and opened in 1902. On its first day of operation, doctors and staff saved the life of a man who had attempted suicide by ingesting carbolic acid. A Boston Globe reporter speculated that had the patient been  transported to the more distant Massachusetts General or City Hospitals, he would have surely died. The Colonial Revival style building was designed by the firm of Kendall, Taylor & Stevens, who specialized in medical facilities and other institutional building designs. The structure was demolished by the 1960s, when much of the Government Center/West End areas were razed for urban renewal.

Former Boston & Maine Railroad Station // c.1845-1893

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Photo courtesy of City of Boston Archives

The Boston & Maine Railroad opened in 1845, and over the years, became the dominant railroad in northern New England with many of its lines terminating at this station for a half-century until the original Union/North Station was built in 1893 consolidating many of these northbound lines under one roof. The Boston & Maine Station was located in Haymarket Square, southeast of the present North Station and the building was a landmark in the Greek Revival style. The brick building with monumental pilasters and pediment at the facade commanded the heavily trafficked site until it was demolished in 1893 when the lines relocated to the newly built Union Station on Causeway Street. The architect for the station was Richard Bond.

Brewer & Beebe Townhouses // 1863-1917

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Boston is ever-changing and while change can be good, there have been some major architectural losses. This trend of redevelopment is not new however, as this single site on Beacon Street has seen two major losses, all before 1918! This lot on Beacon Street was originally home to Hancock Manor, a landmark Georgian mansion built between 1734-1737 for the wealthy merchant Thomas Hancock (1703–1764), and later inherited and occupied as the home of United States Founding Father John Hancock, yes, that John Hancock. In 1863, the Hancock Manor was sold at public auction and was purchased for $230. The house was demolished within days. While the building was torn down, souvenirs of it were actively sought as it fell. To replace it, two of the finest homes ever built in Boston were constructed on the site, from plans by elite Boston architect, Gridley James Fox Bryant. The double Second Empire style homes were first occupied by wealthy merchants, James Madison Beebe (the house on the left) and Gardner Brewer (right). In 1916, plans for the extension of the Massachusetts State House necessitated a taking of these (and other nearby) properties. These two houses were razed by 1917.

I wonder if the Hancock Manor would have survived to this time, would preservation prevail to save it?

Hutchings-Pfaff Mansion // c.1865

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In the mid-19th century, Roxbury was seen as a country retreat for wealthy Bostonians. Many purchased large estates of land and built mansions where they would find peace and solitude from the polluted Downtown areas. As the need increased for more workers, old farms and estates were subdivided, and single family homes, row houses, and multi-family homes sprang up to accommodate the growing population with the advent of trolley service in 1887. This is one of those estates that were demolished. This house was seemingly built for Colonel William Vinson Hutchings after the conclusion of the American Civil War. The stone mansion featured ample porches and a large stone stable amongst winding dirt paths and mature trees. The property was eventually purchased by Henry and Agnes Pfaff, of the Pfaff Brewing Company nearby. The lot was subdivided by 1895 with houselots carved out of the larger estate. By the 1930s, the stone mansion and stable were demolished, leaving just the stone gatehouse (next post) as the last survivor of this once great Roxbury estate.

Arlington Building // 1904-2022

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This one took me a while to write about because it still pains me to see it was demolished… The Arlington Building was constructed in 1904 as a mid-block building on Boylston Street, across from the Public Garden for the Bryant and Stratton Commercial School. It was designed by architect William Gibbons Rantoul of the firm Andrews, Jacques & Rantoul in the Beaux Arts style. The school building was significantly altered when Arlington Street was extended southward through Boylston Street, making this building suddenly a corner landmark. The new Arlington Street elevation was modeled after the Boylston Street facade. By 1929, Shreve, Crump & Low, established in 1796, the oldest purveyor of luxury goods in North America, moved into the building. The next year, they hired architect William T. Aldrich to add Art Deco embellishments and storefront designs, along with interior renovations to modernize the structure. The luxury company had downsized and moved out of the building, and its prominent site was threatened when owner/developer Druker Co. submitted for a demolition permit to raze the building (and others on the block) to erect a modern office/commercial building. After years of fighting between local preservationists and business interests and developers, the latter won and the building was demolished by late 2022. The new building, 350 Boylston Street, is presently undergoing construction, and in my opinion, is a poor attempt to fit into the surrounding context and is neither as unique or inspiring as the former building.

Horatio Harris Villa // 1857

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Not much remains of one of Roxbury’s once grand rural estates, but as there is some left, I want to feature it before it’s all gone, possibly any day now! Horatio Harris was born in Dorchester (present-day South Boston) in 1821 and ran a prominent auction house in Boston. He built his country estate in Roxbury beginning in 1857 in the Gothic Revival style, adding on and updating numerous times. During the Civil War, the firm of Horatio Harris & Co. obtained the contract to sell at auction all goods which were confiscated by the United States’ land or naval forces and brought to Boston. He made a lot of money and added to his land holdings and estate house in Roxbury. The mansion’s construction was timely as Roxbury was transitioning from a rural town, with farms and country estates of wealthy Boston merchants, to a streetcar suburb, increasing the land value of his holdings. The estate included nearly 30 acres of meandering paths, a lake with an island, outbuildings, and an observation tower – one of which remain today besides the ruin of the former mansion. Horatio died in 1876, in the decades following his death, his heirs began subdividing the estate, developing some and selling other plots off for houselots. By the early 1900s, Jewish people began moving into Roxbury, mixing with the predominantly Yankee population. By 1915, the Harris manor house was owned by the Hebrew Alliance of Roxbury, Inc. By the 1920s, they expanded facilities, adding a school building to the front of the former Harris Mansion, completely obscuring the facade of the old estate. In the 1940s, the upper stories were removed. Seemingly the death knell of the old Harris Villa was a fire in 2019, which gutted much of the remaining original fabric of the estate. All that remains is a bay window, some window trim details and a Gothic porte-cochere at the rear of the estate. See it before it’s too late!