Boston 1920
Contents
- 1 Quote
- 2 Appearance
- 3 City Device
- 4 Climate
- 5 Demonym
- 6 Districts
- 7 Economy
- 8 Geography
- 9 History
- 10 Population
- 11 Arenas
- 12 Attractions
- 13 Auction Houses
- 14 Bars and Clubs
- 15 Cemeteries
- 16 City Government
- 17 Crime
- 18 Citizens of the City
- 19 Current Events
- 20 Fortifications
- 21 Galleries
- 22 Holy Ground
- 23 Hospitals
- 24 Hotels & Hostels
- 25 Investigators
- 26 Landmarks
- 27 Law Enforcement
- 28 Libraries
- 29 Mass Media
- 30 Monuments
- 31 Museums
- 32 Parks
- 33 Private Residences
- 34 Restaurants
- 35 Ruins
- 36 Schools
- 37 Shopping
- 38 Societies & Fellowships
- 39 Supernatural Creatures
- 40 Theaters
- 41 Transportation
- 42 Websites
- 43 Stories
Quote
The constant motion of The Olde Town fills the spaces everywhere. There is more than darkness in the city, there is a malevolence that is searching for an expression. -- Harvey Dellingpole
Appearance
Boston is a curious mix of modern construction and eclectic hold overs from the long past. Horse drawn wagons still work the streets, there are even two horse drawn street trollies being used down town at this time. The furious rushing energy of the future clashes in darkened corners of the city with the pervasive gloom of the cities dark past.
The city is often besieged by fog and storms off the Atlantic. When the fog rolls in the city takes on a hushed, eerie quality, making distant buildings appear to be standing at odd angles, and strange shadows. People move quickly as they can between buildings at this time, as some pervasive sense in the monkey brain tells men and women not all is safe in the fog.
City Device
Climate
Under the Köppen climate classification, depending on the isotherm used, Boston has either a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cfa) under the −3 °C (26.6 °F) isotherm or a humid continental climate under the 0 °C isotherm. The city is best described as being in a transitional zone between the two climates. Summers are typically hot and humid, while winters are cold and stormy, with occasional periods of heavy snow. Spring and fall are usually cool to mild, with varying conditions dependent on wind direction and jet stream positioning. Prevailing wind patterns that blow offshore minimize the influence of the Atlantic Ocean. However, in winter areas near the immediate coast will often see more rain than snow as warm air is drawn off the Atlantic at times.
The hottest month is July, with a mean temperature of 74.1 °F (23.4 °C). The coldest month is January, with a mean temperature of 29.9 °F (−1.2 °C). Periods exceeding 90 °F (32 °C) in summer and below freezing in winter are not uncommon but rarely extended, with about 13 and 25 days per year seeing each, respectively.[119] The most recent sub-0 °F (−18 °C) reading occurred on January 7, 1898, when the temperature dipped down to −2 °F (−19 °C). In addition, several decades may pass between 100 °F (38 °C) readings, with the most recent such occurrence on July 22, 2011, when the temperature reached 103 °F (39 °C). The city's average window for freezing temperatures is November 9 through April 5.[119][c] Official temperature records have ranged from −18 °F (−28 °C) on February 9, 1934, up to 104 °F (40 °C) on July 4, 1911. The record cold daily maximum is 2 °F (−17 °C) on December 30, 1917.
Boston's coastal location on the North Atlantic moderates its temperature but makes the city very prone to Nor'easter weather systems that can produce much snow and rain. The city averages 43.6 inches (1,110 mm) of precipitation a year, with 49.2 inches (125 cm) of snowfall per season. Most snowfall occurs from mid-November through early April, and snow is rare in May and October. There is also high year-to-year variability in snowfall.
Fog is fairly common, particularly in spring and early summer. Due to its location along the North Atlantic, the city often receives sea breezes, especially in the late spring, when water temperatures are still quite cold and temperatures at the coast can be more than 20 °F (11 °C) colder than a few miles inland, sometimes dropping by that amount near midday. Thunderstorms occur from May to September, that are occasionally severe with large hail, damaging winds and heavy downpours. Although downtown Boston has never been struck by a violent tornado, the city itself has experienced many tornado warnings. Damaging storms are more common to areas north, west, and northwest of the city. Boston has a relatively sunny climate for a coastal city at its latitude, averaging over 2,600 hours of sunshine per annum.
Demonym
Bean Town
Districts
- Allston
- Beacon Hill
- Brighton
- Aberdeen
- Charlestown
- Central Boston
- Dorchester
- Jamaica Plain
- East Boston
- Roxbury
- South Boston
- South End
Economy
Geography
Boston has an area of 89.63 square miles (232.1 km2)—48.4 square miles (125.4 km2) (54%) of land and 41.2 square miles (106.7 km2) (46%) of water. The city's official elevation, as measured at Logan International Airport, is 19 ft (5.8 m) above sea level. The highest point in Boston is Bellevue Hill at 330 feet (100 m) above sea level, and the lowest point is at sea level. Situated onshore of the Atlantic Ocean, Boston is the only state capital in the contiguous United States with an oceanic shoreline.
The geographical center of Boston is in Roxbury. Due north of the center we find the South End. This is not to be confused with South Boston which lies directly east from the South End. North of South Boston is East Boston and southwest of East Boston is the North End. — Author, Unknown – A common local colloquialism
Boston is surrounded by the "Greater Boston" region and is contiguously bordered by the cities and towns of Winthrop, Revere, Chelsea, Everett, Somerville, Cambridge, Watertown, Newton, Brookline, Needham, Dedham, Canton, Milton, and Quincy. The Charles River separates Boston's Allston-Brighton, Fenway-Kenmore and Back Bay neighborhoods from Watertown and the majority of Cambridge, and the mass of Boston from its own Charlestown neighborhood. To the east lie Boston Harbor and the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area (which includes part of the city's territory, specifically Calf Island, Gallops Island, Great Brewster Island, Green Island, Little Brewster Island, Little Calf Island, Long Island, Lovells Island, Middle Brewster Island, Nixes Mate, Outer Brewster Island, Rainsford Island, Shag Rocks, Spectacle Island, The Graves, and Thompson Island). The Neponset River forms the boundary between Boston's southern neighborhoods and the city of Quincy and the town of Milton. The Mystic River separates Charlestown from Chelsea and Everett, and Chelsea Creek and Boston Harbor separate East Boston from Downtown, the North End, and the Seaport.
History
Colonial
Boston's early European settlers had first called the area Trimountaine (after its "three mountains", only traces of which remain today) but later renamed it Boston after Boston, Lincolnshire, England, the origin of several prominent colonists. The renaming on September 7, 1630 (Old Style), was by Puritan colonists from England who had moved over from Charlestown earlier that year in quest for fresh water. Their settlement was initially limited to the Shawmut Peninsula, at that time surrounded by the Massachusetts Bay and Charles River and connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus. The peninsula is thought to have been inhabited as early as 4000 BC.
In 1629, the Massachusetts Bay Colony's first governor John Winthrop led the signing of the Cambridge Agreement, a key founding document of the city. Puritan ethics and their focus on education influenced its early history; America's first public school, Boston Latin School, was founded in Boston in 1635.
John Hull and the pine tree shilling played a central role in the establishment of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Old South Church in the 1600s. In 1652 the Massachusetts legislature authorized John Hull to produce coinage. "The Hull Mint produced several denominations of silver coinage, including the pine tree shilling, for over 30 years until the political and economic situation made operating the mint no longer practical."[39] King Charles II for reasons which were mostly political deemed the "Hull Mint" high treason which had a punishment of being hanged, drawn and quartered. "On April 6, 1681, Edward Randolph petitioned the king, informing him the colony was still pressing their own coins which he saw as high treason and believed it was enough to void the charter. He asked that a writ of Quo warranto (a legal action requiring the defendant to show what authority they have for exercising some right, power, or franchise they claim to hold) be issued against Massachusetts for the violations."
Boston was the largest town in the Thirteen Colonies until Philadelphia outgrew it in the mid-18th century. Boston's oceanfront location made it a lively port, and the city primarily engaged in shipping and fishing during its colonial days. However, Boston stagnated in the decades prior to the Revolution. By the mid-18th century, New York City and Philadelphia surpassed Boston in wealth. During this period, Boston encountered financial difficulties even as other cities in New England grew rapidly.
A south east view of the great town of Boston in New England in America (c. 1730)
In 1773, a group of angered Bostonian citizens threw a shipment of tea by the East India Company into Boston Harbor as a response to the Tea Act, in an event known as the Boston Tea Party. The weather continuing boisterous the next day and night, giving the enemy time to improve their works, to bring up their cannon, and to put themselves in such a state of defense, that I could promise myself little success in attacking them under all the disadvantages I had to encounter. William Howe, 5th Viscount Howe, in a letter to William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth, about the British army's decision to leave Boston, dated March 21, 1776.
Many of the crucial events of the American Revolution[ occurred in or near Boston. Boston's penchant for mob action along with the colonists' growing lack of faith in either Britain or its Parliament fostered a revolutionary spirit in the city. When the British parliament passed the Stamp Act in 1765, a Boston mob ravaged the homes of Andrew Oliver, the official tasked with enforcing the Act, and Thomas Hutchinson, then the Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts. The British sent two regiments to Boston in 1768 in an attempt to quell the angry colonists. This did not sit well with the colonists. In 1770, during the Boston Massacre, British troops shot into a crowd that had started to violently harass them. The colonists compelled the British to withdraw their troops. The event was widely publicized and fueled a revolutionary movement in America.
The Dorchester Heights Monument was erected on the spot where Putnam's fortifications were placed. American forces held the city for the remainder of the war. In 1773, Parliament passed the Tea Act. Many of the colonists saw the act as an attempt to force them to accept the taxes established by the Townshend Acts. The act prompted the Boston Tea Party, where a group of angered Bostonian citizens threw an entire shipment of tea sent by the East India Company into Boston Harbor. The Boston Tea Party was a key event leading up to the revolution, as the British government responded furiously with the Coercive Acts, demanding compensation for the destroyed tea from the Bostonians. This angered the colonists further and led to the American Revolutionary War. The war began in the area surrounding Boston with the Battles of Lexington and Concord.
Boston itself was besieged for almost a year during the siege of Boston, which began on April 19, 1775. The New England militia impeded the movement of the British Army. Sir William Howe, then the commander-in-chief of the British forces in North America, led the British army in the siege. On June 17, the British captured the Charlestown peninsula in Boston, during the Battle of Bunker Hill. The British army outnumbered the militia stationed there, but it was a pyrrhic victory for the British because their army suffered irreplaceable casualties. It was also a testament to the skill and training of the militia, as their stubborn defence made it difficult for the British to capture Charlestown without suffering further irreplaceable casualties.
Several weeks later, George Washington took over the militia after the Continental Congress established the Continental Army to unify the revolutionary effort. Both sides faced difficulties and supply shortages in the siege, and the fighting was limited to small-scale raids and skirmishes. The narrow Boston Neck, which at that time was only about a hundred feet wide, impeded Washington's ability to invade Boston, and a long stalemate ensued. A young officer, Rufus Putnam, came up with a plan to make portable fortifications out of wood that could be erected on the frozen ground under cover of darkness. Putnam supervised this effort, which successfully installed both the fortifications and dozens of cannon on Dorchester Heights that Henry Knox had laboriously brought through the snow from Fort Ticonderoga. The astonished British awoke the next morning to see a large array of cannons bearing down on them. General Howe is believed to have said that the Americans had done more in one night than his army could have done in six months. The British Army attempted a cannon barrage for two hours, but their shot could not reach the colonists' cannons at such a height. The British gave up, boarded their ships and sailed away. Boston still celebrates "Evacuation Day" each year. Washington was so impressed, he made Rufus Putnam his chief engineer.
Post-revolution and the War of 1812
Boston, as the Eagle and the Wild Goose See It, 1860, by J.W. Black, the first recorded aerial photograph
State Street, 1801 After the Revolution, Boston's long seafaring tradition helped make it one of the nation's busiest ports for both domestic and international trade. Boston's harbor activity was significantly curtailed by the Embargo Act of 1807 (adopted during the Napoleonic Wars) and the War of 1812. Foreign trade returned after these hostilities, but Boston's merchants had found alternatives for their capital investments in the interim. Manufacturing became an important component of the city's economy, and the city's industrial manufacturing overtook international trade in economic importance by the mid-19th century. A network of small rivers bordering the city and connecting it to the surrounding region facilitated shipment of goods and led to a proliferation of mills and factories. Later, a dense network of railroads furthered the region's industry and commerce.[51]
Cutting down Beacon Hill in 1811; a view from the north toward the Massachusetts State House
During this period, Boston flourished culturally, as well, admired for its rarefied literary life and generous artistic patronage, with members of old Boston families—eventually dubbed Boston Brahmins—coming to be regarded as the nation's social and cultural elites.
Boston was an early port of the Atlantic triangular slave trade in the New England colonies, but was soon overtaken by Salem, Massachusetts and Newport, Rhode Island.[56] Boston eventually became a center of the abolitionist movement. The city reacted strongly to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850,[58] contributing to President Franklin Pierce's attempt to make an example of Boston after the Anthony Burns Fugitive Slave Case.
In 1822, the citizens of Boston voted to change the official name from the "Town of Boston" to the "City of Boston", and on March 19, 1822, the people of Boston accepted the charter incorporating the city. At the time Boston was chartered as a city, the population was about 46,226, while the area of the city was only 4.8 square miles (12 km2).
19th century
Painting with a body of water with sailing ships in the foreground and a city in the background View of downtown Boston from Dorchester Heights, 1841
Tremont Street, 1843 In the 1820s, Boston's population grew rapidly, and the city's ethnic composition changed dramatically with the first wave of European immigrants. Irish immigrants dominated the first wave of newcomers during this period, especially following the Great Famine; by 1850, about 35,000 Irish lived in Boston. In the latter half of the 19th century, the city saw increasing numbers of Irish, Germans, Lebanese, Syrians,[63] French Canadians, and Russian and Polish Jews settling in the city. By the end of the 19th century, Boston's core neighborhoods had become enclaves of ethnically distinct immigrants with their residence yielding lasting cultural change. Italians became the largest inhabitants of the North End, Irish dominated South Boston and Charlestown, and Russian Jews lived in the West End. Irish and Italian immigrants brought with them Roman Catholicism. Currently, Catholics make up Boston's largest religious community,[65] and the Irish have played a major role in Boston politics since the early 20th century; prominent figures include the Kennedys, Tip O'Neill, and John F. Fitzgerald.
Between 1631 and 1890, the city tripled its area through land reclamation by filling in marshes, mud flats, and gaps between wharves along the waterfront.[67] The largest reclamation efforts took place during the 19th century; beginning in 1807, the crown of Beacon Hill was used to fill in a 50-acre (20 ha) mill pond that later became the Haymarket Square area. The present-day State House sits atop this lowered Beacon Hill. Reclamation projects in the middle of the century created significant parts of the South End, the West End, the Financial District, and Chinatown.
The Old City Hall was home to the Boston city council from 1865 to 1969.
After the Great Boston fire of 1872, workers used building rubble as landfill along the downtown waterfront. During the mid-to-late 19th century, workers filled almost 600 acres (2.4 km2) of brackish Charles River marshlands west of Boston Common with gravel brought by rail from the hills of Needham Heights. The city annexed the adjacent towns of South Boston (1804), East Boston (1836), Roxbury (1868), Dorchester (including present-day Mattapan and a portion of South Boston) (1870), Brighton (including present-day Allston) (1874), West Roxbury (including present-day Jamaica Plain and Roslindale) (1874), Charlestown (1874), and Hyde Park (1912). Other proposals were unsuccessful for the annexation of Brookline, Cambridge, and Chelsea.
20th century
Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox, opened in 1912.
Many architecturally significant buildings were built during these early years of the 20th century: Horticultural Hall, the Tennis and Racquet Club, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Fenway Studios, Jordan Hall, and the Boston Opera House. The Longfellow Bridge, built in 1906, was mentioned by Robert McCloskey in Make Way for Ducklings, describing its "salt and pepper shakers" feature.
Logan International Airport opened on September 8, 1923.[81] The Boston Bruins were founded in 1924 and played their first game at Boston Garden in November 1928.[82]
Population
- -- City (748,060) - 1920 census
Social Strata
Brahmin elite
Boston's "Brahmin elite" developed a particular semi-aristocratic value system by the 1840s—cultivated, urbane, and dignified, the ideal Brahmin was the very essence of enlightened aristocracy. He was not only wealthy, but displayed suitable personal virtues and character traits. The term was coined in 1861 by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. The Brahmin had high expectations to meet: to cultivate the arts, support charities such as hospitals and colleges, and assume the role of community leader. Although the ideal called on him to transcend commonplace business values, in practice many found the thrill of economic success quite attractive. The Brahmins warned each other against "avarice" and insisted upon "personal responsibility." Scandal and divorce were unacceptable. The total system was buttressed by the strong extended family ties present in Boston society. Young men attended the same prep schools and colleges, and had their own way of talking. Heirs married heiresses. Family not only served as an economic asset, but also as a means of moral restraint. Most belonged to the Unitarian or Episcopal churches, although some were Congregationalists or Methodists. Politically, they were successively Federalists, Whigs, and Republicans.
A poem about Boston, attributed to various people, describes the city thus: "And here's to good old Boston / The land of the bean and the cod / Where Lowells talk only to Cabots / and Cabots talk only to God." While wealthy colonial families like the Lowells and Cabots (often called the Boston Brahmins) ruled the city, the 1840s brought waves of new immigrants from Europe. These included large numbers of Irish and Italians, giving the city a large Roman Catholic population.
Irish
The earliest Irish settlers began arriving in the early 18th century. Initially they were indentured servants who came to work in Boston and New England for five to seven years, before gaining their independence. They were mainly individuals and families, and they were forced to hide their religious roots since Catholicism was banned in the Bay Colony. Then in 1718, congregations of Presbyterians from Ulster in the north of Ireland began arriving in Boston Harbor. They were referred to as Ulster Irish but later were referred to as Scots-Irish because many of them had roots in Scotland. The Puritan leaders initially sent the Ulster Irish to the fringes of the Bay Colony, where they settled places like Belfast, Maine, Londonderry and Derry, New Hampshire, and Worcester, Massachusetts. But by 1729 they were permitted to set up a church in downtown Boston.
Throughout the 19th century, Boston became a haven for Irish Catholic immigrants, especially following the Great Famine of the late 1840s. Their arrival transformed Boston from a singular, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant city to one that has progressively become more diverse. The Yankees hired Irish as workers and servants, but there was little social interaction. In the 1850s, an anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant movement was directed against the Irish, called the Know Nothing Party. But in the 1860s, many Irish immigrants joined the Union ranks to fight in the American Civil War, and that display of patriotism and valor began to soften the harsh sentiments of Yankees about the Irish. Nonetheless, as in New York City, on July 14, 1863, a draft riot attempting to raid Union armories broke out among Irish Catholics in the North End, resulting in approximately 8 to 14 deaths. In the 1860 presidential election, Abraham Lincoln received only 9,727 votes out of 20,371 cast in Boston (or 48 percent) while receiving 63 percent of the vote statewide, and Boston Irish Catholics mostly voted against Lincoln.
Even to the present day, Boston still commands the largest percentage of Irish-descended people of any city in the United States. With an expanding population, group loyalty, and block by block political organization, the Irish took political control of the city, leaving the Yankees in charge of finance, business and higher education. The Irish left their mark on the region in a number of ways: in still heavily Irish neighborhoods such as Charlestown and South Boston; in the name of the local basketball team, the Boston Celtics; in the dominant Irish-American political family, the Kennedys; in a large number of prominent local politicians, such as James Michael Curley; in the establishment of Catholic Boston College as a rival to Harvard; and in underworld figures such as James "Whitey" Bulger.
Arenas
Attractions
Auction Houses
Bars and Clubs
- The King & Queen
- Charlies
- Gossamer Club
Cemeteries
City Government
Crime
There are three crime families operating in Boston.
- John "King" Solomon is widely considered one of the great mafia bosses of the time.
- Garrett "Knuckles" Goldberg
- Dan Carroll is the undisputed boss of the bootleggers
- Willy "Smiley" DeJulio is a up and coming gangster who runs his families crime syndicate
- Wong Fen Shu is the Chinese crime lord operating out of China Town in Boston. He mainly controls opium trade and prostitution within the Golden Streets
Citizens of the City
Current Events
Fortifications
Galleries
Holy Ground
Hospitals
Hotels & Hostels
Investigators
Landmarks
Law Enforcement
The Boston Police Department (BPD), dating back to 1854, holds the primary responsibility for law enforcement and investigation within the American city of Boston, Massachusetts. It is the oldest municipal police department in the United States
Libraries
Mass Media
- Boston Globe
- Boston Herald
- Northern Patriot
- North Eastern Law Enforcement Journal
Monuments
Museums
Parks
Private Residences
Restaurants
Ruins
Schools
Higher Education
Shopping
- -- Schwenke's Mercantile
- -- Black & Wise Bibliophiles -- Rare Books, Essayed & Procured
Societies & Fellowships
- The Aryan Dawn Workers Party
- Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn - Boston
- Theosophical Society
- The Gatekeepers -- A Small Group of Investigators
- Watch & Ward Society
- Anathemata Curialis Boston - 145 Prudence street
Supernatural Creatures
Theaters
Transportation
Logan International Airport
Logan Airport opened on September 8, 1923, and at that time it was mainly used by the Massachusetts Air National Guard and the United States Army Air Corps. during this time, it was known as Jeffery Field. The first scheduled commercial passenger flights to start at the new airfield were on Colonial Air Transport between Boston and New York City, starting in 1927.[ On January 1, 1936, the airport's weather station became the official point for Boston's weather observations and records by the National Weather Service.
North Station
The four major northside railroads originally built separate terminal stations in Boston. The Boston and Lowell Railroad (B&L) was the first to open, with service beginning on June 24, 1835.[8]:26 The first station was built later in 1835 along Lowell Street (now Lomasney Way) and was several blocks north of Causeway Street. A new station was built at Causeway Street east of Nashua Street in 1857, with the original depot converted to a freight house.[8]:33 An even larger third station on the Causeway Street site, constructed of brick with towers at the front corners, was opened on November 24, 1873.[8]:33
The Boston and Maine Railroad (B&M) opened in July 1845, with a temporary station at Canal and Traverse streets. The permanent station, opened on October 20, was between Canal and Haverhill streets and fronted on Haymarket Square. Trains had to cross busy Causeway Street to reach the station; at first, a city ordinance caused the railroad to pull cars across the street with oxen rather than locomotives. In 1867, the station was extended northwards from Market Street to Traverse Street.
The 1843-opened Fitchburg Railroad originally terminated in Charlestown, near the north end of the Warren Bridge. On August 9, 1848, the railroad opened a new station with large Norman style towers at Causeway Street, just east of the B&M tracks. The second floor was the largest auditorium in New England at the time; it was the site of two performances by Jenny Lind in October 1850 during her tour of the United States.
The Eastern Railroad opened in 1838 with an East Boston terminal; ferries carried passengers between there and Lewis Wharf in Boston. On April 10, 1854, the railroad opened its Boston terminal on Causeway Street opposite Friend Street - west of the B&M tracks and east of the soon-to-be-built B&L station. This "temporary" station was destroyed by fire on June 21, 1862. The brick replacement station, completed the next year, "had a reputation of being dirty, unattractive, and uninviting."
The B&M leased the Eastern in 1884, though it continued to use its own terminal. As a condition of the B&M's 1887 lease of the B&L, the state required the B&M to construct a union station for use by the combined B&M system plus the Fitchburg. After years of resistance by the B&M, construction on North Union Station began in 1893. The station was built as an eastward expansion of the B&L station, with a total frontage of 568 feet (173 m) on Causeway Street. The center of the new facade was an 80-foot (24 m)-high granite triumphal arch flanked by four massive columns. The east side was formed by a five-story baggage and express building. The station was designed by the firm of Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, which designed South Station several years later.
The new station was opened in stages from August 1893 to June 1894. The Eastern depot had been demolished in 1893 to allow construction to proceed. The B&M depot was demolished in 1897, with the site used for the Canal Street incline of the Tremont Street subway. The Fitchburg was leased by the B&M in 1900, after which the former Fitchburg depot was used as the B&M offices. By that time, the station was popularly known as "North Station". The former Fitchburg depot burned on January 17, 1925; it was demolished in 1926-28.
South Station
South Station, officially The Governor Michael S. Dukakis Transportation Center at South Station—is the largest railroad station and intercity bus terminal in Greater Boston and New England's second-largest transportation center after Logan International Airport. Located at the intersection of Atlantic Avenue and Summer Street in Dewey Square, Boston, Massachusetts, the historic station building was constructed in 1899 to replace the downtown terminals of several railroads. Today, it serves as a major intermodal domestic transportation hub, with service to the Greater Boston region and the Midwestern and Northeastern United States. It is used by thousands of commuter rail and intercity rail passengers daily. Connections to the rapid transit Red Line and bus rapid transit Silver Line are made through the adjacent subway station.
South Station opened in 1899 at a cost of $3.6 million (1899 dollars). The architects were Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge of Boston, and the construction was undertaken by the engineering firm of Westinghouse, Church, Kerr & Co. The station opened on January 1 for use by Old Colony Division and Midland Division trains, the latter of which had been using the Old Colony terminal since August 22, 1896 to allow for construction. B&A trains began using South Station on July 23, followed by Providence Division trains on September 10 (along with the opening of Back Bay station).
It became the busiest station in the world by 1913. A stop on the Atlantic Avenue Elevated served South Station from 1901 to 1938; what is now the Red Line subway was extended from Park Street to South Station in 1913. The train shed, originally one of the largest in the world, was eliminated in a 1930 renovation due to corrosion caused by the nearby ocean's salt air.
In the original configuration, two tracks came off each approach to join into a four-track line and then run under the main platforms in a two-track loop. These tracks were never put into service, and later became a parking lot and bowling alley for employees.
Websites
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston
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