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Downtown Crossing probably won't be this busy today
By adamg on Fri, 11/25/2011 - 10:45am
Back in 1921, Leslie Jones captured the scene at Washington and Winter streets - before Easter, not Christmas. If you look at the larger version, you can see where E.B. Horn was and still is.
From the Boston Public Library's street views collection. Posted under this Creative Commons license.
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Ghost of Christmas Past
This picture is of Christmas Past. Scrooge recently visited downtown crossing and asked why it looks like London in medieval times . He asked what happened to enchanted village and was told it was replaced by Occupy Boston
That can't be Boston
Where are all the people walking around in sweatpants and hoodies?
Interesting to note that The Orpheum once had a rear entrance on Washington Street, that it was a Loews theater, and that Loews once boasted an apostrophe.
Manually-operated traffic light, too: another job lost to our robot overlords.
Washington Street Entrance
I recall the Washington Street entrance to the Orpheum was in use at least up to the early 70s. That entrance also had a marquee and a stand alone ticket booth, although the booth was no longer in use by then. In fact, long after the Washington Street entrance was gone, the marquee remained and would have the names of whomever was performing there. From about 1971-1973 the Orpheum was renamed the "Aquarius Theater" in an attempt to be hip.
Marquee is still there
The Washington Street marquee is still there. In recent times it was the sign for the Aldo Shoe Store, and now it reads "retail space for rent". Although I do remember it was larger in the 70s.
Back then one entered the Orpheum through the Washington Street side and exited the Hamilton Place/Tremont side. Also, back then someone spray painted "God Save The Kinks" in the Hamilton Place alley in large letters and it remained there for a few years, becoming a sort of tourist attraction of it's own.
Yes, Loews owned a narrow
Yes, Loews owned a narrow building that went back to the theatre.
And they wonder why native Bostonians are habitual jaywalkers.
Former Orpheum entrance was most recently Aldo Shoes
although that closed within the last year or so, and I don't remember if anything has replaced it. I believe the former marquee is still there and now advertises The Corner Mall.
Boston Music Hall
The Orpheum is actually the oldest surviving theater in Boston going back to 1852 when it opened with the name Boston Music Hall & with a Winter St. address. It was the first home of the BSO, which might be there to this day if the city had not proposed widening Washington street around the turn of the last century. That project would have necessitated slicing off a sizeable part of the Music Hall, so Col. Higginson purchased the lot in Back Bay on which he would build Symphony Hall. As it turned out the city never went through with its street project & the Music Hall remained unscathed but without its primary tenant. So it underwent a major transformation of its interior to become a vaudeville house. The huge organ which once dominated the stage ended up in a church in Methuen. The BPL photostream, Music Halls & Theaters, has some photos & lithographs of the original Music Hall interior:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library...
Aside from symphony concerts & vocal and instrumental recitals, the old Music Hall was also used for lectures & civic gatherings, such as the speechifying which took place after the dedication of the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial. The hall briefly returned to its roots in classical music in 1971 when Sarah Caldwell's Opera Company of Boston staged Bellini's NORMA there with Beverly Sills making her debut in the title role.
No to be confused with...
The Music Hall that is now the Citi Wang Theater. Opened as the Metropolitan Theater in 1925 it was remamed the Music Hall in the early 60s until it became the Wang in the early 80s. In the 70s it was THE place for major bands to play, if they weren't quite big enough for the Garden, or, even if they were (Bob Dylan, CSNY), but wanted to play a smaller place. I saw many, many concerts there back then. I may be getting old, but I still refer to it as the Music Hall, part out of habit, part out of affection for the times.
Gilchrist's
Another ghost from the past, the awning/facade to the left of EB Horn. It was department store, similar to Jordan Marsh and Filenes. And further down Washington Street, on the right, you could load up on live parakeets and gold fish at Woolworths.
I am not sure that our movement from this to omnipresent cell phone stores and CVS's is more of a de-evloution than an evolution
Subway entrance sign says
FOREST HILLS
SOUTH STATION
CAMBRIDGE
SOUTH BOSTON
Why "South Boston"? Because at this time, the Red Line ran only as far south as Andrew station. It did not extend to Dorchester until 1927.
Probably transfers to
Probably transfers to streetcars at Broadway or Andrew.
Andrew is in South Boston
...Andrew is in South Boston.
Yes I know
I was trying to explain why the sign didn't say DORCHESTER or ASHMONT.
(And it also doesn't say SULLIVAN, probably because people heading that way were supposed to use the entrance on the Filene's side instead)