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The Express Office
By adamg on Mon, 05/20/2013 - 12:16pm
Where was it, and when was this taken? Photo from the folks at the Boston City Archives. For extra hints, see it larger.
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Comments
South Station
That's the Railway Express office sign.
Stone and Forsyth
Looks like it might be a branch of the Railway Express- a listing for Stone and Forsyth Paper and Twine has it at 65 Kingston Street in 1922 (the addresses on the buildings are 65 and 67). At least one of the plates on a truck seems to be from 1940 and they look like 1940's era grills - so I'm guessing 1942.
Definitely that's the address - the building with the small arched windows in the distance is still there.
Approximate same view today
http://goo.gl/maps/yDtvs
depressing
Assuming this is the right locale....what a depressing architectural turn of events.
An unrelated misguided
An unrelated misguided reconfiguration of public space that I noticed recently: the new luxury apartment tower at 45 Province.
Most of the street frontage is devoted to a drive-through entrance for cars. And there's a huge curb cut between the two driveways, which doesn't lead anywhere, and will only encourage people to park on what used to be the sidewalk.
On top of that, the city gave most of the pedestrianized street at the end of Bosworth Street (at the top of the historic stone stairs above the former location of the Littlest Bar) to this building for a street-level patio.
All the effort we spend on urban planning, and we still end up with stuff like this.
Boston doesn't expend THAT much effort on urban planning
It's a city obsessed with micromanaging planning to the point where spontaneity, initiative and ambition are rewarded with scorn.
You have the inexplicable, longstanding resistance to allowing a supermarket near North Station, completely insane edicts like "redesign your building so it's less interesting than the nearby Greenway" / "no iconic buildings", personal vendettas against developers, food trucks subject to a set of rules that can only be described -- charitably -- as OCD-like.
It stifles imaginative, innovative development and opens the door to mediocrity. We've had an entirely new neighborhood emerge during the Menino administration and it's an excellent reflection of how poorly Boston does planning these days.
The Seaport looks like shit. Seriously. The buildings there are just not good. Virtually all of it looks like value engineered garbage that was hauled-in on a barge from some office park in Generictown USA.
Buildings like Park Lane Seaport are a triumph of "Who Cares?" design.
The roads are wide and fenced-off down the middle. Everything seems to be either set back behind a corporate mini-park or behind a blank wall of glass / precast.
It succeeds in spite of the city in which it exists.
It's not that bad
I gotta say that while the new view isn't very inspiring, what was there before wasn't exactly eye catching. I think there's been much worse done in town than in this scene.
Agreed
Good eye! Yes, that building and the narrower one to its left are both still there now, and those are absolutely the same buildings - close-up looks of the old photo and the Google streetview shots show distinctive decorative brickwork, especially on the right-hand building.
Kingston Street just north of Essex looking towards Bedford
Looks like late 1940's. If you were standing there now the Nstar transformer building would be on your left with the westerly parking garage entrance for One Lincoln Street being on your right.
The three buildings in the midground center are still there and have not changed much.
Canal Street.
Canal Street.
Canal Street.
Canal Street.
Custom House
Broad Street area.
Stone and Forsyth was
on Devonshire St. between Franklin and Summer.
They moved
That was late 19th c. Looks like they moved or set up another office by the twenties.
Yup, you are
right.
Dirty street
The street actually seem dirtier and more litter-strewn than it is today.
Because today it is not a
Because today it is not a street. Look at the street view linked above: today it is merely a service alley for cars, with blank streetwalls and nothing to offer the pedestrian.
The Answer!
Thanks for playing, everyone! This is Kingston Street in 1940.