Where's the fire?

but I am amazed at the number and size of the utility poles back in the day. I'm assuming these are electrical lines because not many people had phones back then.

Thanks for playing! This is indeed Albany St, circa 1900-1910. It could be the fire referenced in the news account posted, but we can't be sure.

The BRA sponsors a website called "The Boston Atlas" which, among other things, has images of old fire insurance atlases that you can compare with current map overlays: [http://www.mapjunction.com/bra/]. For those who aren't familiar with these, they are incredibly detailed maps -- typically 1 inch = 100 feet -- that show every building in the entire city. They also show the building material (color coded for wood, brick, stone, etc.), number of stories, and in most cases the land owner.

I looked this address up there and lo and behold one of the atlas options for the South End is dated 1902.

The large building on fire is described as a Mahogany Mill, owned by J. Edgerly Johnson, Trustee. The building is much larger in the back than it is in along the street frontage.

The 2-story building occupied by the South End Poultry Co. is part of the same property owned by Johnson. There was another 2-story wooden barn or shed behind it.

As someone else noted, most of east side of Albany Street was occupied by lumber yards in 1902. At the rear of the lots was the remnant of the South Bay, an arm of the ocean accessed through what's now called the Fort Point Channel. So the lumber businesses could get their inventory delivered to them by ship; they were right on the wharf.

In the photo, the gate just to the right of the Poultry Co. building leads to property of the Boston Elevated Railway Co., a coal wharf where they received fuel deliveries for their large power plant located just across the street, on the west side of Albany Street where the T property is today. (The BERy was a corporate ancestor of the MBTA.) The BERy property began just south of the Poultry Co.'s building and extended a couple of hundred feet south. Beyond that was a cement company and then more lumber yards.

The T land on the west side of Albany St. was originally a factory for manufacturing steam railroad locomotives, acquired by the Boston Elevated Railway's predecessors sometime in the late 1800s.

I don't think I can paste images into these comments but I'll send Adam an image of what this area looks like in the 1902 atlas, and maybe he can post it here.

I thought it was that fried chicken place in the South End.