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Making tracks in old Boston
By adamg on Thu, 12/04/2014 - 2:07pm
The folks at the Boston City Archives wonder if you can place this photo. See it larger.
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Comments
taking a stab
Lenox @ Tremont in Lower SoEnd/Rox say 1890s?
Its definitely a car house.. and its no longer there (that intersection has new construction all around).
Its somewhere in Lower SoEnd/Rox. The car says "Columbus Ave" and "post office square"
I concur with Lenox Street
The truth is in the number on the line pole right above the lad's bowler. The West End and Boston Elevated kept detailed records of the location of all of their line poles. It looks like "B/203."
I don't have access to these records presently, but will later this evening.
yeah
I was wondering if there was a way to look up that line pole or where old car houses were.
I think its actually on Tremont because the street is so wide (and Lenox is not)
Most of the tracks curve out.. and I'd wager to say "toward town" since in the 1890s there wasn't much development south of that area until the early 20th century.
PS - The truth is in the full sized photo :)
Lenox Street Carhouse
was on the northwest corner of Tremont and Camden Streets, about 100 feet west of Camden Street and just opposite Lenox Street.
Yes, the tracks are laid for cars to pull out on Tremont Street and head east into Boston.
G.W. Bromley maps and/or West End Street Railway track maps and property indexes tell the exact location.
yup
Which would make it at 172 Tremont Street (or roughly that)
or Here
The T says Post Office Square
The T says Post Office Square and Columbus Ave
The Answer!
Thanks for playing, folks! this is the Lenox Street Carhouse on Tremont Street in Roxbury. The date is October 1897. The truth was indeed in the full sized photo - whoops, we scanned the photo before having enough coffee!
Photo has to date before 1899
The trolley has a destination of the Boston and Albany and Old Colony Depots. The combined terminal that is South Station opened in January 1899.
So much wasted car parking!
Thank god they got rid of the trolleys!
Can you imagine how gentrified Roslindale would get if there was still a trolley to Forrest Hills?
For The Curious...
The Metropolitan owned oodles of land in the area as early as 1857. Horsecar service was running along Tremont Street by the summer of 1858. The Metropolitan opened a large carhouse/shops/stables complex (with a two-story sleigh warehouse added later on) in 1859 at Waitt's Mill (later Tremont Crossing, then Roxbury Crossing). The Metropolitan had a small carhouse and stable at Lenox by the early 1870s. They ended up buying the Tremont Market (1870s supermarket with ice skating rink) in 1877 and remodeling it into a large carhouse. Lenox ceased to be an operating house around 1921 with routes and CEMs getting scattered to Allston, Cypress Street, and JP. Most of the buildings were demolished in the 1930s and a parking lot and shelter eventually appeared. Buses replaced PCC's betwixt Lenox and Egleston in 1956; and the final service along Tremont got bustituted in 1961.
Boston Archives picture
The Tremont Street turnaround behind Frederick Douglass square on Columbus Ave. I took this trolley home from Egleston Square when I went to school near Franklin Park in 1961 or '62.