It's faded over the years, but you can still make out the election ad painted on the side of Ron's Gourmet Ice Cream and 20th Century Bowling on Hyde Park Avenue. Anybody know when F. Alvin Ricci ran for state rep? And did he make it?
Another historical curiosity of the wall is this old placard for a long gone telephone:
The folks at the Boston City Archives wonder if you can place this photo. See it larger.
A concerned citizen reports somebody's been busy destroying one of our city's most important cultural ruins: The old bear cages off Seaver Street in Franklin Park:
Bear cages in Franklin Park are being vandalized. Cages are being stolen for scrap. Park Ranger I spoke to said they couldn't do anything about it. This is a city landmark and historic structure and needs to be protected!!! Please help!
On Jan. 6, 1964, John Collins took the oath of office for his second term as mayor of Boston in a ceremony at Symphony Hall, as shown in this photo from the Boston City Archives. That's Cardinal Richard Cushing in the center. Anybody know who was swearing Collins in?
In 1928, at the height of Prohibition, Leslie Jones photographed the Boston Police Liquor Squad (commanded by Oliver Garrett, second from right) just before they fanned out across the city to ensure no drinking was going on at local hotels.
If you're going out tonight, there's First Night, of course. The Boston Calendar has more options.
Photo posted under this Creative Commons license.
Associated Press reports his death in Florida. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund remembers him.
In 1975, a Suffolk Superior Court jury convicted Edelin of manslaughter for an abortion he performed at what was then Boston City Hospital in 1973 - a few months after the Supreme Court legalized abortion across the country.
The folks at the Boston City Archives wonder if you can place this scene. See it larger.
C.F. Adams of the Boston Braves and George Marshall of the Boston Redskins in 1935. Photo by Leslie Jones.
In the Globe today, Kevin Paul Dupont traces the history of the Redskins to Boston, including why the team got its name (nothing spectacular, has to do with a breakup with the ownership team of the Braves) and how it hired a fake Indian as its first coach.
The Boston Redskins vs. the New York Giants at Fenway Park, 1933:
Christopher Lydon is looking to the future of Boston by examining its past, and as part of that, dug up this copy of the "Where's Boston" film that was produced for the 1976 bicentennial and which used to be played for tourists, first at the Pru and later at Faneuil Hall (ed. question: In a building where Abercrombie & Fitch is now?).
The folks at the Boston City Archives wonder if you can figure it out - as well as when and where, of course. See it larger.
The British Library has posted more than a million images from books in its collection, and many of them are of Boston, from this engraving of the three hills that gave Boston its original name (today memorialized in Tremont Street) to images of 17th-century colonial coinage to drawings of 18th and 19th century buildings, such as this fortress colonial (it's w
The BPL has posted lots of photos of Boston in the snow in the old days, such as this postcard showing tobogganing at Franklin Park sometime in the early years of the 20th century.
Back in 1941, the city still used one-horsepower plows on the Common, as Leslie Jones showed:
The folks at the Boston City Archives wonder if you can figure out where and when this shop class was. See it larger.
But where were they standing, and when? The folks at the Boston City Archives wonder if you can determine that. See it larger.
Eighty years ago today, the failed experiment of Prohibition ended, ending scenes like this one - a Boston police officer with a raided still in South Boston.
The folks at the Boston City Archives wonder if you can figure out when and where this photo was taken. See it larger.
As an industrial and warehouse district, the areas along Fort Point Channel and the harbor have had more than their share of fires over the decades. The Boston Public Library has posted a number of South Boston fire photos by Leslie Jones, including this four-alarm blaze at the National Wool warehouse on Congress Street in 1913 (above) and a six-alarm fire in 1915:
The folks at the Boston City Archives wonder if you can figure out when you could expect service like this, and where. See it larger.
Quite a bit, it turns out. J.L. Bell gives us a preview of a talk at Old South Meeting House this Thursday by Bruce Richardson on "Five Teas that Launched a Revolution."
Andy Metzger points us to Chapter 2, Sect. 7 of the Massachusetts General Laws, which decrees a $50 fine for picking mayflowers - $100 for picking them while in disguise or at night.
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