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Before traffic lights, Boston had cops on platforms
By adamg on Tue, 03/07/2017 - 11:38am
The folks at the Boston City Archives wonder if you can place this scene. See it larger.
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Comments
Summer street
Summer street
The Church
Looks like the Church of the Covenant on Newbury.
Yes
COC has an almost identical photo on their website: http://www.cotcbos.org/
Scroll down to the bottom of the page.
tight squeeze
"Will not clear cop on side of car."
Looking north down Berkeley
Looking north down Berkeley Street toward the Church of the Covenant at the corner of Newbury St.?
Yup
Beat me to it, that's definitely it.
Modern day: https://goo.gl/maps/jGx2MpZToSp
too far north
Corner of Boyston is too far north. Need to back up to capture the tall building on the corner of Berkeley and St. James.
https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3502673,-71.0725646,3a,75y,352.04h,89.07t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sxr4xzoSVM7MjEC-Sn386Lg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
(Sorry, don't know how to create a short URL.)
Looking West on Boylston
Looking West on Boylston Street?
By west I mean East, but it
By west I mean East, but it looks like I was wrong anyway
I'm with you
Boylston looking towards Berkeley. In the 1920s (I'll give the dating to someone who knows cars better than I do.)
Yup.
You can see that stylish Art Deco Shreve, Crump & Low building on the right.
Except no
It's Berkeley looking towards Boylston.
Less filling
(oh, wait, that's something else.)
My gut is that the church is the Arlington Street Church. The view just feels so familiar from walking up Boylston.
Nope. That was my first thought too
because the Shreve building is in the same relative spot to the Arlington St church if you were looking down Boylston. But my first d'oh was that the Museum of Natural History aka Bonwit Teller/Louis/ Restoration Hardware would be in the spot where all the cars are.
Berkeley and Stuart
The view today.
Yep
Glad I read the comments before commenting. That was my first thought.
It's actually one block north
It's actually one block north, Berkeley and St. James.
It is south of St. James.
First building on the right in the picture is at the corner of St. James.
The parking lot on the left indicates otherwise
The lot on the left is the current site of the Old John Hancock Building, the area to the right in the foreground is the current site of the Liberty Mutual building.
Put in 208 Berkeley and you
Put in 208 Berkeley and you've got it.
The steeple looks like it
The steeple looks like it could be Church of the Covenant, but I have my doubts about Berkeley Street. Is Berkeley wide enough for two tracks, two lanes of traffic, and two lanes of parking? Did Berkeley ever have two-way streetcar traffic?
Couldn't it be looking east on Boylston to Old South? The building in the right foreground looks a lot like Lenox Hotel.
Berkeley Street
Indeed it did!
http://www.wardmaps.com/viewasset.php?aid=19698
http://www.wardmaps.com/viewasset.php?aid=19430
The Answer
Thanks for playing, folks! This is Berkeley Street at Stuart Street in about 1940.
Deficient Records Management and Boston City Archives.
Boston City Archives could do more about historic preservation for Boston City Council Documents/Records including the Stenographic Record of Public Meetings of Boston City Council.