USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Boston of to-day; a glance at its history and characteristics: with biographical sketches and portraits of many of its professional and business men, 1892 > Part 4
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STEAMER "SWAMPSCOTT," OF THE BOSTON, REVERE BEACH, & LYNN RAILROAD.
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INTERIOR VIEW OF POWER-HOUSE OF WEST END STREET RAILWAY.
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INTERIOR VIEW OF POWER-HOUSE OF WEST END STREET RAILWAY.
BOSTON OF TO-DAY.
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by the governor of the State and the mayor of the city. This commission made an exhaustive inquiry into the whole question examining systems in Eu- ropean as well as in American cities, and made preliminary reports in February, 1892, upon the advantage of a combination of the elevated and tunnel systems.
V.
SOME NOTEWORTHY BUILDINGS.
PUBLIC AND OTHER STRUCTURES, MODERN AND HIS- TORIC, AND INSTITUTIONS WITHIN THE BUSINESS QUARTERS.
A
N unusual number of buildings within the busi-
ness quarters of the Boston of To-day are notable, many for their architectural design and decoration, and others for their historic associa- tions. Here are nearly all of the public buildings, national, State, and city; the great exchanges; several of the older literary institutions ; theatres ; hotels ; newspaper buildings ; Faneuil Hall, the Old State-House, the Old South Meeting-house, King's Chapel, and other cherished landmarks.
Of the older public buildings the Custom-House, at the foot of State street, built entirely - walls, columns, roof, and dome - of granite, in the pure Doric style, is to-day the most interesting. De- signed to "stand for generations " it was con- structed with great deliberation, twelve years being consumed in the work. To making a secure foun- dation three of the dozen years were devoted. It is in the form of the Greek cross ; and the features of its exterior are the massive fluted columns surrounding it, 32 in all, each shaft being in one piece, five feet four inches in diameter, and weigh- ing about 42 tons. The porticos, on high flights of steps, have each six columns. The granite dome at the intersection of the cross terminates with a skylight 25 feet in diameter, and granite tile covers the roof. Drake informs us that the building con- tains "about the same number of cubic feet of stone as Bunker-Hill Monument." The feature of the interior is the cross-shaped rotunda, finished in the Grecian Corinthian order. Ammi B. Young was the architect .of the building. Its construction was authorized by the Twenty-third Congress, in 1835, when Jackson was President, and it was completed during Polk's administration - opened August 1, 1847. Now some distance from the water front,
when it was built the bowsprits of vessels lying at Long wharf and stretching across the street, almost touched its eastern front.
The new Chamber of Commerce building (com- pleted in 1892), at the junction of India street and Central wharf, is of peculiar design. Like its neighbor, the Custom-House, it is constructed of granite, but there the likeness ends. In order to conform to the limitations of its site the building is irregular in plan. The corner at the junction of India street and Central wharf is rounded into a large circle of 40 feet radius, and is carried up as a large tower capped by a lofty conical roof sur- rounded by high dormer-windows. The other corner, on India street, is similarly rounded into a smaller tower. The building is seven stories high ; the height of the cornice above the sidewalk is 95 feet, and from the sidewalk to the top of the coni- cal roof is 170 feet. On the first floor each of the three principal rooms is accessible from the street and from the corridors. The circular room, 80 feet .in diameter, with its domed ceiling, the apex of which is 38 feet above the floor, is the board room proper. Over the entrance is the gallery for visitors. Opening from the board room is the large reading-room, 1,500 square feet in area ; one side of the room almost entirely of glass. Connected with this by sliding doors are the two parlors and other rooms. The fourth, fifth, and sixth floors are used for offices. The building is fire-proof, the only woodwork being the doors and the wooden finish of the floors. It is well provided with stair- ways and elevators and is lighted by electricity. Shepley, Rutan, & Coolidge were the architects. It was dedicated in a cheerful fashion, with a recep- tion, banquet, and speeches, on the 20th and 21st of January, 1892. Formed by the union of the Commercial and the Produce Exchanges in Sep- tember, 1885, the Chamber of Commerce is one of the youngest of the business institutions of the city. It comes of good Boston stock, a lineal descendant of the first Chamber of Commerce, born about 1803. That was succeeded by the first Corn Exchange, founded in 1839 ; that in turn by the second Corn Exchange, founded in 1855 ; and that by the Com- mercial Exchange, founded in 1870, now absorbed in the new organization. Its main objects are to promote just and equitable principles of trade ; establish and maintain uniformity in commercial usage ; correct abuses that may exist ; acquire, pre- serve, and disseminate valuable business infor- mation ; adjust controversies and misunderstand- ings among its members ; and generally to advance the interest of trade and commerce in the city.
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BOSTON OF TO-DAY.
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CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.
The Quincy Market-house (or Fancuil Hall, its official title), another near neighbor of the Custom House, but in the opposite direction, is of the same style of architecture and similar in design. Built also of Quincy granite, its strong points are its portico at either end, of four granite columns, each shaft in one piece, and its well-proportioned dome. It covers 27,000 feet of land, is 535 feet long, and two stories high. It was built in 1825-6, at a cost,
exclusive of the land, of $150,000. As the central features of the great improvements planned and successfully carried through by the energetic and far-sighted first Mayor Quincy,' in the face of stout opposition from conservative Bostonians who regarded the " Quincy schemes" as visionary, it stands a substantial monument of his administra- tion. Alexander Parris was the architect of the
' Sec introductory chapter, page a.
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BOSTON OF TO-DAY.
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building. A few years before, in conjunction with Solomon Willard, he had designed the St. Paul's Church on Tremont street.
gotten that the first one, built on town land in 1742 at the expense of Peter Faneuil, then one of the wealthiest merchants of the town, was intended pri-
IRON BUILDING - G. T. MCLAUTHLIN & CO.
Famous Faneuil Hall, the " Old Cradle of Liberty," opposite the Quincy Market-house, and facing the square, is still the people's forum. The the town market-houses. A few years before Faneui! present building dates from 1763. It is not for-
marily for a market-house ; and that its establish- ment was the outcome of a spirited local war over made his proposition to build the market-house and
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BOSTON OF TO-DAY.
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FANEUIL HALL.
to give it to the town on condition that the people should legally authorize it and maintain it under proper regulations, the Dock square Market-house which had stood on its site had been demolished by a mob " disguised as clergymen." The question over which the people quarrelled was whether they should be served at fixed localities or
at their homes, as before the establishment of the town markets ; and such was the divisions of public opinion that Faneuil's offer was accepted by a majority of only seven out of the whole number voting. The first house was a small affair, two stories high, the hall in the second story, 100 feet by 40 ; and it was designed by John Simibert, the
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BOSTON OF TO-DAY.
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painter. Faneuil died on the 3d of March, 1743, and it so happened that the first public gathering in the new hall was on the occasion of the delivery of a eulogy of him, pronounced by Master Lovell, of the Latin School. On the 13th of January, 1761, this first building was burned, the walls only remaining, and the town immediately voted to re- build. Funds for the purpose were in part raised by a lottery, - lotteries then being authorized by law, - as money for paving streets had been raised a few years before. The new Faneuil Hall was completed in March, 1763, and on the 14th was formally dedicated to " the cause of liberty," James Otis delivering the dedicatory address. It was in this hall that the great town-meetings were held in the exciting times preceding the Revolu- tion, and from its platform the patriot orators of the day stirred and nerved the people with their fiery eloquence. On the reception of the news of the repeal of the Stamp Act it was gayly illumi- nated, by vote of the town. During the Siege it was transformed into a playhouse1 for the en- tertainment of the " Brit- ishers" and the loyalists shut up in the town. It was not until 1805 . that the building was enlarged to its present proportions. Then it was extended in width eighty feet and in- creased in height ; the third story was added, the galleries put in, and the interior remodelled ; all according to plans drawn by the architect, Bulfinch. The grasshop- per vane on the tip of the cupola, an imitation of the pinnacle on the Royal Exchange, in Lon- don, was cut out by Dea- con Shem Drown, and adorned the first build- ing. Most of the paint- ings which now hang on the walls of the public hall are copies, the origi-
nals being in the Museum of Fine Arts. The great painting by Healy, which hangs back of the platform, occupying almost the entire area of the rear wall, represents Webster addressing the Senate on the occasion of his celebrated reply to Hayne, of South Carolina. The room is the old Senate Chamber now occupied by the United States Supreme Court, and the figures in the painting are most of them portraits of senators and dis- tinguished citizens of that day. The upper hall of the building, used as the armory of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery, contains a number of objects of historic interest collected by this ancient or- ganization, -- the oldest military company in the country. The market yet flourishes, occupying the street floor and the basement.
The Post-office and Sub-Treasury, the great
See chapter on Theatres.
PROPOSED NEW BUILDING OF THE INTERNATIONAL TRUST COMPANY.
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BOSTON OF TO-DAY.
granite pile, a composition of pilasters and columns and round-arched ornamented windows, facing Post-office square, covers an area of nearly 45,000 feet of land. The façades rise 100 or more feet above the sidewalks, and the central portion of each reaches a height of 126 feet .. The sculptured figures high up on the Post-office square front adorn the building. They are seventeen feet high, of Vermont marble, and the work of Daniel C. French, of Concord. The group on the left represents Labor supporting Domestic Life and sustaining the Fine Arts, and that on the right Science controlling the forces of Electricity and Steam. In the first Labor is portrayed by a stalwart figure leaning against an anvil, its horn supporting his right arm, with the mother and child at his side, and at his left the Fine Arts, a graceful female figure, supporting a vase on her knee, sculptured masks and capitals lying at her feet. In the other group Science, a woman, is seated, directing with her right hand Electricity, a youth with winged feet, resting with her left hand on the shoulder of Steam, who is chained to a locomotive wheel. Her foot rests up- on a closed volume, - her undiscovered secrets, - and her left arm supports a horseshoe magnet with a thunderbolt as an armature. The Post-office De- partment occupies the basement, ground floor, and a portion of the second story of the building; on the second floor are the Sub-Treasury with its ornate " Marble Cash Room," the Naval Pay Office, and the Internal Revenue offices ; the third floor is entirely occupied by the United States courts and connecting offices ; the fourth contains the offices of the Light-house Board, Light-house Inspector, special agents of the Treasury, jury, and model rooms ; and the fifth is devoted to the Signal Ser- vice Department. The total cost of the structure, land and all appurtenances, was $5,894,295. It was projected in 1867, but buikling did not begin until 1869 ; and it was not until August, 1885, that the work was done. Previous to its establishment here the Post-office had been a wanderer about the town. During a large part of the time before the Revolu- tion it was in buildings on Washington street, then called Cornhill, between Water street and the present Cornhill. During the Siege it was estab- lished in Cambridge. After the Evacuation it re- turned to the east side of Washington street, near State. Afterwards it was removed to State street, on the site of the first meeting house of the colon- ists, about where Brazer's building now is ; then for a while it was in the old State House : then in the old Merchants' Exchange building (the site of which is now covered by the great State street Ex-
change), where the fire of 1872 overtook it; then for a brief period in Faneuil Hall; and then for a longer time in the Old South Meeting-house, from which it moved into its present permanent quarters.
Surrounding the Post-office and in its immediate neighborhood are a number of handsome modern buildings. The group on the south side of the square, along the line of Milk street, composed of the towering granite structure of the Equitable Life Assurance Society, the white marble building of the Mutual Insurance Company of New York, with its graceful tower, and the granite building of the New England Mutual Life, are especially interesting. A short distance down Milk street, at the corner of Oliver, the great stone building of the American Telephone Company, completed in 1891, and the Mason building occupying the middle of Liberty square, are well designed and adorn the neighbor- hood.
Ambitious buildings erected on State street in re- cent. years have greatly changed the appearance of this historic old thoroughfare. It is no longer pic- turesquely old-fashioned. With the colossal State- street Exchange, the massive Fiske building, the Farlow building, and other new structures of more or less elaborate design, the old street has become in large part modernized, and before very long will be entirely transformed. The Exchange, extend- ing from Congress to Kilby streets, while not so attractive architecturally as some of its neighbors, fulfils the requirements of modern business in a way which cannot be excelled by any similar struct- ure in the country. In its eleven hundred and odd rooms are gathered representatives of nearly all the business professions. Lawyers and brokers flourish in richest profusion. But its distinguished charac- teristic lies in the fact that it contains the commo- dious quarters of the Stock Exchange. The great chamber, immediately opposite the main entrance on the first floor, is 115 feet long by 50 wide, and 35 feet high. The interior decorations are in white and light yellow, and the Corinthian pillars around the side lend dignity to the room. The frescoing is rich. Over the door is the large vis- itors' gallery. In the middle of the chamber on the right is the " pulpit," where the chairman sits during the sessions. Near by is the telegraph room ; on the same side, at the farther end of the chamber, is the Boston Stock Board, and opposite that the New York board, with a nest of telephone boxes beneath it. Opposite the " pulpit" is the entrance to the bond-room, with its massive black Tennessee marble fireplace. The Exchange build- ing, built of stone, is in the Italian Renaissance.
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at
العلم
JOHN HANCOCK BUILDING.
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BOSTON OF TO-DAY.
Begun in June, 1889, it was completed on April 20, 1891, when the quarters of the Stock Exchange were occupied. Its cost above the ground was $1,800,000, and including the land, $3,376,500. Peabody & Stearns were the architects of the build- ing.
At the head of State street still stands the quaint old State House, - the Town House before the Revolution, - restored through the well-directed efforts of good citizens to something quite like its appearance during the most exciting periods of its history. In 1882, at the time when it was rescued from the vandals, who in this case were the city authorities, it was in a deplorable condition. For years it had been a homely place of law and gen- eral business offices. The interior and exterior had been built over and built upon, and changed and cut up, in a most ruthless manner, that the city, to whom it belonged, might receive the fullest income in rentals from it. An ugly mansard roof had been built out from the fine old timbers, some of which were hacked almost apart to accomplish this work. The neglected, dingy face of the building was plas- tered with business signs. The work of restoration was done as thoroughly as possible, and with the utmost care as to details. Above the second story the exterior of the building is a quite faithful copy of the old. The windows of the upper story are modelled upon the small-paned windows of colonial days. The balcony of this story was restored upon the model of the still existing attic balcony, and is reached through the original window of twisted crown glass. In place of the mansard roof was rebuilt the old pitch-roof resting upon the original timbers. On the eastern gables copies of the lion and unicorn were placed; and subsequently, to appease over-sensitive citizens who foolishly ob- jected to this part of the restoration, a bright gilt eagle was set up on the western front with the State and city arms. The building is painted a yellowish olive, with darker trimmings, following the colors in the oldest oil painting of the structure in existence, bearing the date of 1800. The interior, again above the first story, shows the arrangement and architecture of the old time. The two main halls here have the same floor and ceilings, and on three sides the same walls that they had in 1748. The finish here consists of dado, frieze, and ornamental mantels and doorcases. In the eastern room, look- ing down State street, an apartment not more than thirty-two feet square, the royal governor and council used to sit in the days before the Revolution ; and in the western room, on the Washington-street end, sat the General Court. The whole of the second floor,
the attics and cupola, are leased by the city to the Bostonian Society, the organization which secured the restoration, incorporated in 1881 " to promote the study of the history of the city of Boston and the preservation of its antiquities." It maintains in the rooms a free public exhibition of a most interesting collection of antiquities.
No building now standing in the city has a more interesting history than this Old State House. Built in 1748 upon the site of the former Town House which had been burned, the walls of the latter util- ized in the new structure, it became the quarters of the courts and the legislature of the colony, of the royal governors and the provincial council ; after the Revolution, the meeting-place of the General Court of the Commonwealth; after the town became a city, the City Hall ; and for a while the post-office. In front of its doors, during the Stamp Act excite- ment, the people burned the stamped clearances. Within the building, in 1768, the British troops were quartered, taking possession of all parts of it except the council chamber, " to the great annoy- ance of the courts while they sat, and of the mer- chants and gentlemen of the town who had always used its lower floor as their exchange." Near its eastern porch occurred the Boston Massacre of March 5, 1770. Within the council chamber Sam Adams, as chairman of the committee of the great town meetings held the next day, which voted that the town " should be evacuated by the soldiers at all hazards," demanded of Lieut .- Governor Hutch- inson and the council the immediate removal of the troops " with such dignity and firmness" that the request was promptly complied with.1 Here Gen- eral Gage held a council of war with Generals Howe and Clinton just before the affair at Bunker Hill. As the royal proclamations had been read from the balcony at the east end, so the Declaration of In- dependence was read when " undissembled festivity cheered and lightened every face." And that night in the square before the house "every King's Arms in Boston and every sign with any resem- blance of it, whether Lion and Crown, Pestle and Mortar and Crown, Heart and Crown, &c., together with every sign that belonged to a Tory, was taken
1 It is this act which Miss Anne Whitney has depicted in her statue of Adams, appropriately set on a high granite pedestal in old Dock (now Adams) square, within sight of Faneuil Hall. The patriot is portrayed in the attitude of waiting for Governor Hutchinson's an. swer to his demand for the instant removal of the troops from Boston town. Clad in the picturesque citizen's dress of his period, he stands erect, " with folded arms and a determined look in his tinely chiselled face. " This statue, of bronze, was erected in isto from the fund be. queathed to Boston by Jonathan Phillips in 100 ($20,00), the income to be expended " to adorn and embellish the streets and public places" in the city), and it is a counterpart of that by the same sculptor in the Capitol at Washington.
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BUILDING OF THE AMERICAN BELL TELEPHONE COMPANY.
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BOSTON OF TO-DAY.
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STATE-STREET EXCHANGE.
down and made a general conflagration of." In the west end of the building projecting " boldly into one of its rooms the constitution of the State was planned ; here the convention that ratified the new United States Constitution sat before adjourning to the Federal-street meeting-house ; 1 and here Wash- ington on the occasion of his last visit to Boston, in 1789, standing on the platform of the colonnade at
" The convention first met in the old Brattle square meeting-house, which stood until ryt, when it was sold and torn down to make way for a business block.
the main street so as to exhibit in a strong light the man of the people," reviewed the great procession in his honor. In later times, when it was the City Hall, it was made the refuge of William Lloyd Garrison from the mob of October, 1835, which had broken up an anti-slavery meeting. Here Mayor Lyman rescued him, and, as night was falling, by a ruse got him out from the northern door and safely con- veved to the old Leverett-street jail for protection.
FISKE BUILDING.
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BOSTON OF TO-DAY.
Other notable buildings, new business structures in this neighborhood which command attention either by their style or size, are the towering Ames building, on the corner of Washington and Court streets, sixteen stories high and the loftiest in town (Shepley, Rutan, Coolidge, architects) ; the sub- stantial Sears building, on the opposite corner of the same streets, in part rebuilt and considerably en- larged in 1890-91 after a fire which burned out a portion of the interior (Cummings & Sears, archi- tects) ; and the Hemenway building, on the corner of Tremont street and Pemberton square. Of these the new Ames building attracts most attention by reason of its height and ornateness of design. It covers an exceedingly small area when it is consid- ered that its granite walls rise a distance of 190 feet. In less than twenty months from the date of the building permit, the 11th of December, 1889, the work was completed. The cost was between $600,000 and $700,000. Here are established sev- eral banking institutions and many professional and business men.
The City Hall, on School street, its highly orna- mented front and the west walls of white Concord granite, and those on the City Hall avenue and Court square sides of stone from the old City Hall that stood on the same spot, was designed by C. a hundred and fifty years. Standing in Governor J. F. Bryant and Arthur Gilman. Its style is the . John Winthrop's lot, it is an historic building oc- Italian Renaissance as elaborated by modern French cupying historic ground. Until its destruction by the British during the Siege, the old homestead of the first governor stood next the church towards Spring lane. The land for the meeting-house was given by Madam Mary Norton, to whom the Win- throp estate ultimately passed in trust, "forever for the erecting of a house for their assembling them- selves together publiquely to worship God." In the little cedar meeting-house, the first built on the spot (in 1669), Benjamin Franklin was baptized in 1703, when his father's home was across the way on Milk street, the site of which was for many years marked by the " Post " building at No. 15. And in 1696 Judge Sewall stood up in his pew here while his confession of contrition for his share in the witch- craft delusion was read. The present house was built in 1730 and dedicated in April that year. It was within this building that those great town-meet- ings for which Faneuil Hall was too small were held, when momentous questions were considered and decisive action taken. It was here that the overflowing meeting the day after the " Boston Massacre " waited while Sam Adams and the others of its committee went back and forth to the Town architects. The heavy dome which crowns the structure is itself surrounded by a balcony with lions' heads at its corners and a gilded eagle at the front. Planned on a liberal scale, it was supposed that the building would be fully equal to the needs of the city for many years ; but it early proved inad- equate, and many departments of the government are now crowded into other quarters in nearby buildings. If the erection of an entirely new City Hall on Beacon street between Somerset and Bow- doin streets (the project proposed by Mayor Mat- thews in 1892) is not authorized, it is possible that upon the completion of the new Court House an annex to the present building will be constructed from the present Court House, or upon its site, across Court square. The City Hall yard, through which the building is approached, is made attrac- tive by well-kept lawns and masses of flowers or plants displayed in the large urns. Of the bronze statues on either side of the walk. that of Frank- lin, by Richard S. Greenough, was first set up in 1856 in front of the old City Hall, and moved to its present position in 1865 ; and that of the first Mayor Quincy, by Thomas Ball, was placed on the 17th of September, 1879. Both have re-
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