CultureNOW - South Boston at East Broadway: Peter Vanderwarker

South Boston at East Broadway

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ABOUT THE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS
James Michael Curley was mayor and the Great Depression was only five months old when the earlier of these two photographs was made. It shows a drum-and-bugle corps marching down East Broadway in South Boston on St. Patrick's Day, 1930. As the two photographs suggest, South Boston has probably changed as little as any American neighborhood in the intervening 55 years. Yet subtle differences do appear: In 1930, for instance, almost every man and boy wears a hat or cap. The old sidewalks are wider, the trees are bigger, and there are trolley tracks and cobblestones instead of asphalt paving.

Small but significant changes appear in the houses, too. In the 1930 photo, most of these handsome dwellings were probably half a century old, yet all of them still display original ornamental detail in the Italianate or Queen Anne style. There are elaborate wood brackets under the eaves, fancy railings on the roofs, patterned shingle work, and lavish trim around windows and porches. Today, another half-century later, most of those details have vanished. Vinyl or aluminum siding has gone up, and architectural embellishments have come down. In the old photo, for instance, you can spot three octagonal belvederes - tiny, playful rooms poking above the roofs, designed for the sole, delightful purpose of providing a high lookout over the harbor. In the new photo, two of the belvederes have disappeared, and the third has been shorn of its trim and even its windows.

The elaborate mansard roof and gabled front bay window of another house have vanished. On still another, a cone-shaped roof over a bay is gone. At the top of the hill, the former Unitarian Congregational Church, nqw the Albanian Orthodox Cathedral of St. George, has lost the steeple and entry tower that its architect, Samuel J. F. Thayer, provided when he designed the church in 1872. East Broadway has been transformed from an intricate prettiness, a festive, frosted look that recalls Victorian San Francisco, into something plainer. The changes that have come to East Broadway reflect American taste during the past half-century, an era during which it has been thought more important for buildings to be efficient and uncluttered than ornamental or expressive. Tastes are changing, though, and perhaps the future will bring a restoration of some of the delightful bric-a-brac these fine houses once boasted.

-Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker, "CITYSCAPES - Give my Regards",Boston Globe, 17 March 1985

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Location

East Broadway St & Dorchester St
Boston, MA 02127
United States

Nearby Items

Dorchester Heights Monument		0.2 miles
Time Capsule for Andrew Square		1.2 miles
Andrew Station Time Capsule		1.2 miles
James Brendan Connolly		1.3 miles
Midway Studios		1.3 miles
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Domestic Objects & Tools of the Trade		1.3 miles