CultureNOW - Boylston Street: Peter Vanderwarker

Boylston Street

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Description

ABOUT THE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS
These photographs show how new uses invade old ones in a city. We're looking downtown along Boylston Street from the corner of Ipswich. Even in 1920, the
approximate date of the old photo, it's a street where grand ambitions have failed. With the Fenwayand the Massachusetts Historical Society in one direction and the elegant Back Bay in the other, this was supposed to be a row of wealth and privilege. But it never made it, because it was too close to the railroad.

Already in 1920, three commercial structures have appeared among the burly late-Victorian mansions. These new buildings don't look like Boston. With their wide, triple-pane Chicagostyle windows, they could be anywhere: The country was beginning its long trek toward sameness. The building at farthest right is a showroom for the Chandler automobile (price: $1,295). ln the cobbled pavement are the tracks of
a trolley, replaced a decade later by the underground Green Line. At the corner of Massachusetts Avenue is the Roman-columned State Street Bank building of 1902. Beyond it, the Edison Electric Co. sign rides high above the railroad, which cut through Boston here (and still does, along with the Massachusetts Turnpike). The huge, illuminated Edison clock must have flashed in the faces of arriving passengers as they emerged from Back Bay Station.

In the new photo, only two thin slices of the old mansions survive. They seem to be trying to hide, like E.T. in his closet, among the buildings of what is now an entirely commercial row. Both are much altered, one for a liquor store, the other for a BankBoston.

Like many downtown neighborhoods, this one is being reinvigorated by students. Much of it spins off the ever-expanding Berklee College of Music. The once-proud State Street Bank building is now a sad appendage to the college, But the near block of Boylston hums with life. Here are Berklee's bookstore, Looney Tunes CDs, Broken Neck Guitar Repair, Jack's Drum Shop, Pianoforte pianos, Boston Film-Video Foundation, and
much more.

This is a youthful, vital chunk of today's Boston - an ideal city street, with an unpretentious human scale and a fascinating, layered mix of uses and eras. In the background, the Prudential and Hancock towers stand guard over funky student life like boring grown-ups.

-Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker, "CITYSCAPES - Boylston Street", Boston Globe, 1998

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Location

Boylston St & Ipswich St
Boston, MA 02215
United States

Nearby Items

Dream Catching: Phil David Phine Memorial		627 feet
The Viridian		858 feet
Fenway Park at Lansdowne Street		0.2 miles
Fenway Park		0.3 miles
Fenway Cultural District		0.3 miles
Back Bay Fens (The Fens)		0.3 miles
Kenmore Square		0.4 miles