CultureNOW - Angell Memorial: Peter Vanderwarker

Angell Memorial

There are no podcasts available.

Description

ABOUT THE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS
"The Horse’s Christmas: Nothing brings back the flavor of an earlier Boston more pungently than this annual celebration, held from 1916 until 1954. It usually took place in Post Office Square, where we see it in the old photograph, made about 1920. A Christmas dinner – perhaps oats, carrots, apples, and corn, maybe bran, maybe a lump of sugar – was offered to any horse that showed up. At its peak, the event fed hundreds of horses. There were police details to handle the traffic, teams of attendants to ‘wait on table,’ and crowds of sightseers, especially children. Hot coffee and doughnuts were provided for the horses’ drivers, too.

Post Office Square was the favored site because of the Angell Memorial Fountain, erected in honor of George T. Angell (1823-1909). Angell founded the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the group that sponsored the Horses’ Christmas. The society thought of the event not merely as a holiday treat but also as a lesson in kindness to animals for both the drivers and the public. The Angell Memorial stands at the center of the old view. In the new one, it’s just out of sight to the right.
In the 1970s, it was restored and given a handsome new setting, Angell Memorial Park, with a ‘creature pond’ of bronze animals created by local artists.

Today’s photograph is a little confusing, because it shows a second park at the left, across Milk Street This is Post Office Square Park, which opened in 1993 on the site of a derelict parking garage. The cars are still here, but they’re underground on seven levels, and the surface has been transformed into one of the best small urban parks in the United States. The park was financed and is maintained by local property owners.

Post Office Square is named, of course, for the post office. The 1873 building is on the right in the old photo, and a corner of its 1931 replacement, the McCormack Post Office and Federal Building, is visible in the new one. The author Donlyn Lyndon caught the McCormack’s spirit in a guidebook when he wrote, ‘Imagine that Clark Kent was a postmaster. You will then understand the nature of this building and its Superbuilding aspirations.’ Alas for Metropolis: The McCormack’s tenants are departing, and its fate is in doubt."

-Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker, "CITYSCAPES - Angell Memorial," Boston Globe, 1995

map not available at this time.

Location

Pearl Street & Milk Street
Boston, MA 02110
United States

Nearby Items

Creature Pond		158 feet
Immanent Circumstance		217 feet
Boston Green Way		368 feet
John W McCormack Post Office and Courthouse		379 feet
Trellis Dance		392 feet
Quincy Market, Interior		534 feet
Langham Hotel / Former Federal Reserve Bank		593 feet