CultureNOW - (South End Grounds): Peter Vanderwarker

(South End Grounds)

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ABOUT THE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS
"The year was 1894, and a Boston athlete was having one of the all-time great seasons. Hugh Duffy, outfielder and future Hall-of-Famer, hit .440 that season for the Boston Beaneaters – some 34 points better than Ted Williams in his best year.

Duffy did his hitting in the old South End Grounds, which we see in the old photo. Unfortunately, Duffy’s bat wasn’t the only thing that caught fire that summer. The delightful party-hatted grandstand went up in a blaze that spread from the right-field bleachers to consume, eventually, 177 other buildings. The Beaneaters moved to an adjacent field, finished the season in third place, rebuilt their grandstand, and played here until 1915, by which time they were the Boston Braves of the National League.

The new photo shows the same area today. A pastoral scene of white-clad figures on a green lawn has been replaced by a dismal view of steel cars on a slab of asphalt. We’re looking at part of Northeastern University. Northeastern has done a lot to improve its looks in recent years, but not here. A high-rise parking garage is at left. Egan Research Center is at right. In the distance we can see the fine Ruggles T Station, designed by architects Stull & Lee to be a social as well as a physical connector: a high-tech New England covered bridge, which crosses above the railroad corridor that once divided the Fenway neighborhood from Roxbury.

And the parking lot? Northeastern planners aren’t sure, but they hint that it may become the locus of a future sports stadium. Games may once again by played on the site of the South End Grounds. Perhaps a new stadium can recapture some of the playfulness and rusticity of that endearing old ball field. Maybe it could even become, as Fenway Park so famously is, an allegory of green country life in the midst of the asphalt city."

-Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker, "CITYSCAPES - Swing Time," Boston Globe, 7 March 2004

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Location

Columbus Avenue & Coventry Street
Boston, MA 02120
United States

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