Atlantic Avenue Trains Times Two

South Station with Atlantic Avenue Elevated line.


As some will know, there was once an elevated train line that ran over Atlantic avenue and around the waterfront of the city. The line was part of the original rapid transit plan for the city, a partner to the underground Washington street line. The postcard above shows the elevated structure at South Station. The line followed a loop along Atlantic avenue, Commercial street and Causeway street to North Station.



Boston's rapid transit lines, 1930s.


What fewer people may know is that the Atlantic avenue elevated line was a branch of the main line that would run from Forest Hills to Everett. The map above shows the system with its stops. Coming from the south, a train could either go straight into the downtown tunnel, or turn right at Herald street, and left again on Harrison avenue, in to Beach street, turn right, and then left again and come alongside South Station and follow Atlantic avenue from there. This waterfront route gave people access to South Station, and to what was then a working waterfront, including the ferries that ran both north and south.






Possibly the State Street station.



Rowe's Wharf station.


Atlantic avenue El, just before being torn down.


During the 1920s, jobs on the waterfront were disappearing. The rise of the automobile and the construction of the Sumner Tunnel to East Boston helped kill the ferry service, and ridership declined on the Atlantic avenue line. A wreck at the turn at Harrison avenue and Beach street caused the through route from the main line to Atlantic avenue to be cut, and the Atlantic avenue line became a shuttle between South and North Stations. In 1942, the elevated tracks were taken down and scrapped.


Atlantic Avenue El coming down.




Train running under Atlantic Avenue elevated tracks.


But there's more to Atlantic avenue and trains!


Union Freight Railroad tracks running down Atlantic avenue and spur lines to the wharves and markets (click on image to see larger version).


Atlantic avenue was also the route of a street-level railroad line, the Union Freight Railroad. The line allowed rail access directly to the waterfront wharves and the markets and warehouses on the land side of Atlantic avenue. There is a mention of a 99 year lease for the Atlantic avenue right of way, but apparently the company gave up its rights as the Boston waterfront lost its freight traffic.



Oops! Boxcar goes off the tracks under the Atlantic avenue El.

Braves Field

Entrance to Brave's Field.


My mother once told me that my grandmother used to listen to baseball on the radio while doing her housework. That surprised me, as I knew her only as an elderly woman, playing scrabble or solitaire in her room in my parents house. What surprised me even more was that she did not listen to the Red Sox - she was a Boston Braves fan.

The Boston Braves baseball team had a history that went back in time to the post-Civil War era. I'll leave the various team names, owners and leagues to the baseball aficionados, and start when the team became the Braves in 1912. At the time, the team was playing its home games at the South End Grounds, near today's Ruggles Orange Line T stop. In 1914, the team would win the World Series (although the games were played at the larger Fenway Park), and the next year a new park was built.


Braves Field, 1916.



Braves Field was built between Commonwealth avenue and the Boston & Albany railroad tracks in Brighton. When it opened, it had the largest seating capacity in the National League. Ironically, with the now-larger facility, Braves Field would host the Red Sox when they played in the 1915 and 1916 World Series. Braves Field would also be home field for three professional football teams, including the Boston Braves, who played there for one year before moving to Fenway Park under the new name the Redskins. That franchise would later move to Washington D.C., and is still there today.


Aerial view - note railroad tracks on right (BPL Flickr photo group).




Circa 1930 (BPL Flickr photo group).



Circa 1930. Note railroad tracks and bridge over the Charles river on the left (BPL Flickr photo group).


The original layout of the field included a massive outfield, which made hitting home runs over the fences almost impossible. And although the photos above show a full ballpark, the team did not attract sufficient fans to make ends meet. In 1953, the team moved to Milwaukee. Soon after, the park was sold to Boston University. Two years later, much of the original facility was torn down, but some of the structure does remain. Nickerson Field now stands on the site, along with dormitories and Walter Brown Arena.

Link Time: MIT-Libraries Photostream

I had forgotten about this collection, but I just followed a link to one of its photos. Unfortunately, the owner has decided not to make this images available via Creative Commons, so I can't download a photo and use it here to give you an example. I could have done a screen cap of course, but hey, if they don't wanna share, then so be it.

MIT-Libraries Flickr photostream.

I linked to a series of Scollay Square photos from the 1950s, but feel free to poke around when you get there. There are many pages that I don't find interesting, but you'll have to see what's there for yourself.

Coconut Grove

Coconut Grove nightclub, between Piedmont and Shawmut streets, 1938.



Shawmut street.



Piedmont street entrance.


Interior.



Corner of Broadway and Shawmut street.



It was one of the biggest news stories of the 20th Century for the city of Boston. It was the fall of 1942, and the country was at war. November 28 was a Saturday, and soldiers and sailors preparing to go overseas were out on the town, along with a Thanksgiving holiday crowd. The Coconut Grove was a popular nightclub that meandered through multiple buildings on a narrow block between Piedmont and Shawmut streets near Park Square. The location had been a speakeasy at one time.

The story of the fire is well known. Regulations were lax at the time. A single revolving door was at the main entrance. The doors at other exits opened in. One exit had been boarded up to prevent customers from leaving without paying. Much of the 'Tropical' decor was made of flammable paper, and covered the walls. Afterwards, it was claimed that an effort to replace a lightbulb lead to the initial fire. The fire spread rapidly, from walls to faux palm tree fronds. The flames ran from room to room before they could be put out.

In the panic, exits became blocked, and bodies piled up. firefighters couldn't get in the building, blocked by the bodies. Some people were found sitting at tables, glasses in their hands. The faire had taken them so fast, they couldn't respond. Four hundred and ninety two people died in the blaze.

As a result of the Coconut Grove fire, many states drew up new fire regulations for public buildings like nightclubs. Flammable materials on walls were outlawed, and doors were required to open out.


Coconut Grove Plaque, Piedmont street. Erected by the Bay Village Neighborhood Association, 1993. Photo by Tom Kelley (Creative Commons).

Link Time: Boston Fire Historical Society

Assorted history of fires and firefighting in Boston. The material speaks for itself, so I'll just let you check it out. There are some dead links and some pages that were never created, but if you poke around you'll find lots of good stuff.

Boston Fire Historical Society

Lost Train Stations: Fitchburg Railroad

Fitchburg Depot, Causeway street (photo from Wikipedia).



Fitchburg Depot, Causeway street, on the right, 1883.

(Edited to add information 1/9/13)


The Fitchburg Railroad was founded in 1842. The line originally terminated in Charlestown, but moved across to Boston in 1848. The line crossed the mouth of the Charles river to Charlestown and northwest to Fitchburg, and was later extended west through northern Massachusetts, with branches running to Vermont and New York. Part of the line ran through the Hoosac Tunnel. The Hoosac went 4.75 miles through the Hoosac range. The work took 20 years at a cost of $21,000,000, at a time when a dollar was a dollar. At the time it was the second longest tunnel in the world, and remains the longest in the United States east of the Rockies.

The Boston depot shown above was built, quite appropriately,  from Fitchburg granite, and was known a Crocker's Folly (Alvah Crocker being the president of the company) and later the Great Stone Castle.  When the line moved to the north union station, the space was used by the company for offices, There was a fire in 1925, and by 1928 the structure had been demolished.

The Boston and Maine line bought the Fitchburg Railroad in 1900.




Jenny Lind Tower (Truro Historical Society).

Here's a fun story/fact. Famous Swedish singer Jenny Lind performed in the Fitchburg depot when she visited Boston. The show was oversold, and in order to satisfy unhappy ticket holders left outside, Jenny sang from one of the turrets. When the depot was torn down, a wealthy fan had the turret removed block by block and rebuilt near Highland Light in Truro MA.

Great story, but apparently not quite accurate. Lind did perform in the second floor auditorium (then the largest in New England) in 1850, and contemporary newspaper reports describe fans rushing the stage (does that sound familiar?). However, there was no mention of Lind singing from the turret. the depot was not torn down until 1927, and the lawyer who bought and moved the turret was not born until seventeen years after the concert.


 Resource:  Boston's Depots and Terminals, Richard C. Barrett. 

Perkins Institution for the Blind - South Boston

Perkins Institution, East Broadway, South Boston - early 20th Century postcard.


Perkins School, BPL Flickr photo group.


"Blind Asylum," Broadway, 1852.




Perkins Institution property marked in red, 1884.


I've already discussed South Boston's Carney Hospital - here's an institution that has its roots in the older, Yankee Boston. The Perkins Institution for the Blind was founded in Boston proper in 1829 by John Dix Fisher. After merchant Thomas Handasyd Perkins donated his Pearl street estate, the school was named to honor him.

It might be worthy of notice here that Perkins and his brother James made their money in the China trade, primarily selling Turkish opium on the Chinese black market, and entirely against Chinese law. The Perkins company and other Boston companies were the leading Americans in this notorious trade, and were different from contemporary South American and Mexican drug cartels only in that they didn't go about killing people. They simply bribed them. Thomas H. Perkins - the so-called Merchant Prince - was a pillar of the community and a philanthropic leader. And everyone knew where his money came from, and no one seemed to mind.

Originally the New England Asylum for the Blind, the institution was founded in 1829. The first leader of the schools was Samuel Gridley Howe, probably better known today as the husband of Julia Ward Howe, activist and composer of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. This is unfortunate, because Howe's story is remarkable, and deserves to be remembered. When the school outgrew it's first home, Thomas H. Perkins allowed his Pearl street mansion to be used.

In 1839, Perkins sold the house and donated the proceeds to buy the former Mt Washington hotel in South Boston. As a side note, over time the hill the school sat on was gradually cut away over time for ease of building. The black and white photograph above shows the walls that had to be built to retain the earth around the building after the slope had been cut down, a reminder of Boston's many cut-and-fill projects.

In an effort to help blind children of pre-school age, the Perkins Institution opened a Kindergarten in Jamaica Plain. I've already discussed that institution on my Jamaica Plain blog, so please go here to read about it.

In time, the school outgrew it's South Boston campus, and moved both the main school and the Jamaica Plain kindergarten to Watertown.