That part of the Common adjoining Tremont Street and known as the
Tremont Street Mall is now occupied by eight small buildings, covering
the entrances to the stations of the Boston Subway, a wonderful piece of
engineering that facilitates traffic by an underground system of
electric cars. The subway was, in part, constructed in 1895-1898, at a
cost of about four million one hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars,
and since greatly extended by the expenditure of many millions more.
Near the northeast angle of the Common, on Beacon Hill, stands the State
House, an imposing building surmounted by a huge gilded dome, and
preceded by a Corinthian portico and a flight of steps. On the terrace
in front are statues of Daniel Webster and Horace Mann. The dome is
illuminated at night.
In Beacon Street, opposite the State House, is the beautiful Shaw
Monument, by Saint-Gaudens, erected in honor of Colonel Shaw and his
regiment, the first colored regiment raised during the Civil war.
In Pemberton Square is the new County Court House, a massive granite
building in the German Renaissance style, with an imposing central hall
adorned with emblematic figures. In School Street, to the left, is the
City Hall, behind which is the Old Court House. In front of the City
Hall are statues of Franklin and Josiah Quincy.
School Street ends at the large Old South Building in Washington Street,
the most crowded thoroughfare in Boston, with many of the best shops.
Following Washington Street (“Newspaper Row”) to the left, we soon
reach, at the corner of State Street, the Old State House, dating from
1748 and restored as far as possible to its original appearance, even to
the figures of the British lion and unicorn on the roof.
[Illustration: PIERCE BUILDING PUBLIC LIBRARY BUNKER HILL MONUMENT]
State Street, the center of financial life, leads to the east, past the
Exchange Building (with the Stock Exchange) and other large office
buildings, to the Custom House, a massive granite building in the shape
of a Greek cross, with lofty tower.
Change Alley (now inappropriately styled “Avenue”), diverging to the
left from State Street leads to Faneuil Hall, the “cradle of American
liberty,” originally presented to the city in 1742, by Peter Faneuil, a
Huguenot merchant, but rebuilt after a fire in 1761 and reconstructed on
the original plan in 1898.
Devonshire Street leads to the right from State Street to the Government
Building, a huge edifice occupying the entire block between Milk Street,
Devonshire Street, Water Street and Post Office Square. The Post Office
occupies the ground floor, the basement, and part of the first floor,
while the rest of the building is devoted to the United States
Sub-Treasury and the United States Courts.
At the corner of Washington Street stands the Old South Meeting House,
built in 1729 on the site of an earlier church of wood, which lay near
Governor Winthrop’s house.
Boylston Street, another important thoroughfare, diverging from
Washington Street to the right, skirts the Common and Public Garden and
leads to the Back Bay. At the corner of Berkeley Street (right) stands
the Museum of Natural History, with a library of thirty thousand volumes
and good zoological, ornithological, entomological and mineralogical
collections. Opposite is the Berkeley Building, a structure of a fine
commercial type. Adjacent are old buildings of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, one of the leading institutions of the kind in
the world. It now occupies a magnificent group of buildings on the
Cambridge side of the Charles River, erected at a cost of ten million
dollars.
Boylston Street now reaches Copley Square, which offers perhaps the
finest architectural group in Boston, including Trinity Church, the
Copley-Plaza Hotel, the Public Library, the New Old South Church, and a
number of imposing business structures. (See illustrations.)
Trinity Church, on the east side of the square, the masterpiece of H. H.
Richardson and a typical example of “Richardsonian” architecture, is
deservedly regarded as one of the finest buildings in America. Its style
may be described as a free treatment of the Romanesque of Central
France.
The Public Library, on the west side of the square, designed by McKim,
Mead & White, and erected in 1888-1895, is a dignified, simple and
scholarly edifice which forms a worthy mate to the Trinity Church. Its
style is that of the Roman Renaissance.
The New Old South Church, so called as the successor of the Old South
Church, is a fine building in the Italian Gothic style, with a tower two
hundred and forty-eight feet in height. The marbles and ornamental stone
work are very fine.
Huntington Avenue, which diverges to the left from Boylston Street at
Copley Square, contains many important buildings. This thoroughfare, and
the district known as the Back Bay Fens, is celebrated for its cultural
institutions. Among them are Mechanics Hall, Horticultural Hall, the
imposing Symphony Hall, the New England Conservatory of Music, and the
new Opera House--all in Huntington Avenue. Just beyond this is the New
Museum of Fine Arts, a large granite edifice by Guy Lowell, admirably
adapted for its ends. Farther out, at the corner of Longwood Avenue, are
the extensive new buildings of the Harvard Medical School, erected at a
cost of five million dollars, and equipped in the most complete and
up-to-date manner.
Commonwealth Avenue, which runs parallel with Boylston Street, is one of
the finest residence streets in America, with rows of trees and
handsome houses. It is two hundred and forty feet wide and adorned with
statues.
Beacon Street, beginning on Beacon Hill, skirting the north side of the
Common, and then running parallel with Commonwealth Avenue is the
aristocratic street of Boston. Its back-windows command a fine view of
the Charles River.
The Back Bay, the fashionable west end district traversed by the
above-named streets, was at the beginning of the nineteenth century
occupied by dreary mud-flats, salt-marshes and water.
The Back Bay Fens have been skillfully laid out on the site of unsightly
swamps and form the first link in the splendid chain of parks and
boulevards, of which Franklin Park is the chief ornament. The chief
entrances to the Fens are marked by a gateway and a fountain; and at the
end of Boylston Street is a fine memorial of John Boyle O’Reilly, by D.
C. French.
Fenway Court, the residence of Mrs. John L. Gardner, a building in a
Venetian style, enclosing a courtyard and incorporating many original
balconies, windows, and other details brought from Italy, contains a
choice collection of art, which is open to the public from time to time.
Franklin Park is five hundred and twenty acres in extent and lies in
West Roxbury (reached by electric car). It abounds in natural beauty and
many of its drives and walks are very attractive.
The Public Park System of Boston, as a whole, is almost unique. The City
Park System, with a total area of twenty-four hundred acres, forms an
almost unbroken line of parks and parkways from the Public Garden to
City Point, in Boston Harbor. The Metropolitan System, forming an outer
line of parks, has an area of eleven thousand acres, including two large
wooded reservations (Blue Hills, and Middlesex Fells), three beaches
(Revere Beach, Nantasket Beach, and Lynn Beach), and the boating section
of the Charles River. When completed this system will afford fifty miles
of drives.
The North End of Boston, embracing the site of Copp’s Hill, now one of
the poorer districts and occupied mainly by foreigners, contains some
points of considerable historical interest. The Copp’s Hill Burial
Ground, dating from 1660, contains the graves of Increase, Cotton and
Samuel Mather. Adjacent, in Salem Street, is Christ Church, the oldest
church now standing in the city (1723), on the steeple of which the
signal-lanterns of Paul Revere are said to have been displayed on April
18th, 1775, to warn the country of the march of the British troops to
Lexington and Concord. North Square is the center of what is known as
“Little Italy.” The House of Paul Revere has recently been restored and
contains some relics.
Within metropolitan Boston are many famous institutions of learning. At
the head of these stand Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, and Radcliffe College, the greater part of whose schools are
in the adjoining city of Cambridge and the remaining in Boston. Among
the institutions of higher education are Boston University, with its
affiliated colleges, its schools of law, medicine, and theology, and its
post-graduate department in philosophy, science, and language; the
medical, dental, and agricultural schools of Harvard University; Boston
College; the medical and dental schools of Tufts College; Simmons
College for Women; the New England Conservatory of Music; the
Massachusetts Normal Art School; the Lowell Institute; and the
Massachusetts College of Pharmacy.
Wellesley College is situated in the beautiful village of Wellesley,
about fifteen miles from Boston, on Lake Waban.
Besides Trinity Church, already referred to, there are upward of three
hundred other edifices. Chief of these are the Cathedral of the Holy
Cross, on the corner of Washington and Malden Streets, the largest and
most noteworthy Catholic church in New England; Arlington Street Church,
corner of Arlington and Boylston Streets; First Church of Christ,
Scientist, on Falmouth Street, corner of Norway; and Fremont Temple, a
Free Baptist Church.
The beauty of the parks, squares, and of many public buildings is
enhanced by monuments and statues, of which the following are the chief:
Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown, two hundred and twenty feet high,
built of granite and commemorative of the resistance and heroism of
American patriots at the Battle of Bunker Hill; the equestrian statue of
Washington in the Public Garden; the monument to Colonel Shaw; the
Soldiers’ Monument in the Common; the Crispus Attucks monument, a
memorial of the Boston Massacre of 1770; statues to General Joseph
Warren, Edward Everett, Charles Sumner, Alexander Hamilton, Governor
Winthrop, William Lloyd Garrison, Benjamin Franklin, Josiah Quincy,
Beethoven, Daniel Webster, Horace Mann, Phillips Brooks and many other
notable men.
The principal industries of Boston are the manufacture of food
preparations, clothing, building, printing, publishing, and
book-binding, distilled liquors, machinery, metals and metallic goods,
and furniture. Other important manufactures include musical instruments,
woolen goods, boots and shoes, rubber goods, tobacco, and drugs and
medicines. As a commercial port, Boston ranks next to New York, the
value of foreign trade amounting to two hundred million dollars
annually. After London, the city is the leading wool market of the
world.
Boston was settled in 1630 by a party of Puritans from Salem. A
memorable massacre occurred here in 1770, and in 1773 several cargoes of
English tea were thrown overboard in the harbor by citizens. The battle
of Bunker Hill was fought on Breed’s Hill, within the present city
limits, June 17, 1775. The city charter was granted in 1822.
=Cambridge= (_kām´brĭj_), =Mass.= [So named for the English university
town of that name. The English name is supposed to mean “the bridge over
the river Cam,” the real name of which is the Granta.]
It is virtually a suburb of Boston, from which it is separated by the
Charles River, and with which it is connected by several bridges. The
city comprises Old Cambridge, the seat of Harvard University, North
Cambridge, East Cambridge, Cambridgeport, and Mount Auburn. The streets
are broad and shaded with elms, and there are many places of historical
and literary interest, among these the Craigie House and “Elmwood,” the
homes of Longfellow and Lowell, respectively; and Mount Auburn Cemetery,
containing the graves of Longfellow, Lowell, Prescott, Motley, Agassiz,
Holmes, and other noted men.
The chief interest of Cambridge, however, lies in its educational
institutions, which include Harvard University, Radcliffe College (for
women), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Episcopal Theological
School, and Andover Theological Seminary. All these institutions are now
in close working alliance with Harvard University.
Harvard University, founded in 1636, is not only the oldest but the
richest of American universities, and the roster of graduates contains
more than twenty thousand names. Massachusetts Hall is the oldest of the
present buildings, being built in 1720. The most notable buildings
architecturally (besides the fine Medical School group in Boston) are:
Austin Hall and Longdell Hall, devoted to the Law School; Widener
Memorial Library, a splendid new building dominating the college yard;
Busch Hall, devoted to the art collections of the Germanic Museum;
Memorial Hall, containing Sanders Theater; and Sever Hall, containing
class-rooms.
The activities of the university require upward of sixty other
buildings, including laboratories, lecture halls, museums, residence
halls, and a number of fine structures devoted to the social, religious,
athletic and art life of the student body.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, founded in 1861, is located
on the Charles River Parkway, and occupies a newly acquired area of
about seventy acres. Here has been erected a magnificent group of
buildings, unrivaled, perhaps, in design, adaptation for their
respective uses, and general equipment. This institution is devoted to
the teaching of science as applied to the various engineering
professions--civil, mechanical, mining, electrical, chemical, and
sanitary engineering--as well as to architecture, chemistry, metallurgy,
physics, and geology.
Among the industrial establishments are foundries, machine shops, and
extensive manufactories. The Riverside, Athenæum, and University Presses
are well-known printing establishments, and the “Bay Psalm Book,” the
first book printed in America, was published in Cambridge in 1640.
Cambridge was settled in 1630 by Governor Winthrop under the name of
Newtowne. In 1636 Harvard College was founded at Newtowne, and in 1638
Newtowne became Cambridge. The Washington elm, under which Washington
received command of the American troops, is still standing.
[Illustration: WASHINGTON ELM--Cambridge Mass.
Under this ancient elm near the Cambridge Common, Washington assumed
command of the American Continental army July 3, 1775, by order of the
Continental Congress. It is therefore one of the landmarks of the
greatest historic interest to every liberty-loving American--man, woman,
or child.]
[Illustration: 1. Blackstone Hotel