Hey, there! Log in / Register
One-horsepower wagons ponder their impending demise
By adamg on Tue, 05/31/2022 - 11:28am
The folks at the Boston City Archives wonder if you can place this scene. See it larger.
Neighborhoods:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Columbus Ave
Columbus Ave @ Dartmouth Street.
Close...
I think it's a bit further south than that. I'm guessing around Columbus & Holyoke.
Street numbers
I couldnt decide where this was.. so used these key factors
1. The diagonal right side streets
2. had street cars on it
And the big one... the street number.
On the left, you can clearly see 355 as a street number. The only place that looks like that that has the street number, had street cars, and a right side angle street.
Of course I am assuming Columbus was never re-numbered at one point.
The only thing missing is the church. but I just assumed it was torn down at one point (as the buildings in that spot are new, but built to that era buildings.)
Church
I believe the church was the Second Unitarian at the Clarendon corner.
Pretty sure this is right
If you look through the haze past the church steeple on the right, you can make out the Armory of the First Corps of Cadets a.k.a. the Park Plaza Castle. Columbus at Dartmouth & Chandler. Just about everything is gone for urban renewal/the Southwest Corridor
yeah
Even on right hand side, most of the buildings are gone & been replaced with newer brick buildings.
The only one that is still there is the one on the far left corner of dartmouth.. (which has Cleary's in it currently).
Here's the same view today
Tremont Street in the South End?
The reason I am guessing Tremont is that Columbus Avenue, to my knowledge, never had streetcar tracks (and still has no bus routes). Tremont had a streetcar line from Egleston Square that fed into what's now the Green Line subway; the #43 bus is the modern-day replacement.
Seems too narrow to be Tremont.
Plus the street numbers are wrong unless this was up by Bay Village but the street continues on straight ahead; Tremont would have curved to the left after a few blocks.
It did
Check out this Stone & Webster Map of electric streetcars in 1896. Clearly shows one running down Columbus Ave.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/74/1896_map_of_el...
This photo also helps date the photo above.. gonna say its probably in the mid 1890s, shortly before this map was drawn.
Fun fact
A horse actually can produce up to 15 "horsepower".
But after it does
is it still alive?
Actually, yeah!
It's basically just a question of measuring average output vs peak output. In fact, if you look at human performance, humans can output over 1 HP when going all out as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsepower#History
The Answer
Thanks for playing, folks! This shows Columbus Ave near W Newton Street, looking east. We don't have an exact date for the image, but we believe it to be about 1915, based on the "Autos for Rent" sign). You can look at the high res version of the image here: https://cityofboston.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/IO_2f8b80b9-b1c...
I think horse-drawn delivery
I think horse-drawn delivery vehicles were around until at least the 1930s.
I had family on West Newton
I had family on West Newton Street once upon a time. I always came in from the Washington Street side though.