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A block in old Boston
By adamg on Tue, 01/31/2017 - 10:34am
The folks at the Boston City Archives wonder if you can place this scene. See it larger.
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Comments
Washington St Roxbury
Advertising on the front makes these easy, well at least the location.
From
"The Engineering Record, Building Record and Sanitary Engineer, Volume 38"
"G. Walter Newton, Treas. 2234 Washington St, Roxbury."
Which I believe is a parking lot today. Not quite able to pick the exact location on the google maps.
Bill board overhead
says "2239 Wash St". Helps with the location.
However
I found Oak Grove Farm Creamy listed at 2220 Washington St Roxbury. Listed in the 1913 version of List of Massachusetts Manufacturers. Doesn't match the Mitchell's in far left of picture.
Also listed as an amusement company in 1917.
http://www.chathamhistoricalsociety.org/finding04_McGrathT/mcgrath.htm
Contact info for the billboard
The buildings have 2220 and 2228 on them.
where do you see the address?!
the only address i see is the 27 state st at the top right corner
2220 Street number
2220 is to the far left on the Mitchell's store sign,
Addresses
2220 is fairly large on the building far center left.
2228 can be seen on the door in the center of the image when zoomed. Just to the left of the woman in the picture.
2239 is on the empty bill board top left.
You can get a larger image when you go to tweet and right click and use the copy image address. Then open a new browser window and open the image there. On Chrome anyway, you are then able to see the image larger. This way the image 2048x1339 pixels.
The building where the woman
The building where the woman is standing looks an awful lot like where the present-day "Sunny" store is. That place always looks so sketchy, makes me wonder what it's a front for.
Sunny
Sunny
Well, at the very least the buildings to the left of it are the ones owned by someone from away (I want to say it was Korea, but my memory is failing me) who visits the area infrequently and thus does not appear to be part of the great cleanup/renovation of Dudley Sq.
Also noticed on Google Maps...
.that the numbers appear to go from even (at the current Payless Shoe Source) to odd, the next block over at 2201..weird...but SOO boston!
Not 27 State St.
But we knew that ...
2220? 2228? Those are high street numbers and that limits this to a few streets in Boston.
The Woman's attire (shorter skirt) indicates late 1910s? (EDIT: This location had the elevated come through around the turn of the century - so it would have had to be the 1890s at the latest! It seems to have been redeveloped after that).
Good call on the date
Elevated changed the area tremendously.
1899 Washington & Palmer St in Roxbury
Across from Ferdinand's. Had to be before the elevated as Swirly said. Here it is in 1902 with the massive steel structure basically touching the buildings:
(Photo from historicnewengland.org)
Wow!
Judging by the enlargement, looks like you could get ice cream & soda on the installment plan back in the day.
Other little known fact: the G. Walter Newton poultry & game store was a front. If you yanked the 4th chicken from the left you would descend through a trap in the floor to the headquarters of the first Mooninite outpost in Boston, run by the benevolent chicken plucker, Mr E. Pluribus Lightbright.
Dafuq?
Dafuq?
The Answer
Thanks for playing, folks! This shows the junction of Washington and Warren Street on December 7, 1899