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Taking the bus to scalp treatments in old Boston
By adamg on Wed, 04/11/2018 - 10:29am
The folks at the Boston City Archives wonder if you can place this scene. See it larger.
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Comments
Scalp treatment
Codman Square
Washington Street in Codman Square
100% Codman Square
Second Church and Lithgow Building in background.
Brighton center?
Church steeple is not inconsistent with the one in Brighton Center, and that would make those tracks the A line. However, nothing else matches, but much of what is currently around that church, including the bank, and the looks like post-1970 construction. Perhaps that steeple design is common around the area...
edit: after another look I think the Brighton Center steeple is more of a square design, where this seems to have a hexagonal shape. False alarm.
You may not be far off.
You may not be far off.
It made me think of Brighton as well. Somewhere around Cambridge Street and Market Street. I can't read the bus sign, but I get that vibe off of the building on the hillside to the right. It reminds me of Saint Elizabeth's Hospital.
Church
It looks like the intersection of Washington and Market with St. Elizabeth's in the background. I am thinking the church in the picture doesn't exist today, just like the A line tracks.
EDIT: There is a reference here to a Greek revival town hall burning in 1975.
http://www.bahistory.org/BriCenterHistory.html
My gut says Codman Square
And I don't feel good about it. The church looks like a Codman Square church, but on the other hand there's a similar church in Brighton Center. I think the big clue is that the bus is heading to Uphams Corner. One might be tempted to say that it is Uphams Corner, that the church is the Pilgrim church, but that would put the scene on Columbia Road, which was constructed as a 4 lane avenue.
Scalp treatments is actually a hint
This was something that was important in the black community, in part due to societal demands to straighten and hot comb hair and the impact those had on the skin underneath.
Yeah, but
When this photograph was taken, there would not have been many black people in Codman Square. Black people would have started to pop up in the Codman Square area in the late 60s, early 70s. As for Brighton Center, I mean, go there yourself.
JP
Dorothy Muriels was the best
She had great buns.
She had great buns.
Betty White wants to know
How her muffin was?
Better not be dry. Betty hated a dry muffin.
Mattapan Square
Mattapan Square
The treatments.
They do nothing.
At first I thought Centre
At first I thought Centre Street in West Roxbury (between Park and Corey) but I would think it has to be Dorchester based on Uphams Corner trolley.
our streets look the same now
our streets look the same now...lol.
Bus Dest. sign: Uphams Corner
I love my glasses.
I changed my mind.
I changed my mind.
Taking folks reading the bus destination as Upham's Corner as my starting point....
The road is too narrow to be Columbia, and too flat to be Hancock. I couldn't find anything that really screamed "match" with Dudley Street.
I looked at some old streetcar maps to see what other streets had had rails.
Stoughton was a possibility. It would've needed a now-gone church/steeple behind Baker's Corner laundry, though...
The old maps point out that the streetcar lines extended down Hancock to Bowdoin to Washington.
I'm really leaning towards Codman Square. Washington St between Kenwood St and Southern Avenue, looking east over shops to the steeple of Second Church. What we can see of the details of the steeple match. The building in the left background looks like it could be the existing building at the corner of Washington and Talbot. The building in the right background looks like the existing Kit Clark, 645 Washington (down the street from The Great Hall, which would be just out of frame to the right in the archive photo)
https://www.google.com/maps/@42.291248,-71.0716736,3a,26.4y,159.18h,98.92t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sFZR2_KCNSw_FjtI4c1EHoQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en
https://www.google.com/maps/@42.2902977,-71.0715756,3a,75y,164.78h,96.54t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sZuRzqZNutuevsixIhODSsA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en
The Answer
Thanks for playing, folks! This photo was taken in about 1941 in Codman Square, Dorchester
Then and now
It may be a bit earlier but this is a good overlay map to explore the area then.
Blast from the past
Dorothy Muriel’s Food Shop, brings back memories
Their fruit cakes and Anadama bread was the best.
The Dorchester Belt Line...
The Dorchester Board of Trade had petitioned BERy to create a route that served all the commercial districts of the neighborhood. Ed Dana and the public trustees obliged and service was running by the late 1920's.
The route:
Uphams Corner thence Hancock Street, Kane's Square, Bowdoin Street, Four Corners, Washington Street, Codman Square, Talbot Avenue, Peabody Square [with a spur to Ashmont Station once it opened in 1928], Dorchester Avenue, Fields Corner Station, Savin Hill Avenue, Pleasant Street and Stoughton Street back to Uphams Corner.
Service ran both clockwise and counterclockwise. By about 1960 service had been drastically reduced and the route cutback to run Codman Square - Uphams Corner via Ashmont, Fields Corner and Savin Hill. It was discontinued entirely soon thereafter with Route 18 temporarily running Ashmont - Uphams via Dorchester Avenue to cover the territory. [Route 13 Savin Hill Station - Northampton Station via Uphams Corner also ran along Pleasant and Stoughton until 1981. It was the final descendant of an old Dorchester/Newmarket/South End/Chinatown streetcar line.]
Good luck finding an old timetable for this route! [Maybe Mayor Curley kept the only one in his desk drawer?!] Seems BERy and MTA never issued any to the riding public; nor was the route ever shown on any editions of the system maps!
I am in awe.
I am in awe.