Horses used to be everywhere in Boston

While horse carts aren't the same thing as cars and small trucks, there have always been wheeled conveyances of this size for moving goods and people around the city. Not every trip can be made by foot, transit, or bicycle. People who want to ban motor vehicles from certain areas seem to forget that.

Classified ads in the Boston Globe in 1899 mention spiritual meetings held at Echo Hall at 1 Johnson Av in Charlestown, on the corner of Main Street. By 1900, the Echo Hall spiritual meetings had moved to 32 Lincoln St, and by 1901, they were at 321 Main St.

Here is a map from the 1892 Charlestown Bromley Atlas on MapJunction. The photo appears to have been taken looking south from the corner of Hathon Sq.

Johnson Ave was never much of a street - just one block long. To the extent it exists at all anymore, it's in the form of this pedestrian walkway in the shopping plaza across Main Street from Hathon Sq.

Charlestown is further suggested by the laundry horse cart in front of W.F. Libby advertising a Chelsea location.

A Google search reveals 3 archived newspaper articles from 1899-1901, describing spiritual meetings held at Echo Hall in Charlestown. Unfortunately the citations are to OCR transcriptions and I can't get an image of the full page due to a paywall.

This also looks like the kind of architecture I would expect in parts of Charlestown in that era. There wouldn't be any wooden buildings like this on Tremont St. in town, or in the South End.

Abundant parking used to be everywhere in Boston

Thanks for playing, folks! This is indeed Main Street at the corner of Johnson Ave in Charlestown. The photo was taken in 1900