A Saturday Skulk Through Southie

From Dave Brigham:

I've covered South Boston quite a bit on this blog (see the bottom of this post for links) yet somehow I found more to check out this past April. The impetus for visiting this Boston neighborhood yet again was a ghost sign that I didn't know about the last time I was there.

I forget where I learned about this old sign for Bay State Brewery located on the side of The Distillery North apartments on East 2nd Street at the intersection with H Street. "The large brick factory building that sits between East 1st and 2nd Street in South Boston was first constructed in the 1860s as the Bay State Brewery and Malt House for the production of beer," according to the Distillery North web site. A man named Henry Souther started the brewing operation, having "purchased the land from the Sound Boston Association, seeing it as well located beside the water for the delivery of barley from Canada. At the time, the harbor came right up to the property edge...."

"It wasn’t long before the Bay State Brewery was sold to a railroad magnate and Congressman from New Hampshire named Frank Jones." I haven't learned when Jones took over the facility, but I'm assuming no later than the 1890s. That means the ghost sign is likely at least 125 years old, which is pretty cool.

Jones, who during his political career also served as mayor of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, started his brewing business in that small seacoast city. "The Frank Jones Brewery was one of the largest producers of ale in the United States of America," according to Wikipedia. "In 1896, Jones' Portsmouth brewery produced about 250,000 barrels a year."

Jones died in 1902, and the brewery complex was sold to the Felton family of Newton, Massachusetts, per the Distillery North web site. "The Feltons had arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1640, already with a background in ale brewing. In Boston they took up rum distilling under the names of Crystal Spring Rum and Pilgrim Rum. After purchasing the Bay State Brewery, it took the Feltons a year to reconfigure the facility as a rum distillery, a process that involved the installation of two dozen 10,000-gallon fermenting vats."

The Felton distillery closed in 1982. "In 1984...Frederick Gordon...purchased the property with its skeletons of disused machinery, molasses streaked walls, and malodorous scents," the Distillery North site continues. "The rough neighborhood and the curious layout of the 100,000 square foot factory, with spaces ranging from shoebox to gymnasium-sized, was a curious real estate puzzle. It was artists who naturally gravitated toward the atypical labyrinth, and word got around."

Currently, the development features both work and living spaces for more than 100 artists and creative professionals. The on-site Distillery Gallery "features rotating exhibitions that highlight the diverse talents of both resident and guest artists," per the web site for the community.

Whew! That was a lot of information. I'm always happy when companies that redevelop old buildings provide the history of the site.

Since I've made photos a lot around Southie, I wandered quite a bit to find new subject matter. I ended up on Silver Street, which runs parallel to the main thoroughfare, West Broadway, between Dorchester and D streets. You know I love back alleys and narrow streets where I can see the true backside.

The first thing to catch my eye was the old rear entrance to the Gorin's department store.

When I made this photo, I felt sure I had made a complementary image of the old tile entryway to the store a few years back. But in reviewing my archives, I realized that the entryway was for Pober's, another old department store. Then I thought perhaps Gorin's had been located in the same building, before of after Pober's. But I checked out Google Street View and realized the stores were located in different buildings along West Broadway.

Anyway, Gorin's was a local chain that started in Woburn, Mass., in 1900. Early on, there were stores in Everett, South Boston, Watertown Square, Central Square in Cambridge and Somerville's Union Square, according to this Bouseblog post. By the 1950s, the chain had grown to employ more than 3,000 people in at least 20 stores. Gorin's "purchase of the Almy, Bigelow and Washburn department store chain added locations in Salem, Danvers and Beverly. Later acquisitions and mergers expanded the company to New Bedford, Mass, Manchester, N.H., Waterbury, Conn. and Rochester, N.Y.," per the blog.

"In 1984, the Gorin family sold their company, by this time 32-stores strong and re-branded as 'Almy’s,' to an investment group. The Gorin’s business had been struggling to make a profit since 1978. By 1985, the new owners had sold most of the Almy’s chain to the Stop & Shop Companies," Bouseblog indicates.

Continuing west-northwest on Silver Street, I crossed over E Street and found a little bit of country in the middle of the city.

Located next to a new apartment building and across the street from the rear of the old Bigelow School, this cute little farmhouse-style duplex was built in 1890, per the Boston assessor. I dig the civic pride demonstrated by the SOUTH BOSTON sign.

I looped around some more side streets until I found myself in front of Boris Pest Control, at the corner of West Seventh and E streets (not where these guys got their name).

I love that whoever created the company's sign paid homage to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish mascot by using a mouse with boxing gloves. Of course, Southie was once a MAJOR Irish-American stronghold. Boris Pest Control has been in business since 1967.

As I stood in front of the pest-fighting mouse, I looked diagonally across West Seventh and saw a subtly unusual home.

This Odd House, as I dubbed it, has just under 660 square feet of living area, with one bedroom and one bathroom. Built in 1900 (perhaps; you know I'm always dubious of that date), it has seemingly been altered a bit over the last 125+ years. Maybe it was once two stories?

I made my way to D Street, then headed south-southwest into a more industrial/commercial section of the neighborhood. Then I turned south on Dorchester Ave. (aka Dot Ave. I'd walked this area outside Andrew Square a few times over the years, so once again, I sought out the nooks I had passed over previously.

On Alger Street, I found my quarry.

The ghost sign at the top says INDUSTRIAL and perhaps CO. I haven't found out what business was/is here. I just love the combination of the weathered bricks with fading paint, the heavy (leaded?) glass windows, the vent, the two doors - so many squares and rectangles.

In a large empty lot across Alger Street, running along Dorchester Ave., stands (or perhaps by this point, stood) a decomissioned Red Line subway car.

Car No. 1643 will be used by the developers of the On the Dot mixed-use project to "enhance the activity space," according to something I read somewhere online. The car was previously located in a parking lot abutting Cannonball Cafe, just up the street.

The Red Line runs underneath this area of the city, with a stop at nearby Andrew Square. The 1600 series Red Line cars came into MBTA service in the late '60s and early '70s.

Some buildings for the On the Dot project are already completed, while others in the planned 21-acre development of life-science, retail, and residential buildings will rise in the future.

To the south of the old subway car/soon-to-be social hangout stands a bit of old-school Boston: Andrew Square Liquors.

The Internet says this business opened in the late '90s. I'm guessing it took the place of a similar operation. I have a thing for packies, as they often have old signs that make for decent photos. Google Street View shows me that Andrew Square Liquors up until four years ago had a cooler sign than the current Budweiser one hanging over the awning.

I doubled back along Dorchester Avenue, cut down Damrell Street, went north-northwest on Old Colony Avenue and then headed onto E Street. After winding my way around, I ended up in front of some stunningly beautiful row houses on F Street.

These gorgeous homes date to the late 19th century.

I trekked up to Dorchester Street (not Ave.) and walked around the lovely and historic St. Augustine's Chapel grounds.

Founded in 1818, the chapel is the Boston Archdiocese's oldest Catholic church. It is open to the public only on holy days. The cemetery is the oldest Catholic burial ground in New England. There is a nice shrine that backs up to Tudor Street; it's obviously also used as a shed. Poor Mary!

I headed northeast along Dorchester Street, popping down West Fourth Street to check out a former fire house.

Completed in 1869, the station housed Ladder 5 until 1917, when the company moved next door to the much larger Engine 1 headquarters, which also served as a municipal district court. The building was converted to condos in recent years.

I headed next to East Broadway, about ready to finish my trip. At the intersection with Emerson Street, I was quite taken by the building housing M&T Oil Company / Metro Energy, which has been in business since 1929.

Upon getting back to my car, I remembered one more spot I wanted to document.

The Galley Diner is located on P Street, just off of East 1st Street. Established in 1995, the diner serves up breakfast seven days a week, and lunch Monday through Friday. Notice the sign also mentions Rumpy's, which is evidently is a brand of roast beef served at the diner.

For more on South Boston, check out the links below:

October 5, 2024, "Goin' ta Southie, Kehd"

August 27, 2020, "Circling Andrew Square"

January 25, 2020, "The Walk of Fame"

June 25, 2019, "Wool-d You Like to Join Me For a Walk?"

January 12, 2019, "Power Move in South Boston"

November 17, 2018, "Southie to Lose An Institution"

April 22, 2018, "Fort Point Channel - It's Electric!"

February 1, 2017, "Bon Voyage, Lady"

November 17, 2014, "Whitey Wuz Here"

New York City Flashback: Views While Strolling and Shopping

From Dave Brigham:

Recently this thought struck me like a runaway freight train: I visited New York City three times between 2010 and 2016 and I didn't post anything about my trips!!!

Granted, it's only in more recent years that I've become obsessed with chronicling places in Greater Boston and cities that I visit on vacation (Seattle, Chicago, Panama City). As well, I've gotten much better at editing my photos in that time. What that means is a) there aren't as many photos in this post as you might expect and b) those photos aren't always as good as I'd like them to be.

Anyway, I dug through my archives, found a bunch of useable photos, and decided to post whatever the blog equivalent of latergrams is. This is the second of four posts.

The photos in this post were taken while strolling the city with my wife and kids, and show restaurants, bars, skating rinks, the subway, Central Park and much more. Let's take a look.

I've done my best to figure out where most of these places are located. Using Google Maps, my wife's recollection and Facebook crowd-sourcing, I nailed down most of them. But not this first one.

The consenus seems to be that this is in Hell's Kitchen, the West Side neighborhood between 34th Street to the south, 59th Street to the north, Eighth Avenue to the east, and the Hudson River to the west. The blue boards covering a few windows, the fire escapes, the grime clinging to the building just all spoke to me. I wish I'd taken the time to get a better shot and mark its location. Through my detective work and that of others, my best guess is that this place was located at 301 West 46th Street (DVD Palace, the sign for which you can see in the lower left of the photo, is mentioned in this article). By all indications, this eyesore (which could have been cleaned up, for sure) has been torn down.

DVD Palace was a three-minute walk from Smith's Bar, the photogenic and well-known eatery established in 1954 at the corner of 8th Avenue and 44th Street.

We patronized this place, as we were staying not too far away, in Times Square, and were looking for a good place to hang out with my sister, who joined us on this trip; and my brother, his then-wife and their two kids, who were in town for a day or two. We all had a blast here, especially the kids, who took over the stage and were dancing to the bar's early-afternoon soundtrack. The food and beer was great, too. Smith's closed in 2014, but was reopened the next year by Skip Panettiere, a retired NYC firefighter and father of actress Hayden Panettiere ("Heroes," "Nashville"). Although there is no web site or current Facebook page for the bar, I believe it's still open.

Perhaps on our way to or from Smith's Bar, we passed the Times Square location of Carmine's, "the original NYC family style Italian restaurant," according to the chain's web site.

I don't recall why I took this photo. Perhaps to my small-town mind, Carmine's seemed like a big deal. I'm sure the food is good, but it's known as a tourist trap, I think.

On our first family vacation in the Big Apple, we went to the Times Square Toys 'R' Us and rode on the indoor Ferris wheel.

This is a terrible shot of the Scooby-Doo car on the wheel. We had a lot of fun there, as you can imagine. The store closed in 2015 (replaced by Gap and Old Navy stores, and a McDonald's franchise), but the cars and characters from the wheel found new lives in the Winter Wonderland parade at the Give Kids the World Village in Orlando, Florida.

Because my son, Owen, loves subways, naturally we rode underground through New York whenever possible. Below is a shot from some random station.

For more about the city's subways, see the first post in this series, "New York City Flashback: The Transit Museum," from January 29, 2022.

We traveled by Amtrak Acela to New York City three times: 2010, 2011 and 2016. I believe it was the first year that my daughter, Amelia, and I checked out the American Museum of Natural History, because Owen wasn't feeling well. He stayed at the hotel with my wife. Amelia and I also played at the Diana Ross Playground, which is located in Central Park. The famous singer funded construction of the playground following her 1983 concert on the park's Great Lawn.

(Funny slide.)

Central Park is great, as you may have heard from, well, just about anyone who's ever stepped foot in the city. Around 2010/2011, my kids were pretty into watching "The Penguins of Madagascar," the TV show spun off from the movie "Madagascar." So it was cool to go to the Central Park Zoo, where the show takes place, and see the Delacorte Clock, an animated version of which is featured in the show.

Sculpted by Spanish artist and designer Fernando Texidor and American architect Edward Coe Embury, the clock was installed in 1965. It was the gift of publisher and philanthropist George Delacorte, founder of Dell Publishing.

For me, the coolest feature of Central Park is Belvedere Castle.

"Designed by Central Park co-designer Calvert Vaux and architect Jacob Wrey Mould, the structure and adjacent terraces and pavilions were all called 'the Belvedere,' which means 'beautiful view' in Italian," according to the Central Park web site. "The entire complex, completed in 1872, was designed as a place from which to enjoy views of the surrounding landscape; the building originally had no windows or doors, as it was intended as an open-air lookout tower."

Naturally we hit other touristy spots on our trips, including Rockefeller Center, and its iconic skating rink.

"The Rink, or 'skating pond' as it was first known, officially opened on Christmas Day 1936. Originally planned as a temporary exhibit, The Rink was so popular it became a permanent addition, with the Prometheus Statue and the Christmas Tree providing one of the most familiar backdrops in the world," per the rink's official web site. The Prometheus statue was sculpted by Paul Manship.

While in Rockefeller Plaza, we shopped in one of the buildings that overlooked this bizarre architectural mishmash (there's an even weirder one below).

Located at 28 W 48th St. (which I figured out by plugging the phone number into Google), part of this street scene has changed significantly in the intervening years. Below the psychic shop now is a Starbucks (natch). The brownstone in the middle with the red "PSYCHIC" sign has been torn down, unfortunately, as you can see below.

In addition to funky architectural juxtaposition, New York is known for its water towers.

I don't remember where I shot this, but I think it was near our hotel on the Upper West Side in 2016. Across from our hotel, the Hotel Beacon, was The Ansonia.

The Ansonia "was originally built as a residential hotel by William Earle Dodge Stokes, the Phelps-Dodge copper heir and shareholder in the Ansonia Clock Company, and it was named after his grandfather, the industrialist Anson Greene Phelps," according to Wikipedia. "In 1897, Stokes commissioned French architect Paul Emile Duboy to design the grandest hotel in Manhattan." I wish I had a better shot of this magnificent building.

While we were staying at the Hotel Beacon, as part of the Tribeca Film Festival, the 40th anniversary screening of "Taxi Driver" was showing in the Beacon Theatre next door.

We hung around the red carpet a bit, but didn't see any celebrities.

As promised above, an even stranger amalgam of buildings.

Located at 14 E 58th St. (which my wife figured out by looking up All About Food on Google), this scene has also changed quite a bit since we were there a decade ago. All About Food is still there, and the brownstone behind it has been buffed up a bit, but the POP store (restaurant?) that looks like it was located in a gigantic Connect Four game is gone. A restaurant may be there by now.

These buildings are around the corner from the Apple store on Fifth Avenue, which we checked out. I have a great picture of Amelia eating a giant pink cupcake while wearing a pink coat, seated on the plaza in front of the store.

Last, but certainly not least, is the legendary Hotel Chelsea

Located on West 23rd Street, a few blocks from High Line, the hotel was built between 1883 and 1885, per Wikipedia. The Chelsea has long been a haven and hangout for poets, musicians, artists and other creative types. "Arthur C. Clarke wrote '2001: A Space Odyssey' while staying at the Chelsea, and poets Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso chose it as a place for philosophical and artistic exchange," Wikipedia reports. "It is also known as the place where the writer Dylan Thomas was staying in room 205 when he became ill and died several days later, in a local hospital, of pneumonia on November 9, 1953, and where Nancy Spungen, girlfriend of Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols, was found stabbed to death on October 12, 1978."

The Chelsea combines residences with a hotel. My wife and I stayed at the hotel with friends many years ago. Our rooms were fantastic, with bold colors on the walls, oversized, artsy light fixtures and plenty of room to spread out. While chilling in the lobby, surrounded by cool works of art hanging on the walls, I spied someone who, as I said to my wife and friends, "looks like she's somebody."

All these years later, I don't remember how we discovered who she was. Perhaps there was something about her hanging on the walls of the lobby. Anyway, she was Stormé DeLarverie, "whose scuffle with police was, according to Stormé and many eyewitnesses, the spark that ignited the Stonewall riots, spurring the crowd to action," per Wikipedia. "She was born in New Orleans, to an African American mother and a white father. She is remembered as a gay civil rights icon and entertainer, who performed and hosted at the Apollo Theater and Radio City Music Hall. She worked for much of her life as an MC, singer, bouncer, bodyguard, and volunteer street patrol worker, the 'guardian of lesbians in the Village.' She is known as 'the Rosa Parks of the gay community.'"

DeLarverie died in 2014 at the age of 93.

Hope you enjoyed this tour! Make sure to check back for photos from and on the High Line, as well as some shots taken from a double-decker tour bus.

Make sure to check out the first post in this series, "New York City Flashback: The Transit Museum."

T and Symphony

From Dave Brigham:

I was walking down Mass. Ave. in Boston with my son, Owen recently when I noticed a small construction site right outside the Symphony subway station. We've ridden the subway a LOT over the years, but this was the first time I'd been to this stop. I realized right away that this must be a former entrance to the station; the current head house is about 30 feet away.

Owen and I went down into the station and he used his phone to look up the history of the station. He told me, thanks to Wikipedia, that there used to be a "sub passageway" connecting the inbound and outbound sides, but that it was sealed off in the 1960's. I looked at the Wikipedia entry as well, and learned that the MBTA did moderate renovations to Symphony in the 1990's.

Searching online, I found a random guy's photos posted on Facebook and Twitter of the same construction, and he indicated that there is some sort of utility replacement going on. He said the original Symphony station entrances were covered over when two large apartment buildings, Symphony Plazas east and west, were built, I'm guessing in the 1960's.

Here's a capture from Google Maps before the construction began, showing no sign of the old station entrances:

The current utility work, or whatever it is, is taking place right behind where the person is walking in this photo.

I can't find any old photos online of the original station head houses, but I'll keep looking.

Undercity

From Dave Brigham:

Self-described urban historian and photographer Steve Duncan made a 28-minute documentary with filmmaker Andrew Wonder (real name: certainly not Andrew Wonder) in which they explore abandoned subway stations, forgotten sewer tunnels and the tops of bridges in New York City. Very cool -- made we wish I were younger or at least more adventurous, or had more time on my hands, or wasn't concerned about hurting myself or leaving my kids without a father.

Thanks to my buddy David Belson for tipping me off to this video.

Check out more of Duncan's exploration photos from around the globe here.

Can You Ever Get Enough of Train Tracks?

As any hobo knows, some of the best views of any town or city are from a train. Here are some shots of train tracks, subway systems and affiliated locales and items from a few of Backside's contributors.


Iron pin in retaining wall for abandoned B&M trestle, Waltham, MA



(Photo by Dave Brigham)


Tracks in Bristol, CT



(Photo by David Burke)


Tracks at old train station in Torrington, CT



(Photo by Michelle Loya)

Tracks over a stream, Torrington, CT



(Photo by David Burke)

Decrepit train in Essex, CT



(Photo by David Burke)

Trackside mail box at JFK/UMass stop on Boston's Red Line



(Photo by Dave Brigham)

End of Red Line, Ashmont Station, Boston, MA



(Photo by Dave Brigham)

Going Underground

By Dave Brigham:

I've lived in the Boston area for 20 years, but I've learned more about the Hub of the Universe in the last two years than in the previous 18, thanks to a series of subterranean tours with my subway-loving son. He loves everything about the trolleys -- the screeching sounds they make going around curves, the different models, the types of doors, what the wheels look like, you name it -- while I thoroughly enjoy people-watching and exploring new parts of the city.

I've taken countless photos of trains, tunnels, stations, buskers, funny graffiti, interesting buildings we see when we venture above ground for lunch, etc. But I'm equally fascinated by stuff like this litter-filled stairway that used to take folks down into Park Street station, the oldest subway destination in America, as seen through a grate.



There's so much that doesn't meet the eye when traveling on the T (as the Boston subway system is known, short for MBTA). As you motor along between stations on the Green Line, you spy doors in the tunnel walls -- leading into the basements of certain buildings, so I've heard. There are doors in the stations that only T employees can access, and while most likely the only things back there are bathrooms, I want to see. I want to take a tour of the abandoned tunnels all around the city to learn how the different parts of Boston used to connect underground.

I can't do that, though, but others have. Check out Abandoned Subway Tunnels for some cool black-and-white pix, and this story and video from the Boston Globe.

Here's another photo shot through a grate, this one of a vent shaft near the Government Center T stop.



As much as I've come to enjoy my subway jaunts, I'm always well aware of how old and fragile so much of the system is. Many stations have been upgraded in recent years, and plenty are in the process of being renovated. Below is a shot of a concrete wall, at State Street station on the Blue Line, that has been scraped away, exposing rebar underneath.



I look forward to many more years of exploring Boston and discovering the nooks and crannies that make the subway system special.