10/03/2019
Repost from Legacy Club of Boston
“The first photograph features the North Station on Causeway Street in Boston around 1893-1899. The second is of the scene in 2015. Third is with the new grand entrance of the TD Garden that was built this year, and forth is the projected look of the soon to be completed Hub on Causeway.
Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote about Boston as being “The Hub of the Solar System,” and although he was using the phrase sarcastically, the city would soon become the transportation hub of New England. By the late 1800s, there were at least eight railroads that radiated outward from Boston, with each one having its own separate terminal. However, these eight different stations were both inconvenient for passengers and also a poor use of valuable land.
Here in the northern part of the city, four different railroads each had their own stations within a several block radius: the Boston and Maine, Boston and Lowell, Eastern Railroad, and the Fitchburg Railroad. In 1893 the North Union Station opened, consolidating all four railroads into one building. It was designed by Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, a prominent Boston architectural firm that would design South Station six years later, when the four south side terminals were likewise consolidated.
The original North Station was demolished in 1927 to build the Boston Garden, although none of the four railroads that opened the first station exist anymore. The now TD Garden has since undergone many legendary transformations and is currently being transformed with the magnificent addition of the Hub on Causeway.
We at the Club feel fortunate to be able look outside our window and both witness and be a part of Boston’s rich history everyday.
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