A Brief History of Scollay Square

In what is today Government Center, near the traffic island at the intersection of Cambridge and Court Streets, the four-story building shown above stood during the latter part of the 18th century.  In 1795 it was bought and named for its owner - William Scollay.  Citizens, horse car and stagecoach drivers alike began to call the spot Scollay's Square, and by 1838 the city made the name that everyone was using anyway, official – and Scollay Square was born.  (Courtesy of the Bostonian Society / Old State House)
 

It was from the beginning of Boston’s history home to the elite and ruling class.  John Winthrop (the founder of Boston and first Governor of Massachusetts) lived nearby, as did many other city and state officials.  During the siege of Boston in 1775/76 the Brattle Square Church housed British troops.  Today, this site would be the base of City Hall at City Hall Plaza.   (Courtesy of the Bostonian Society / Old State House)

Near the base of Cotton Hill (one of the original three Trimountains - Mt. Vernon, Beacon, and Cotton - that were collectively known as Beacon Hill) was the home of Gardner Greene, whose backyard was landscaped into a beautiful terraced garden that was, for many years, a favorite attraction among 18th century Bostonians.  (From "One Hundred Years of the Suffolk Savings Bank," pub. 1933)
 

Mr. Greene's home was torn down in 1832 and his backyard (Cotton Hill) was torn down, its dirt used to fill in a part of the Charles River.  The now flattened Cotton Hill was christened Pemberton Square, and a neighborhood of bow-front homes were built there.  The house itself was replaced by Tremont Row, a collection of shops and boutiques.  In the 1840s it was home, in a room on an upper floor, to J J. Hawes, one of Boston's first photographers (or daguerreotypists, as they were then known) set up shop.  Just below Mr. Hawe’s studio, Dr. William Thomas Morton, who is credited by some as the discoverer of ether as an anesthetic, opened the first dentist office to offer “painless” dentistry.   (Courtesy of the Bostonian Society / Old State House)
 

Also located on Tremont Row was the Papanti Dance Academy, where America first learned to dance the Waltz and where Charles Dickens read from his novel, The Pickwick papers during a visit to Boston.  At this time, the character of Scollay Square was clearly geared for the rich and well-off. (Courtesy of the Bostonian Society / Old State House)
 

Just behind Tremont Row was Cotton Hill, named for John Cotton who settled there in the early 1600s.  In 1832, Patrick Tracy Jackson cut off the top 70 feet of Cotton Hill which he used to fill in an area north of Causeway Street to build a train station.  Where Cotton Hill once stood, Jackson built a neighborhood of bow-front homes which he called Pemberton Square, which for many years was THE address for Boston’s elite and well-to-do.   (Courtesy of the Bostonian Society / Old State House)
 

The American House, on Hanover St., was one of the largest hotels in New England, and widely regarded as one of the best during the mid-1800s.  Rebuilt in 1851, it featured a grand dining room capable of seating more than three hundred people.  It was written of the ballroom that "when lighted at night it is one of the most brilliant halls in Boston, having at either end mammoth mirrors reaching from the floor to the ceiling."  The hotel was actually built on the site of four older hotels, Earle's, the Merchant's, the Hanover, and the old American House.
 

On September 17, 1880, a statue of the first governor of Massachusetts, John Winthrop, was dedicated in Scollay Square.  Sculpted by Richard Greenough, it was a duplicate of the statue that had been placed in the U.S. Capital.  That the city chose Scollay Square as the site for such an important piece of public art speaks volumes about its stature of Square in Boston at the time.
 

When the Irish came to Boston in the 1840s they settled first in the Fort Hill and North End neighborhoods, then into the West End.  The Irish – and other ethnic peoples that followed in the mid- to late-1800s, changed the character of Boston. (Courtesy of the Bostonian Society / Old State House)
 

As the elite abandoned the West End and Scollay Square and moved further up Beacon Hill and into the Back Bay (which was under construction beginning in the 1850s), Tremont Row and the surrounding businesses in Scollay Square adopted to meet the needs of the immigrant class.  The Square became, by the 1880s, the center of commercial activity in Boston.
 

This map of Boston from 1902 (note Tremont Row marked out on the left side of Court Street) was provided by WardMaps.com (who specialize in the digital restoration and archival printing of ward maps of American cities. (Visit www.wardmaps.com for original and restored prints of urban maps)  Note the subway lines that ran under Cornhill to Adams Square, and Hanover Street (to Haymarket Square, not shown.)
 
 

Among the commerical actvity that thrived here were restaurants, bars, and theaters.  With its success of The Old Howard (click here for a page devoted to that theater's history) came other venues, such as Austin and Stone’s Dime Museum, which opened on Tremont Row in 1881 and was a mainstay in Scollay Square until it was torn down in 1912 to make way for the Star Theater.  Click on the thumbs above to see full-size views from a promotional handout for the theater.
 

Scollay’s Olympia was a popular theater where performers such as Milton Berle performed.  Weber and Fields, Fanny Brice, Fred Allen, the Marx Brothers, George Burns, and many others were mainstays of live stage shows at this and other theaters, but by the 1910s even the most traditional theater owner had to bow to the new technology and install motion picture equipment. (Courtesy of the Bostonian Society / Old State House)
 

On a rainy day in 1933, someone took a photograph from in front of the Sears Crescent Building looking up Tremont Street.  The imposing granite building across from Epsteins Drug Store is the Suffolk County Savings Bank, which was celebrating its 100th anniversary that year. (1933, for those who remember, was not the best timing for a bank to be celebrating anything...) (From "One Hundred Years of the Suffolk Savings Bank," pub. 1933)
 

Looking up Cambridge Street into Scollay Square soon after the war (note the sailor in the lower right-hand corner near Simpson’s Loan).  Those wonderful subway kiosks are long gone, but the Square is still a transportation hub.  It’s also a highly popular destination, as evidenced by the all the double-parking in front of places such as the Crawford House, Jack’s Lighthouse, and under the PM Scotch sign, the Half Dollar Bar.  The Crawford House was, most notably, the "home" of Sally Keith, whose remarkable act is chronicled her own page on this site.  (Courtesy of Robert Stanley)
 
 

Scollay Square on what must have been a Sunday morning, given the lack of traffic and pedestrians.  Or it simply was showing the effects of a depressed Boston economy that, during the late 1940s and 1950s, prompted city officials to consider drastic measures to revitalize the downtown.  The Crescent Grill, to the far right of the above photograph, was located at the corner of Cambridge Street and Howard Street.   (Courtesy of the Bostonian Society / Old State House)
 

Opened in 1909 by two West End barbers, Joe and Nemo’s hot dog stand quickly grew into one of Boston’s most popular restaurants.  It’s proximity to the Old Howard (located just down Stoddard Street to the right of the store) certainly helped, but the store also generated tremendous loyalty by providing good, inexpensive food.  (Courtesy of the Trustees of the Boston Public Library)
 

As plans for Scollay Square’s replacement were being formed, a group of theaterically motivated citizens, along with Ann Corio and other former Burlesque stars tried to raise money to save the Old Howard from the destruction.  But on June 21, 1961, a “mysterious” fire of “unknown” origin (the quotation marks are deliberate – the fire department’s report could find no cause for the blaze) swept through the 115 year-old theater and before the last embers had died out, several cranes moved in and tore down its walls, rendering rennovation impossible.  (Author's collection)
 

Looking straight up the new alignment of the subway in Government Center.  The JFK Federal building rises along what used to be Hanover Street.  The elevated Central Artery (which cut off Hanover and other streets from the North End and Waterfront) can be seen in the background.  Foundation work for Boston’s new City Hall is about to begin.  (Courtesy of Dick Keough)
 

No more tassels.  No more hot dogs.  No more fun.  Government Center replaced Scollay Square in the early 1960s when Boston, desperate to prevent a slide into urban obscurity, secured over $40 million in federal funds to tear down this fading hot spot and replace it with a collection of city, state, federal, and private office buildings.  (Author's collection)
 

Well, almost no fun.  On February 5, 2002 over a million people jammed Boston's streets to watch a parade for the Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots.  The parade ended up here at Government Center at Scollay Square.  Ty Law is no Sally Keith, but everyone in attendance appreciated his moves.  If nothing else, the event shows the immense need for a true civic space, and the inadequacy of City Hall Plaza - in its current configuration - to accommodate those needs.