Autographed copies of Scollay Square (Arcadia Publishing, 2004) and Always Something Doing: Boston's Infamous Scollay Square (Northeastern University Press, 1999) can be purchased on our home page.

In its day one of the finest hotels in Boston, the hotel, adjacent to Boston's North Station, was opened in August 1930 and was named the Manger, for Julius Manger, head of the New York hotel- development company that built it for $2.5 million. The name was changed to the Madison in 1958.  Through its early life the hotel hosted NBA and NHL teams scheduled to play at the old Boston Garden, as well as performers such as the Beatles, who stayed here in 1964.  In its later years, many of its more than 400 rooms housed homeless and low-income people.  The Madison closed its doors in 1976 and was destroyed by implosion on Sunday, May 1, 1986 to make way for construction of the "Tip" O'Neil Federal Building, which now occupies the site.  (The old Garden was torn down in the late 1990s after the construction of the Fleet Center.)  The following sequence of photographs was taken by Bob Spicer, who was living at Charles River Park at the time.

For those of you with patience or a Cable or DSL connection, click here for an animated sequence of the implosion.