Climate Change: Is Massachusetts getting warmer and wetter?

June 24, 2012.Reading time 15 minutes.

Is Massachusetts getting warmer? Wetter? There has been a lot of talk about global warming, climate change, its causes and its implications for our future. But, how has climate change affected Massachusetts? To really identify climate change, one needs a consistent set of data, taken reliably, continuously, and consistently at the same location over a […]

Cornhill – Once Boston’s Literary Center, Today Replaced by Government Center

June 4, 2012.Reading time 9 minutes.

It wasn’t Cornhill Street, Cornhill Road, Cornhill Avenue, or even the Cornhill; instead, it was just Cornhill, and in its day, knowing this was just one more way that those in the know had to distinguish locals from those visiting Boston as tourists. In its history, Boston has had two roads called Cornhill. The first, […]

What was before – What once occupied the site of today’s Pru?

March 31, 2012.Reading time 7 minutes.

Seen from any approach to Boston, the Prudential Tower has figured prominently into Boston’s skyline since its construction in the early 1960’s. And, with 52 floors, the Pru stands as Boston’s second-tallest building, just behind the John Hancock Tower‘s sixty. The Tower, completed in 1964, rises 749 feet, or, with its radio mast (pictured atop […]

The Immigrant Experience in 1892: New York’s Cholera Scare and its Effect on Boston

March 3, 2012.Reading time 10 minutes.

The emigrant ship Moravia crept into its dock in New York late on the night of August 30, 1892. The ship was sent straight to quarantine. On its ten-day voyage from Hamburg, Germany, 22 of its 358 passengers had been buried at sea, victims of Asiatic Cholera. Two more passengers convalesced in the ship’s hospital, […]

If you were to walk . . . Boston’s North Union Station, 1895

January 31, 2012.Reading time 11 minutes.

Any discussion on “Lost Boston” has to include Boston’s North Union Station, which once stood on Causeway Street, on the current site of the TD Garden (better known locally as “the Boston Garden” and by some as the “Fleet Center”). North Union Station, which consolidated the operations of four different railroads into one building, was […]

The Ebbing Excitement Surrounding the Opening of Boston’s Tremont Street Subway, 1897

January 28, 2012.Reading time 7 minutes.

Have you visited Boston? Do you have ancestors who lived or visited here? Since you’re reading a blog called Forgotten New England, chances are good that you, or someone on a branch of your family tree, has ridden Boston’s subway. Boston’s subway, or ‘the T’ as its locally known, makes a very walkable city even […]

Worries of the Past: Smallpox and Boston’s Epidemic of 1872

January 13, 2012.Reading time 7 minutes.

First, flu-like symptoms emerge -fever, aches, pains, nausea. Exhaustion soon follows. It’s not until a few days later when the telltale, flat, red spots appear about the face, hands, and arms. The spots evolve into pus-filled blisters that scab first and then fall off, to reveal deep, pitted scars. Smallpox was one of history’s most […]