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Boston, 1902. "Ames Building and Washington Street." Completed in 1893, this 13-story office building (now a hotel) was Boston's first skyscraper. 8x10 inch gelatin silver glass transparency, Detroit Photographic Company. View full size.
The building with the eagle on the roof at the right margin of the photograph is the Old State House, where the Declaration of Independence was read from a second story balcony a few days after July 4, 1776, and in front of which the Boston Massacre occurred about 6 years earlier. It's still there, the figurative center of Boston's Financial District. The other buildings across the street from the Ames Building in the photograph are long gone, replaced by tall, rectangular boxes of offices (which are currently almost completely empty). The street running from front to rear of the photograph is now a pedestrian walkway, leading to City Hall. And the Ames Building was recently sold to Suffolk University, which is converting the building to a dormitory, which will also likely be vacant for ... who knows how much longer.
In the distance, you can see Adams Square subway station. Adams Square, along with the more famous Scollay Square, fell to urban renewal circa 1960. They don't make subway stations like that anymore.
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