BOSTON FROM THE GREAT DEPRESSION TO WWII

Great Depression, Lowell, Cocoanut Grove, Battle of the North Atlantic, Murmansk

“The Depression ended a world for the American Irish and broke the rationale they lived in…shattered vision of the American Dream”

Scollay Square was the closest thing to a four-letter word you could have.”
-- Bob Bachelder, last bandleader at the Totem Pole Ballroom

Scollay Square: A fearsome maze of streets, dead ends, rookeries, and rabbit warrens.
A few employment offices – now fallen on hard times – garish penny arcades, burlesque theatres, cheap hotels, tattooing parlors, gaudy movie houses.
Street signs that apparently conflict and give the direct lie to each other.
For the first fifty years it was a cow pasture. Before 1684 a school house was erected against Capt. Samuel Sewall’s house. In 1790 this schoolhouse was abandoned and William Scollay bought the building. He also bought a row of buildings next to the school which became known as the Scollay Buildings. In 1838 the area was officially called Scollay Square.
The Revere House was on Bowdoin Square, at one time distant from though adjacent to Scollay, but today no man can say where Scollay leaves off and Bowdoin begins.
Facing Scollay from the upper side for half a century was Austin and Boone’s Museum. It combined variety shows with an ever changing congress of freaks. Over the entrance to this place was a small coop wherein sat three musicians who for 38 years drank one beer or whiskey on the hour and half hour and played the same tune over and over.
Book stalls and tattoo parlors.” BSN

Boston: The Way it Was WGBH: “After one vaudeville show at the Old Howard, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes remarked “Thank God I am a man of low taste.” The theater was even nicknamed Old Harvard because of the number of Harvard undergrads who armed its seats. Headline stripper Ann Corio remembers one student in particular: JFK was in love with a stripper named Peaches Strange. He was a regular at the Old Howard.” Members of the Watch and Ward society called the Old Howard the Shame of Boston and in 1933 succeeded in having Mayor Curley close it for 30 days. The mayor reopened the Howard with the agreement that the city censor would make an occasional unattended visit, “The ticket taker at the front door would hit a buzzer and everyone would know that the censor was coming,” said Mike Ionucci, Corio’s husband. “Then the strip would become Rebecca of Sunnybrook.”
“The doorman was hired especially because he knew all the censors so when one came through the front door, he’d hit a button, a red light would start flashing in the footlights, and people backstage would start yelling, Sunday school, Sunday school!”
During the war when tattoo parlors, shooting galleries, hucksters and bookies lined the streets Scollay Square was still considered a safe neighborhood – definitely a bit on the wild side but free from crime.
But after the war with no more sailors socking in Boston’s Barbary Coast and little support from city leaders, Scollay square went into serious decline.
“There was a hustle and bustle to the square. People would go up the street to Joe and Memo’s where for ten cents you could get a hot dog and a glass of soda.”

“There were so many nightclubs, it was so great, For three dollars you had dinner. We used to call it a floor show.” That’s how Ray Barron, manager of the Hi Hat in the South End, Mass Ave characterizes the club scene….Musicians like Count Basie, Sabby Lewis jamming at Wally’s or the Wigwam after finishing their jigs downtown.
In town trolleys would run up and down Columbus Avenue filled with well-dressed, well mannered patrons of the clubs. From the South End to Scollay Square, people would travel in groups or as couples enjoying the safe nightlife of the era.
Clubs like the Cocoanut Grove or the Latin Quarter set the stage for a birthday or anniversary celebration. A lot of the parties were held at the Cocoanut Grove for the boys going overseas…Fire on November 28, 1942.”

BSN Scollay Square…The huge tea kettle in front of the Oriental Tea Company has been steaming away for nearly 100 years. In 1875 the company offered a great guessing contest offering a huge chest of tea to the one who could come nearest to guessing how much the big kettle could held. On the great day a platform was built around the kettle and the guests assembled, The lid was removed and a small boy emerged, then another and another until 8 boys and a 6 ft tall man wearing a tall silk hat had all come out of the kettle. The sealer of weights and measures then began to pour measured quantities of water into the kettle. 227 gallons, 2 quarts, 1 pt and 3 gills. Over 1200 took part and the prize was divided between 8 persons who had been within 3 gills.

BSN: Crossing Cornhill, Franklin Avenue descends a flight of steps to Brattle Street, which it crosses and from then on to Elm. It names itself Brattle Square but it’s still a street and not a square at all. At the corner of Brattle it passes a saloon whose window has displayed for as many years as I have been in Boston, a fly-specked card reading:

The horse and the mule live thirty years
And nothing know of wines and beers
The goat and sheep at twenty die
And never taste of Scotch and Rye
The cow drinks water by the ton
And at eighteen is mostly done
The dog at fifteen cashes in
Without the aid of rum or gin
The cat in milk and water soaks
And then in twelve short years it croaks
The modest, sober, bone dry hen
Lays eggs for nogs, then dies at ten
All animals are strictly dry
They sinless live, and swiftly die
But sinful, ginful, rum-soaked men
Survive for three score years and ten.
And some there are – though very few
Stay pickled till they’re ninety-two.

1928 Massachusetts votes for Alfred Smith, a Roman Catholic, for president first Democratic majority in the state's presidential election
1929 Massachusetts establishes its own unemployment program till national government steps in with Depression relief
1930 John Cheever publishes his first story, "Expelled," about his expulsion from Thayer Academy; Rockefeller Foundation endows Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts

1930 Boston 300-year celebration

1930…The Custom House Tower was the tallest building in Boston, Clubs stayed open till 3.00 A.M. Tattoo parlors, burlesque shows, a mayor serving jail time while still in office, ballplayers who ate Tootsie Rolls thrown to them by fans, Count Basie jamming at the Hi-Hat!

Depression – $5 a day snow shovellers
patronage undermined by New Deal, GI Bill etc.
political dinosaurs

Father Coughlin
Curley boasted that Boston was the “strongest Coughlin city in the world”
1935 Governor Curley
FDR…Curley…Ambassador to Poland!

1930s Curley “rode in his limo like a Latin dictator”

1932 Bennington College founded in Vermont; meteorological station begins operation atop Mt. Washington, N.H.

1932 Police drive 25 hungry children away from a buffet for Spanish war veterans during a Boston parade

1932 Menace of Old and Rotting hulks in East Boston wharves etc. Over 100 removed, hauled out and broken up as firewood for poor.

1933 First ski tow in U.S. operates in Woodstock, Vt.

1935 Moose hunting banned in Maine

1935 “Old Marliave to be torn down….they will remember the large and propriety Madame Marliave sitting at the cash box while Monsieur Marliave walked from table to table drinking white wine with his guests, The little red brick house built 125 years ago was hospitable and visited by Bohemians. John Boyle O’Reilly went there ,,,and the gay dogs from Harvard and the business district….”

1936 First Berkshire Music Festival at Tangle wood, in Lenox, Mass; Maine and Vermont are the only 2 states to prefer Landon to Roosevelt

1937 Maurice Tobin, mayor, “an honest, clean and competent young man”

1938 220,000 passengers a year
1939 U.S. forbade her ships to enter conflict zone

BIBL: 1939 Perry Miller, The New England Mind. The Seventeenth Century 2nd volume, The New England Mind. From Colony to Province, published 1953

1942 Fire in Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston kills 487

WW2 = Boom and Bust
Bethlehem shipyards in East Boston, Fore River and Quincy
Destroyers built in the shadow of the Constitution
South Boston Army Base

1945 Mass legislation revoked edict of banishment against Hutchinson

1945 BSN Cities of America – Geo Sessions Perry:
Boston, people rich, government poor/reputation for bigotry and intellectual eminence/Yankee minority and a “poor downtrodden majority.”

1945 Mayor James Michael Curley, one of the last big city political
bosses, reelected in Boston while under indictment for mail fraud
1947 Curley in his mid-70s to jail for 6 to 18 months x Danbury/ Death of his beloved first wife and tragic loss of seven of his nine children (comp Cotton Mather)
“The Great Man”

1946 Friday June 14 First Girls at Harvard Medical School Have averaged just same as men students.

1946 John Fitzgerald Kennedy ran for seat from famous 11th District
“women comprise the majority of votes won”
Mother Rose + Sisters Eunice and Pat
“Young Jack, the grandson of two Boston ward bosses”
1946 JFK elected to Congress
Rhode Island passes law requiring employers to pay women equal wages with men
Red Sox lose World Series in 7 games to St. Louis
1947 Composer Charles Ives, resident of Connecticut, receives Pulitzer Prize for his Third Symphony
1948 First chess playing computer built at MIT; Brandeis University founded in Waltham, Mass.

Globe “A hopeless backwater – a tumbledown has been among cities”
West End x “ mysterious European streets”
Old tenement houses in the New York Streets area of the South End
“We were all kind of ashamed” -- Collins

BSN: Boston Traveler, October 1950
Skid Row is two mile area bounded by Northampton, Broadway, Tremont and Harrison. Social workers estimate that 90 per cent of inhabitants are alcoholics. Contains 7 per cent of the city population. Wine is favorite drink. Haunt of the lushdiver, jackroller and mugger.. .young punks who roll the drunks. Dover St is the main stem of Skid Row. 83 saloons in Skid Row – one for every 50 denizens.

BSN: South End : “The region is a jungle of abortion mills, out of bounds apothecaries, and fake doctors, all operating together. The drug stores sell morphine, cocaine, ergot and catharides.” -- The Cardinal.

1949 Nov: End of an era – 53-year-old Hynes won.
“I have accomplished more in one day than in five months” – Hynes
“That little city clerk” – Curley
“A new Boston”
1954 Prudential x 28 acres of abandoned railway yards along lower Boylston Street

Hynes “building bridges”
Archbishop Richard Cushing -- Break down ethnic and religious barriers

1950: BS B81 – Plaque sponsored by a group of 50 Protestant businessmen to celebrate Bishop Cheverus dedicated June 9, 1950 by Archbishop Richard Cushing who termed the event a “proud and important occasion” for Boston. Plaque installed at the entrance to the Catholic Oratory of St Thomas More at 40 Franklin Street…Among sponsors x Charles Francis Adams, Henry Cabot, Ralph Lowell etc

BSN Queen of England was a guest of the city at the Boston Jubilee (1950). At the bean supper served on the Common there were 8000 lbs of beans, 5000 lbs of ham, 250 pounds of cheese etc. 12,000 people served by 1000 waitresses, on Sat May 20, 1950

BSN Filene’s basement …Here some of the silver captured from the Nazi’s was sold…I am told that Filene originally came from Alsace-Lorraine. The family name was Katz. On coming to America they changed name to Feline, and later, to Filene.”

BSN “Opposite the Old South…(X) is Pi Alley. Misspelled Pie Alley on the sign…old Bell in Hand located in the alley…On the corner is Thompson Spa, an old landmark with its cherry counters, its pretty waitresses, and its stools so close together that every third forkful feeds your neighbor.

BSN: Cathedral of the Holy Cross 1400 Washington St has a seating capacity of 2900 larger than St Patrick’s in NY. Early English Gothic. The arch in the front vestibule is from the Ursuline Convent in Somerville which was destroyed by a mob in 1834.

Dorchester Heights: Irish discovered that English beaten on St. Patrick’s Day.
Evacuation Day Medal – for Essay

1950s Route 128, Boston's circumferential expressway, built
1954 First atomic powered sub, the Nautilus, launched at Groton, Ct
Connecticut elects a Jewish governor, Abraham Ribicoff

1956, May BSN Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company election
Marquees were erected on the Beacon Street side of the Common. After wait of 2 and a half hours the colorful parade could be seen winding down Beacon Street. As we watched the men in their ancient colonial uniforms and their still more ancient halberds we felt ourselves back in the 17th century.
The effect of antiquity was somewhat injured by Boston’s fore dept cutting right through the line of march sirens screaming.
Gov Herter checks in to the strains of Hail to the Chief.
The languorous afternoon drags on. The soldiers stand relaxed, but definitely not at ease, in the hot sun. Thunder clouds gather, the guests in the cool shade of the marquees swell visibly from drinking bottle after bottle of ginger ale.
At long last the parade.
19 gun salute. Real heavy artillery that shakes the dome of the State House.
The soldiers in ancient uniforms are preceded by a 17th century mace.
A drum is solemnly place din the foreground. The sgts collect the ballots and place them on the drum. The adjutant counts the ballots and reports the result to the Gov.
The Capt reports to the gov and turns over his mace. The newly elected Capt advances and receives the mace from the Gov. Three gun salute. The first lt. does the same. Two gun salute. The second lt. is installed. 1 gun salute.

1957 Boston Redevelopment Authority, in charge of urban renewal, formed

From Boston Post, Feb 8, 1949, by Walter Fogg

“Harry, old pal,
Sitting here out of circulation
Like a plugged nickel,
I get to reminiscing with myself
As the shadows slowly close about me
And what recollections arise!
Do you remember:
Those 3 a.m. feeds at Madam Atkinsons
Where the boys on the row sat down
To a steak, baked potato,
Side of vegetables, bread and butter –
Plenty of it –

Coffee in a man sized cup,
And a slab of pie –
All, for a two bit piece?
And that Pi Alley eatery
Where the counterman slid your beans and coffee
Eight feet along the boards to you
Without spilling a bean or a drop?
Six cents for that filling combination
If I am not wrong.
Do you remember the Pi Alley bar-
A snug sociable spot
With rousing ale mugs,
And jovial Joe Callahan
Peace to his oul
Setting out bottles with a jest?

Do you remember the Senate,
The Boston Tavern, Hollands,
Youngs and Chadbourne’s
And down Summer Street way – the old Arch Inn
Another hot spot for the press boys?
A tidy fortune in Hearst pay roll coin
Went over that bar, my lad.
Do you remember the Quincy House,
And behind it, the roistering Printer’s Club,
With its tap dancing and caterwauling typos.
Accommodating Jack, the stocky custodian?

How many times did we get out
From there at 9 a.m., closing hour,
And head for bed, blinking like owls
In the full morning sun,
But well satisfied with ourselves
And the world in general.
Do you remember the United States Hotel?
And its famous dinner menus?
Do you remember Jerry Green’s café
Down on Cambridge Street
And the biggest ham sandwich in America –
For one thin dime?
Do you remember Austin and Stones,
And the colorful barking of Old Hutch?
A cozy place to stall for an hour
On a stormy afternoon,
When out on a disagreeable assignment.

And the Nickleodeon?
And the 10, 20, 30 burlesque
At Waldron’s Casino, and the South End Columbia?
And. Of course, the Old Howard,
In its palmist, bawdiest days?
Enough said, Harry!
Do you remember Clark’s,
And the Adams House, with its thrilling hubbub
In bar and office
On the eve of the Harvard-Dartmouth pigskin games,
And its downstairs pool tables,
Where many a rustic sucker
Was a victim of the sharks
Who lay in wait there?

The Woodcock, out Dover Street way,
With its 35 cent thick, juicy steaks?
Do you remember Meusset’s?
The Journal crew closed it
Just before it was torn down
For the Washington Street tunnel.
Then there was Killian’s
On Atlantic Avenue, opposite the South Station
Where Joe Fay and the other bar leeps
Had no cash register, but made change
From a mass of silver laid out on the back bar.

Do you remember
The horsecabs?
I can hear the plock, plock, plock.
Of their well-fed reliable nags even yet
So you remember the hurdy gurdies,
And the black-eyed roguish damsels
Who came into the bars dangling their tambourines
Sure signs of spring and Bock beer time
Those glad, glorious days!
Those untaxed, uncensored days!
When a newspaperman’s existence was not a chore, a grind,
But sport, adventure, romance,
With new thrills ever round the corner,
Those unselfish 50-50 days,
God bless ‘Em!”