an attempt to uncover the truth about September 11th 2001

M.I.T., Rotch Visual Collections

1.1 REGIONAL HISTORY

The first English settlers of the Shawmut peninsula inhabited a landscape whose dominant element was Trimountain (see figure 1.1). The three steep hills formed an east-west axis which cut the town nearly in two. To the north of Trimountain lay two mini-peninsulas, the North and West Ends. To the south, the Boston neck connected early Boston with the mainland. Land fell away quickly to Boston Harbor from the crest of Trimountain's easternmost hill. At the edge of the Harbor lay the future Sixty State site.

Seventeenth century settlement concentrated around three transportation elements: Cornhill Street (now called Washington Street), a north-south artery skirting the east side of Trimountain; King Street (now State Street), the market-place and road to the Harbor; and Town Cove, Boston's first harbor (see figure 1. 1). The Towne House, erected in 1657, marked the intersection of Cornhill and King (the Old State House was built on that site in 1711). Between the Town-House and Town Cove lay the Sixty State site, populated by merchants and warehousing.

Growth was rapid in early Boston; the first decade of the eighteenth century witnessed the construction of Long Wharf (see figure 1.2). This private development became the keystone of Boston shipping. From the Towne House "...eastward, King Street ran straight and wide onto the Long Wharf, where lay the ships that were the source of the town's prosperity. This broad half-mile was the obvious avenue to Boston from the part of the world that really mattered. "[1]

Shipping was relocated to Long Wharf and Town Dock fell into disuse. This prompted Peter Faneuil, a resident of Merchants' Row, to bequeath at his death a fund for the city's first renewal project. In 1742 Faneuil Hall was erected over the filled Town Cove (see figure 1.2), containing a market house with a meeting hall above. Through the Revolutionary period, the Sixty State site contained warehousing facing Faneuil Hall and retailing fronting on King Street. The blocks were tightly filled with two- and three-story structures lining streets and minor passages, including Corn Court and Change Ave.

The nineteenth century amplified the trends of the eighteenth while bringing new monuments and building types to the Sixty State area. The completion of Bulfinch's State House (1798) removed government from State Street. Commerce increased and more wharves were extended farther into the harbor. Mayor Josiah Quincy proposed a second major renewal project to accommodate Boston's growth. In 1825 he sponsored the construction of Quincy Markets (see figure 1.2), a private development of personal profit to him, as well as benefit to its owner, the City. Competition between merchants and bankers for space along State Street intensified in the latter nineteenth century. A few bankers, needing additional space, began a southward migration toward today's financial district (see figure 1.2), leaving their lawyers behind.

Building activity on State Street continued through the turn of the century, placing by 1910 a series of six to thirteen-story buildings at the future site of Sixty State. The buildings housed a variety of activities, including banking, retailing, dining and warehousing. Just uphill, Scollay Square declined throughout the early 20th century. Century-old hotels were turned to less moral but more profitable uses, serving a growing clientele. Scollay Square was enormously popular with the many U.S. sailors stationed in Boston during World War II.

Boston merchants and bankers looked anxiously westward toward the Back Bay in the 1950's (see figure 1.2). Would the 1930's movement of insurance giants, Hancock and New England Mutual Life, followed in the late 1950's by Prudential's mammoth redevelopment of the Boston and Albany railroad yards, signal a mass migration to the Back Bay and end the dominance of the old downtown?

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*Numbers in brackets refer to footnotes compiled in Appendix A.

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