History

Photo © Sam Sweezy

Courtesy Chris Brazee

The current site of Boston’s City Hall Plaza is a cultural landscape that has undergone dramatic transitions. Over the course of the 18th century, the area became the location of the elegant Pemberton Square and an enclave of townhouses for wealthy Boston merchants. During the 19th century, however, waves of immigrants led to overcrowding in the central business district. The elite abandoned the area, which had come to be known as the West End and Scollay Square, and businesses adapted to meet the immigrants’ needs. By the 1880s, the area was a center of commercial activity in Boston, but was plagued with insufficient infrastructure, blight, and overall disinvestment.

Over the course of the early 20th century, with the construction and expansion of the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority subway system and the advent of the automobile, a number of structures in the district were demolished to make room for public transportation, wider streets, and parking lots.

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