August 20, 2025 • 39 mins
Bradley Jay Fills in on NightSide
The city of Boston is considered one of the country’s oldest cities and it’s filled with a lot of history. Boston played a pivotal role in the American Revolution. Suffolk University Professor Bob Allison, an expert on Boston history specializing in Revolutionary Boston, joined us to share some secrets of Boston historical sites, including the iconic ship, USS Constitution.
The city of Boston is considered one of the country’s oldest cities and it’s filled with a lot of history. Boston played a pivotal role in the American Revolution. Suffolk University Professor Bob Allison, an expert on Boston history specializing in Revolutionary Boston, joined us to share some secrets of Boston historical sites, including the iconic ship, USS Constitution.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on w b Z,
Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
We're talking Boston history with our guests Bob Allison, Suffolk
University history professor. I'm Bradley Jay. We're gonna go hopping
right to the Granny Granary burying ground because there are
a couple of myths that are related to that. Actually
a myth and a story. There's a lot about this.
I don't know. First, what's the myth, Bob, related to
(00:28):
the granary burying ground?
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Where is it? For people who don't know?
Speaker 4 (00:32):
Next to the Park Street Church. So if you're walking,
it's on Tremont Street. And it is, I believe, the
third burying ground in town. And it was again burying
ground as opposed to cemetery, as one of an earlier
callers said, cemetery comes from the Greek word that develops
in the eighteen thirties Puritan's new cemetery. You're these people
(00:52):
are sleeping. No, the Puritans knew they were dead. So
the granary there had been a grain warehouse there where
Park Street Church is now. Now that's why it is
called the granary. And the myth is there's a woman
there buried there named Elizabeth the vere Goose, and the
legend is And by the way, if you stand on
Tremont Street, you will probably hear trolleys telling you that
(01:13):
Mother Goose is buried there, that Elizabeth Vergose tours, now
the duck tours. The Duck tours, get it right. There
are other trolleys who don't want to mention who they
might be. If you stand out on Tremont Street, I
hear this several times a day, that you will also
see Mother Goose, but you won't see Mother Goose. Elizabeth
of vere Goose was a lovely woman who had a
(01:34):
lot of grandchildren.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
How can you know? How can you know how lovely
she was?
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Because well, I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt. Okay, Yeah,
so she was not Mother Goose. She did have grandchildren,
she might or might not have told stories to them.
But Mother Goose goes back to Denmark in the thirteen
hundreds the Mother Goose stories. Her son in law, guy
named Thomas Fleet, was a printer and at one point
(01:59):
he prints did a collection of stories and he said
his mother in law was Mother Goose. Now this gets deeper,
because no one has ever actually seen this book. There
was a copy at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester
in the nineteenth century. No one has seen it since.
So the only evidence that Elizabeth vere Goose might have
(02:19):
told stories, which her son in law Thomas Fleet the
printer printed, doesn't doesn't exist. But there was a Mother
Goose who was telling the famous Mother Goose stories in
the thirteen hundreds in Denmark. The stories survived. Sadly, Elizabeth
Vergose does not accept in legend, so she is not
buried in the granary.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
So that's good now, and you can probably win arguments
at parties now that you know this.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
It makes you really popular. By the way, when you
win these historical arguments, you're not going to be invited
to many more parties.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Now you can go with people too the granary bearing
ground and say you know it's not true. Okay, now
there's a situation where someone fell, yesund.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
Into a crypt. If you look at the granary, you
see lots of rows of headstones. The headstones don't necessarily
represent a person buried beneath that stone the way you'll
see in a modern cemetery. Instead, under the ground are crypts,
and those are arched brick vaults in which you could
(03:22):
place caskets. By the way, here's another legend, kind of
in the foreground of the granary, the Franklin Monument is
in the center, and the head of that is a mound,
And for years we said that was a tomb for
children who died before their second birthday and they were
buried there, the Tomb of the Innocence. That's actually not true.
I don't know who is buried there. But the crypts
(03:43):
are available most of the year because you had of
a key who go down a set of steps and
open up the door. Now, there were coverings over these
sets of steps, and a few years ago an unwary
tourist stepped in the wrong place and fell into one
of the crypts. And you can imagine it's an unnerving
thing to fall into a crypt when you're touring an
(04:04):
historic barrier.
Speaker 5 (04:05):
Yeah. Yeah, So.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Do people know which exact bonds belong to whom?
Speaker 4 (04:12):
No, because they would be put in wooden coffins, wooden
caskets and the bones there. I have not been down there,
so maybe I shouldn't talk about.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
What if you if you go down, can you see bones?
Speaker 5 (04:27):
It depends.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
It depends a few and where you were looking. In
the winter time and in the fall lot of rain
winter this would freeze and people in the spring would
go and kind of rearrange inside the family crypt. And
these crypts are all owned by certain people. If you
go to the burying ground and the common there, a
(04:48):
number of them are actually owned by an undertaker because
there are people too poor to afford their own crypt.
So he would know for a fee you could use
one of his crypts that he leased. And there is
a crypt that belonged to Samuel Adams's father in law,
and that is where the victims of the massacre were buried.
And later Samuel Adams was buried there as well, not
(05:11):
because he wanted to be with the victims of the massacre,
but because that was the family crypt.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
So Samuel Adams is buried on the common.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
He is buried in the granary, and he is the
Paul Revere is buried there as well. The Christmas Addics
is there with the other victims of the massacre. And
what happened in the eighteen thirties when they built the
wall along the front, they excavated and they found these
five bodies, six bodies killed by gunshots and someone remembered
(05:41):
his father telling him remembering when the victims of the
massacre were put into that particular crypt. So that's how
we know they were there.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Wow, that's deep stuff. And so what about King's Chapel
burying grounds.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
Well, the first thing to know about Kingschapel burying ground
is it's not really King's Chapel Bury. That's the oldest
burying ground in town, by the way.
Speaker 6 (06:02):
It right across the street from Granary, pretty much across
the street across from one beacon next to King's Chapel.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
And King's Chapel was put there in the sixteen eighties
by Governor Andros because he wanted to have an Anglican
church in town. And the Puritans said the Puritans didn't
really venerate the burying grounds. They put buried people there
because they were dead. And then he said, okay, you're
not really using this part of the burying ground, I'll
put a chapel here. And suddenly the Puritans became really
(06:29):
invested in the graves of their ancestors. But John Winthrop
is buried there alone with a woman named Elizabeth Payne,
and her gravestone has kind of a neat a on it.
And one story is Nathaniel Hawthorne saw that and it
gave him the idea for Hester Prynne and the Scarlet Letter.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Oh wow.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Yeah, So Winthrop is buried there and King's Chapel took
up about a third of this burying ground. I know
it probably has an official name, but it's not a
fill with King's Chapel.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
See. So in Boston. Boston was populated by Puritans, Yes,
and that means that they had real control over your
everyday life.
Speaker 7 (07:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
The Puritans were not an easygoing group.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Correct, they were not an easygoing group. They did accomplish
a number of really important things. It's easy to bash
the Puritans, but they did give us public education as
well as the ideas of democracy, which are not insignificant things.
Hl mankinsat a Puritan is someone who has a sneaking
suspicion that someone somewhere is having a good time. Another
monument I want to talk about ron King's Chapel is
(07:35):
the Son Savert chevalier Son Savert, who is a French soldier.
He was the King's friend, the chamberlain to the King
of France, and he is sent to be the King's
eyes and ears when the King, King Louis the sixteenth
sends forces to fight on the side of the Americans.
And he is in Boston with the French fleet in
seventeen seventy eight, so he's.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Kind of, as you say, the eyes and airs, not
a spy, but he's reporting.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Back together because the King is supporting the American So
want someone along, you want to make.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
And there's a kind of.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
A bread shortage in Boston at this time, and the
French fleet is in town refitting, and the French bakers
bring their ovens ashore and they're baking bread, and there's
a grain shortage, bad year for her harvest. Much of
the grain is going to support the Continental army. And
suddenly people start smelling this French bread being baked on
the docks of Boston, and they go down to the
(08:26):
docks to demand bread, and the French bakers say, no,
you can't have the bread because this is for us,
and the townspeople start attacking them, and the Chevalier sense
of Air gets between them to try to break this up,
and the mob kills him. This is a that he's
the King's best friend. The King's helping us win this war,
and so Massachusetts sends an abject apology and says, okay,
(08:48):
we will spend five thousand pounds on a monument to
the chevalier sense of air. And also we will allow
a funeral mass to be said for him inside King's Chapel,
which is closed. It's an Anglican church. The Anglics had left,
so they have a funeral mass. And for the Puritans,
having a mass celebrated was to them a tremendous concession.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
I can't help but notice that it was a more
violent time.
Speaker 5 (09:11):
It hung for No, all kinds were.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Relatively things we would think, is not that big a deal.
Now you were whipped, yes, for not going to church,
and you could be killed by simply preventing people from
stealing red. Just oh yeah, let's kill him.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
Well to up he gets in the middle, I am
told by the way the fight was broken up by
British soldiers who were in town as prisoners of war.
They're part of General Burgoyne's army that have been captured
at Saratoga. So anyway, the town says, we'll spend five
thousand dollars on a monument, and the king says okay,
And later on he sends another army to help out.
And then in about nineteen fifteen, a guy in France,
(09:49):
reading about the American Revolution says, oh, in Boston they
built a monument for five thousand pounds. I must be
quite a monument. He writes to a friend in Boston.
Next time it comes to town, I'd really like to
see the monument to the Chevete Saver And as friend says, Mote, Yeah,
that would be great, because we never got around putting
it up.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
So you get them.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
They wel, we told the king will build it. How
likely is it the King is going to show up
here to see it. So Mayor Curly had the monument built,
and it has the inscription by the calm Destang in
French about what a wonderful guy the Chevalier sin Saver was.
But the cement was still wet when they dedicated it
in nineteen fifteen when there was a French delegation coming
(10:27):
to town.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Wow, so they had to get it up there quickly
for the French delegation.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
That's right to show that we really love the Chevalier
of Saint Savert and people will always remember him.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
And where's that monument?
Speaker 4 (10:37):
It's right next to King's Chapel. If you're standing in
front of King's Chapel, it's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah to know, you know, it's going to be much
more fun for me and hopefully for you all to
walk around Boston. I mean I already loved it, but
now there's much more for me to to see. And
don't miss the Edgar Allen post at.
Speaker 5 (10:54):
That's a great statue.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Okay, six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty. We've
had some folks call, don't be shy? Is there anything
you'd like our guest Bob Allison to drill down on
any of the historic spots that you are curious about?
Speaker 8 (11:10):
Now?
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Fedal Hall people go there to shop and drink, but
there's a lot of history there and that never gets
talked about. Maybe we should address that after this.
Speaker 5 (11:18):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Okay, cool, it's WBZ News Radio ten thirty.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
You're on night Side with Dan Ray. I'm WBZY, Boston's
News Radio Brandy J.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
For Dan Tonight. Here's something cool. Do you remember how
I explained how simple it was to use the new
talk back feature on the iHeartRadio app. Well check it out.
Somebody has followed my directions, which are quite simple. Open
the app, you hit the red microphone in the upper
right hand corner, you start talking and it sends the
(11:49):
message to us. Well, someone has done that, and Rob's
gonna play the message and we'll see what they would like.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Go ahead, Rob, I was wondering if you could please
talk about the molasses flood. Oh thank you?
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Oh yeah, the molasses flood nineteen eleven.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
No, nineteen twenty, nineteenineteen or nineteen twenty, I'm not.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Good with nineteen nineteen, all right.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
But it was January fifteenth, and the industrial it was
an industrial alcohol they were making actually to make munitions,
and this boatload of molasses had just come up from
Cuba and in the molasses tank there was really hardly
frozen molasses because it was a cold January. Pumped it in,
(12:37):
covering the frozen molasses. Then the temperature rose. But also
the structure itself wasn't a sound.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Side I heard it was always leaking.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
It was leaking, and when people in the neighborhood said, hey,
looks like it's leaking. What the company did was painted
brown so no one would notice that it was leaking,
and kids from the neighborhood, this is in the North
End it's on the waterfront of the North End where
the baseball field is now, and kids would go and
get my glasses, and so the company was really negligent.
(13:05):
Well usually also because twenty one people die in this.
On January fifteenth and about noon, the tank explodes. People
said it sounded like machine gun fire as the rivets
popped off.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Now how did it explode? Did it just did the
structure break and stuff leaked out or was there and
you know, come by it.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
It was a chemical reaction inside the tank as the
molasses is expanding, and as I said, it wasn't structurally sound.
So it pushes the plates apart. The rivets pop off,
and these huge steel plates, and there's a trolley line
running a long commercial street and some of the plates
hit that, and there's actually a trolley it's able to
(13:43):
stop before it gets there. But there's twenty one people die,
including a number of children and horses. A lot of
horses are get stuck and the horses have to be
shot because they can't move them out. And so yeah,
it's really a disaster and fortunately wrong way to put it.
There was a lot of training for dealing with disasters
(14:04):
because this is just after the Great War, and so
there is actually a medical station set up at Haymark
and a lot of people are treated there. But you
have then this fifty thousand gallons of molasses just coating everything.
By the way, if you go to the Congress Street
to the Fire Museum, they have a pumper that was
(14:24):
used actually to spray salt water at the molasses to
push it into the harbor as part of the cleanup.
And then after this is why, by the way, gas
tanks have to be inspected. Right across the street is
the parking garage and behind it's a little park that
folks in the North Ends still called the gasse Sey
because that was where the gas company was. Boston was
lit by gas made from coal, so you have a
(14:48):
lot of processing plants to turn coal into gas and
then these big storage tanks. So there's a big gas
storage tank. And the state reps from the North End said,
is it really safe to have these storage tanks filled
with gas in the middle of the neighborhood, And people said, oh, yeah,
that's of course, it's perfectly safe. But then you have
a tank filled with molasses, explodes kills twenty one people.
(15:08):
What's going to happen if a gas tank explodes, which
is why we don't have gas tanks in the middle
of crowded neighborhoods, and also why tanks now have to
be inspected. The argument was when it went up that
this was not a building, it was a structure, so
it didn't have to be inspected. I'm sure some palms
have been greased to.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
I guess that doesn't seem right. And of course there's
the rumor, and it is a rumor, and I don't
think it's true because I saw a special funny just
the other day where some person took three bricks, what's
mere pizza on one and molasses on another, and he
did it blindful of smell tests, and then a brick
from an area that they said was from and nobody
(15:48):
could tell.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
You know, I think into the nineteen forties, maybe you
could today. I think you could. You know, we lived
in South Boston for a number of years, and there
was an old molasses plant there when was a center
for producing rum, and one of the old molasses plums
was there and when they were made, when they were
processing the molasses, you could smell it. It's now condos.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Now it's Karen and reading you're on with Bob Allison.
We're talking Boston historical sites. How are you doing, Karen,
I'm doing.
Speaker 9 (16:18):
Well this evening. Thanks for thanks for taking my call.
I'm really enjoying. I'm driving home from work. I actually
just pulled in my driveway and said, let me see
if I can give a call. I really enjoyed listening
to this conversation tonight, so thank you for doing this.
Of course, I've got I've got two particular places I
wanted to well, one I wanted to ask about. One
(16:41):
I wanted to just make a comment about. But I now,
having heard this last thing about the gas tanks, I
just want to also add I grew up in Arlington
and we used to have a big gas storage tank
right on Massaf behind the stocking shop, and I lived
right up the street from there, and we'd see it
go the go up and then go down as the
(17:02):
amount was going down, and then go back up to
the shop and then go down. So I've totally forgot
about that until you were talking about those gas tanks.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Yeah, and what was the other thing?
Speaker 9 (17:12):
So I wanted to two things, and I apologize if
you've already made mention of either of these two, because
I've only been listening to the last like forty minutes
or so, so if this is a repeat, you can
just say we already talked about it, and that's okay.
The first, I don't know how much you know about
(17:34):
mass General Hospital and the original Bullfinch Building and when
the Bullfinch Building was built in eighteen twenties, I think
eighteen twenty one, eighteen twenty, eighteen eighteen, Okay, so maybe
it was completed in eighteen twenty and something, but yeah,
eighteen eighteen it to this and even now today in
(17:55):
that building is still standing in the courtyard in front
of it with all the other new buildings that are
built around it. There's a corner right next to one
of the newer buildings where if you walk over, there's
a little bit of a railing and you look over
the railing and you can see a piece of what
used to be the dock on the on the bank
(18:17):
where the Charles River would come up that close, and
there's still a piece of the dock where they would
come up.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Yes, it's amazing to see that because it was built
right on the water of the Charles River.
Speaker 9 (18:27):
Yeah, and they would bring patients, they would bring patients up.
I just I love that they still that they have
preserved that spot.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
And Etherdome is tremendous on the top floor of that
and mess General is terrific. The Paul Russell Museum on
Cambridge Street is well worth seeing. It's free and great
museum of medical innovations.
Speaker 9 (18:47):
That's the new one with the that's all glass, Yes,
yes glass. Yes, I've been in there once, but I've
actually brought I'm a nurse, I worked in many many
years and i've and I keep periodically bringing younger nurses
to the Ethodome, you know, to visit because it.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
Really is really and in the next building they have
some of the old ambulances.
Speaker 5 (19:11):
And other things.
Speaker 9 (19:12):
Oh that I don't know if.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
You're able to get in, if the members of the
public can't, but if you have a if you can
get in, because they have amb so to the building
to the right as you're looking at the Bullfinch building.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
I've never been to the Etherdome. You've not been, Can
either or both of you tell me what it's like
and what do you have to do to get in?
Speaker 4 (19:32):
I don't know what you have to do to get
in expert if you go in with If you go
to the Paul Russell Museum and arrange a tour, they
will take you there. And lucky enough to have tours
with a gentleman who is an intern a resident at
Mass General in nineteen fifties and went on to have
a long distinguished career in medicine. But he would take
us there and they still use it for training. But
it's like a theater and it's built at the very
(19:53):
top of the building. They built the operating theater there
a so they've had of a skylight that would let
in light. Also so it would be far enough away
from the other patients so they wouldn't hear their screens.
As you were saying, this was built in the eighteen twenties.
Ether isn't introduced in the eighteen forties, and most people
would die of the shock of an operation. But ether
(20:15):
is such. There's an ether monument in the public garden.
In every October there is Ether Day when doctors and
nurses from Mass General go to commemorate this innovation.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
I didn't think they had anesthetic in the Civil War,
but I guess they did, but they just didn't have
enough of it probably not enough of it.
Speaker 9 (20:31):
Yeah, and in this particular and correctly if I'm wrong,
but this is my recollection. The dome. You had described
that they had sunlighting because of the dome, but the
dome was actually open so that there was ventilation because
they were, you know when as they were using the ether,
and apparently the first operation that was performed using ether
(20:55):
as an anesthetic was done in that in that in
the ether dome.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
And there's a fairly they.
Speaker 9 (21:01):
Have photos, Yes, that's it. They have photographs and paintings
documenting with pictures of the surgeons in street clothes. Yes,
just barely washing their hands.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
That was another innovation that happens in the eighteen fifties,
the idea of washing your hands.
Speaker 5 (21:20):
Yeah, we can think.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
Another thing they have up there is a mummy because
they brought over an Egyptian mummy, thinking we can put
the mummy on tour. People will pay to see the
mummy and that will be a way of raising money
for the hospital.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
So now I understand why I looked up why they
felt it was okay to have a big hole in
the roof and still do surgery. The theory of right Geram.
There was the Louis Pasteur in the mid nineteenth century.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
Yeah, Oliver Wendell Holmes in the eighteen fifties wrote an
article about doctors should wash their hands. He was actually
looking at women getting purpurle fever and dying in childbirth.
And if you have your baby early in the day,
you're probably gonna live. Later in the day probably not.
And he ties it to your the same doctor as
attending them, and he doesn't wash his hands. And a
(22:06):
lot of doctors when they get this idea that we
should wash our hands, but this is nonsense. Why just
should we wash our hands?
Speaker 2 (22:12):
I tell you what, I'm glad I did not live
then it's all my what a terrible mess. Thanks, so,
you know, Karen, I love it just speaking with you,
and I love hearing from all you. You're so nice.
Anyone else six one seven two five. It's fun to call, right, Karen, Yes,
it is.
Speaker 9 (22:30):
Thank you very much to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Okay, Well, we'll spend some more time with Bob Allison
after this on BEZ.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
You're on night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's
news radio.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
It's great to have you with us on night Side
with Dan. Right, I'm Bradley j for Dan tonight and
we're talking Boston history. We're doing like a deep dive,
drilled down on some of our more popular historical sites.
I have a story to share with you that involves
meat Loaf and Feneral Hall. And that's a little tease there. Yeah, Meatloaf,
(23:05):
the guy in the band. And then after that, Bob Allison,
our guest, is gonna give us some actual history. And
the number is six one, seven, two, five, ten thirty
if you would like to join us, and it's wonderful
to see that some folks do want to join us. Bob,
let's talk to Al in Quincy first and we will
get to Pennel Hall and the Meatloaf story. Hi, al.
Speaker 10 (23:30):
Hi, how are you today?
Speaker 7 (23:31):
We are well, that's good.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
I enjoy your show.
Speaker 7 (23:35):
I love history.
Speaker 10 (23:37):
So I'm calling to let you know a little something
that you may not know. And the reason I'm saying
this is because I participated in it. So okay, in
front of you know where the Ben Franklin statue is
down near the Ruth Chris Steakhouse, which would be the
old Boston City Hall. So long story shot, I'm in
the crane business. My name is My nickname is Ali.
(23:58):
I own a business called Ali Cat Brain Service. I'm
one of the Shaughnesses. My father was Shaughnessy and her
and the riggers. It moves all kinds of stuff all
over the place. Anyhow, the Ben Ben Franklin statue had
gotten blown over by the wind some little wind events
some years ago, just before COVID.
Speaker 7 (24:16):
They shipped that.
Speaker 10 (24:17):
They shipped the statue to out. They brought it back
and we brought in my mini crane to hoist it
back into place. And it was about seven o'clock in
the morning, and I'm running the mini crane and as
I'm getting ready to lift up Ben Franklin, it dawned
on me that we couldn't put bang Brent Franklin back
up on top of his granted pedestal until we put
(24:39):
one hundred dollar bill underneath it. And so the rigor
is the riggers that I was working with from Shaughnessy
and Her and said, what are you talking about? Ally,
I said, you guys, this is the only opportunity we're
ever going to have to put one hundred dollar bill
underneath Ben Franklin. I mean, who has one hundred dollar bill?
I don't have one out. So I had two fifty
(25:01):
dollar bills and I said to a young apprentice it
was seven in the morning. I said, run across the street.
Please over to the park House Hotel.
Speaker 7 (25:09):
Go up to the.
Speaker 10 (25:09):
Counter at the desk and tell him exactly.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
What you want.
Speaker 10 (25:13):
One hundred dollar bill, not twenties, not tens. Give him
these two fifties, and he gives them a hundred dollar bill.
Bring it over. I had a tuni for sandwich and
a ziplock bag. I threw away the tunif for sandwich.
I put one hundred dollar bill in a ziplock bag.
My business God. We all signed it. And then the
person that worked on the statue is like, well, can
(25:33):
I put something in there too?
Speaker 7 (25:34):
I said sure, So he put his god.
Speaker 10 (25:37):
Into my little tuni for his ziplock bag, and we
placed it underneath Ben Franklin. So if anybody get Ben Flanklin,
they can get that hundred dollar bill there.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
That's actually Boston's oldest statue. Yeah, the Beast statue is
put up in eighteen fifty six, one hundred and fifty
years after Franklin's birth. He was born around the corner.
That is a great story, and of course frank and
is on the hont What a great idea to think
of that.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
That is something that no one knows. Tell this moment, I.
Speaker 7 (26:07):
Was, no one knows.
Speaker 10 (26:08):
So I was standing on the corner like six months
later working on the old Shaman Bank built and running
one of my cranes, Ali Kakhrane and the Taralli comes
along and he stopped at the light there and he's
describing all these different historical things and I'm looking over
over the people. I go, did he tell you about
the hundred dollar bill underneath Ben Franklin? And the driver
(26:29):
spins around one hundred dollar bill on.
Speaker 7 (26:31):
The Ben Frankly.
Speaker 10 (26:32):
I go, I put a hundred dollar bill underneath Ben.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
That's just about the coolest thing ever. And I'm very
glad that you shared that with us at this time.
That's tremendous.
Speaker 10 (26:42):
Well, I'm glad I called him too. I enjoy I
enjoy the history. I love the story about the molasses pot.
I just happened to have read that recently as well.
And pretty fascinating. I am pretty fascinating stuff. My father
has been gone for years, but he was a rigor
in Boston and he told us stories about, you know,
taking weapons and guns for the war effort. He was
(27:06):
a young man and they would have to rig him
to the top of buildings for anti aircra you know,
for the war effort. And they didn't have cranes that reached,
so they used to hoist them up by by rope
and winch.
Speaker 5 (27:17):
If you believe it's amazing.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
It's amazing to think about that, and how they built
the Bunker Hill monument before the age of cranes.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
How did they do that?
Speaker 10 (27:29):
That's right, Quincy Granted And I happened to live in
the Quincy Granted city, right.
Speaker 5 (27:35):
My wife grew up in Quincy.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
And the first railroad in the railway in the country
was built to bring the blocks of granite from the
quarries down to the four River to put on boats.
They're down to the water to ship them to Charlestown.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
O great story.
Speaker 10 (27:50):
I really appreciate thanks, thank you very much for your time,
you guys, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Of course. Now we're going to talk to Steve in
New Hampshire. But he's only been on all for four minutes.
We squeezed the Fannel Hall a couple of fings. I'll
give my little dumb story about Quincy Market. The only
thing I can bring to the conversation about Quincy Market
is I introduced I MC an event where meat Loaf
(28:16):
played there. And the interesting part about that is, prior
to that event, we went to the Blue Diner. I
went with meat Loaf and his entourage. And at the
Blue Diner, Meatloaf actually ate meat loaf and I ate
meat loaf too, so I ate meatloaf with meat loaf.
(28:36):
And then we went to Quincy Market. Now, but give
us some legit history about that area.
Speaker 5 (28:44):
Well.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
Faniel Hall was the city's meat market and produce market
and Quincy. It was built in the eighteen seventeen forties
and then expanded in eighteen oh six and then by
the eighteen twenties Mayor just say Quinsy who wanted to
modernize the city, and Mayor Quinsy is still called the
Great Mayor. He served six terms until he was voted out.
(29:06):
Those are a mayor's term then was one year. But
he built Quincy Market, which he wanted to call the
Fanuel Hall marketplace. Officially that is what it is. He
didn't think his name should be on a public building,
so Mayor Quinsy, of course he does have a connection
with the city of Quinsy. That's where his family is from.
The family the town city is named for the Quinsy family.
(29:27):
So he built this as a modern market place for
the city and it remained the city's meet and produce
market into the nineteen sixties when Boston was really in
a state of decline. And so it's really that building.
The center building where you introduced meatloaf was built by
the city. The two buildings on either side were built
by private investors as an expanded meat market. Also on
(29:51):
the waterfront, Fanuel Hall had been the waterfront. The waterfront
has extended out to the end of Quincy Market.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (29:57):
So that's right.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
The water was right there, and you know that if
you go there because since etched in, yes recently etched
into the pavement, you can see little fishes and that
used to be right.
Speaker 5 (30:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
Ross Miller marked out the waterfront in front of the
Samuel Adams statue and.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Mayor Kevin White statues. That's still there.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
It is still there, Mayor Kevin White statue there.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Okay, Steve in New Hampshire, you're on WBZ.
Speaker 7 (30:25):
Hi, I love your discussion tonight to both of you.
I used to work at one Beacon and I used
to walk up from downtown, crossing up School Street, and
I believe wasn't it the old Statehouse that was on
the right as you were going up the street?
Speaker 4 (30:40):
There, my correct, on that School Street, that's the old
City Hall. There was the city Hall from the eighteen
sixties until the new City Hall that Bradley loved so
much was built in the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 7 (30:52):
Ah, and well, that's interesting. I thought, that's what it was.
It wasn't quite certain the new funny story, the new
new City Hall, as you want to call it, a
new city Hall. We lived in andover and one of
the architects I don't know if you know, Amil Herval,
but he was apparently he was a member of our
(31:14):
church and he was one of the architects for that
new city Hall.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
Okay, yeah, and architect. I loved the building. It's a
great architectural achievement. I'm not a fan. It has been
the landmarked so because it when it passed its fiftieth
year it opened. It was actually Mayor Collins who oversaw
the building up. But he wanted to show this is
a new Boston. In the old days, you would get
(31:38):
a contract to build a city building by bribing someone.
In this case, he had a panel of architects choose
the winning design. And the story is that Mayor Collins
was going to then unveil the winning design he had
never seen and they have this at the Boston Public
Library and the model is underneath a sheet and he
pulls off the sheet and he gasps and says, we've
(31:59):
got to kill this thing. That's the ugliest thing I've
ever seen. And his say says, no, mister Mayor, you're
committed to this process. So it is built and he
moves in very briefly. In January of nineteen sixty eight,
it would have been when may Or White is then
going to become mayor, and pretty much every mayor since
is thought this was a mistake. In fact, Marty Walsh,
when he announced he was running for mayor, said we're
(32:20):
going to blow up city Hall.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Well, Steve, thanks a lot, thanks Steve. So we have
about fifteen more minutes, and we have a Jack in
Dorchester and Daryln New Runswick, and we'll get right to
you after this.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
On w b Z Night Side with Dan Ray on
WBZ Boston's news.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Radio, We're talking Boston area history with our great guest,
professor Bob Allison from Suffolk University. And we have Jack
and Darryl in New Runswick and Frank on the phone,
and we'll try to get to all three of you
before we get to the top of the hour, so
start right away. And this is Jack and Dorchester.
Speaker 7 (32:54):
Hello, Jack, Hey, how you doing.
Speaker 11 (32:58):
One quick comment by uncle was on the Boston timent
during the Great Molassus Flood.
Speaker 6 (33:06):
Wow wow yeah.
Speaker 11 (33:09):
And also what I wanting to talk about the Great
Boston Fire. I believe it was eighteen seventy seven.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
Eighteen seventy two, destroyed the area roughly between South Station
and Old South Meetinghouse. That whole area was destroyed in
this fire. And two problems, a number of problems. They
had granite explodes, buildings had mansard roofs, these timbers that
(33:36):
were soaking in kerosene and that helped the fire spread.
And there was an epidemic of flu among horses, so
the horses couldn't pull. Also, there wasn't enough water pressure.
So it really was a disaster that could have been worse.
And it does lead to a better fire signal system
in the city. After a Chief Damrail was the fire
(33:59):
chief at the time. There's actually a good video Damrell's
Fire that is really a great documentary about the Great
Fire of eighteen seventies that was Boston's financial center too.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Thanks Jack. Thanks Now it's Daryl in Brunswick.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
Hi, Darryl, Hey, Bradley and Bob. Hopefully things are going well.
You're you're very informative as well.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Well. Thanks. What would like to check that well?
Speaker 3 (34:29):
That fire issue reference how change is made?
Speaker 7 (34:32):
Right?
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Yes, my recollection is in the past. You had a
boxer down there named Sear back in the early turn
of the century.
Speaker 7 (34:43):
How do you spell it, see y r.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
Well, he used to be a lumber Well, he was
a lumberjack at one time, and he had such natural
strength that I think Boston might have been one of
the fights I recalled where they went sixty or one
hundred rounds could be.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
I mean, that was a tough in. The Matthews Arena,
which I think Northeastern is about to do something with
that was built as a boxing arena in nineteen ten
and John Sullivan, John L. Sullivan used to go there
and greet the fighters and bare knuckles. Those guys were
really tough.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
So Louis Seer. It was a French Canadian strong man
and he was born in October eighteen sixty three, and
so you're right. Yeah, he was a former International Fitness
Bodybuilding Federation chairman, et cetera. So there you go.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
Because of the reason I'm saying is Boston, the history
possibly with this is they may be because of those rounds,
the amount of rounds and the punishment these guys were
taking went to fifteen rounds.
Speaker 6 (35:58):
Interesting, I'm just saying that was a fight. There went
one rounds, he said, sixty rounds.
Speaker 7 (36:03):
Sixty rounds.
Speaker 4 (36:03):
And I know the John L. Sullivan and the Patty
O'Ryan fight went, I don't know, fifty rounds, something sixty
round I would.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Think everyone would be bored and give up and go home.
Speaker 4 (36:12):
Oh no, see, guys, if you guys started punching each other,
people would really be tuning in for a while.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Yeah, until after a couple hours of people beaten.
Speaker 5 (36:22):
Teddy Roosevelt was a boxer.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Of course he was, of course he was. Well, thank
you very much for that, Darryl and new in New Brunswick,
and now we go back, come back to Boston here
and talk to Frank Hi Frank.
Speaker 8 (36:35):
Hello, good conversation to Back Bay Beacon Hill. How tall
was Beacon Hill? That they were a will get all
that land and spread out a question.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
So the back Mountain.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
If you stand go behind the State House and see
the Bullfinch monument with the Eagle on it, that's how
tall Beacon Hill was. There was another hill to the
east of it where one be in is now. That
was Mount Pemberton. And then to the west there was
another hill that was the only name I've seen for
it is Mount Horeedom. That was on the west. That's
why it's called the Trimount because there are these three peaks.
(37:11):
But the dirt from the fills in the Back Bay
mainly came from the town of Needham, which is west
of the Boston. They had a railway train that would
every forty five minutes would bring a lot of gravel
in to fill in the back Bay land. The Beacon
Hill dirt was taken down first decade of the nineteenth
century to fill in the mill pond, the area or
(37:33):
near Causeway Street, the Bullfinch triangle, and so that was
Beacon Hill. Mount Pemberton probably went to fill in the
area in front of Fanuel Hall. So all of that
is landfill around the Boston Harbor side of the town.
I mean, so much of Boston is built on landfill,
and there wasn't enough just from taking down the hills
(37:55):
to fill in the back bay.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Is it sinking? You'd think that artificially introduced dirt would sink.
Speaker 4 (38:03):
Well, no, it doesn't seem to be. And the buildings
in the back bay are all built on piling. So
Arlington Street Church is on about nine hundred and ninety
nine of these oak piling. If they are exposed to air,
they rot very quickly. If they're underwater, they're fine. So
if you're in one of these houses on the flat
of the hill or in the back bay and you
(38:23):
get some of a leak so the water table falls,
you're in big trouble.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Because you'd never be able to replace those.
Speaker 5 (38:32):
Well you could. It takes me, costs a lot of money.
Speaker 8 (38:35):
And I hear the earthquake, the spout feneris sink like
quick snate it could.
Speaker 4 (38:41):
I mean we do have tremors here. I mean we've
experienced a few tremors of late a serious earthquake, you know,
I guess we have bigger we have early big problems everywhere.
Speaker 5 (38:52):
Thanks Frank.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
I was just picturing the train bringing in load after
load after load of dirt. How long, just like in
five seconds, semi how long it took to.
Speaker 4 (39:06):
From the eighteen fifties until the eighteen nineties.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
So it's forties. Imagine being the being having the last
load come in. Here it comes, here comes guys, the
last load.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
Yes, such, Okay, we're done. From Arlington Street to Kenmore Square.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
All right, thank you so much. Wonderful guest Bob Allison,
Professor at Suffolk University, and thanks to all of you
for joining in on the celebration of Boston culture in
Boston history. It was it was great. Next guest is
Doug Arion. We're going to talk about maybe nuclear power
being an option, and we're going to get a call
from Ukraine at the eleven o'clock hour to talk about
(39:44):
what life is really like in a war zone like that.
It's WBZ and we're really happy to have you with us.
Remember the number to call in is six one, seven, two, five,
four ten thirty. Write that number down. Thanks Bob.
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on w b Z,
Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
We're talking Boston history with our guests Bob Allison, Suffolk
University history professor. I'm Bradley Jay. We're gonna go hopping
right to the Granny Granary burying ground because there are
a couple of myths that are related to that. Actually
a myth and a story. There's a lot about this.
I don't know. First, what's the myth, Bob, related to
(00:28):
the granary burying ground?
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Where is it? For people who don't know?
Speaker 4 (00:32):
Next to the Park Street Church. So if you're walking,
it's on Tremont Street. And it is, I believe, the
third burying ground in town. And it was again burying
ground as opposed to cemetery, as one of an earlier
callers said, cemetery comes from the Greek word that develops
in the eighteen thirties Puritan's new cemetery. You're these people
(00:52):
are sleeping. No, the Puritans knew they were dead. So
the granary there had been a grain warehouse there where
Park Street Church is now. Now that's why it is
called the granary. And the myth is there's a woman
there buried there named Elizabeth the vere Goose, and the
legend is And by the way, if you stand on
Tremont Street, you will probably hear trolleys telling you that
(01:13):
Mother Goose is buried there, that Elizabeth Vergose tours, now
the duck tours. The Duck tours, get it right. There
are other trolleys who don't want to mention who they
might be. If you stand out on Tremont Street, I
hear this several times a day, that you will also
see Mother Goose, but you won't see Mother Goose. Elizabeth
of vere Goose was a lovely woman who had a
(01:34):
lot of grandchildren.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
How can you know? How can you know how lovely
she was?
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Because well, I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt. Okay, Yeah,
so she was not Mother Goose. She did have grandchildren,
she might or might not have told stories to them.
But Mother Goose goes back to Denmark in the thirteen
hundreds the Mother Goose stories. Her son in law, guy
named Thomas Fleet, was a printer and at one point
(01:59):
he prints did a collection of stories and he said
his mother in law was Mother Goose. Now this gets deeper,
because no one has ever actually seen this book. There
was a copy at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester
in the nineteenth century. No one has seen it since.
So the only evidence that Elizabeth vere Goose might have
(02:19):
told stories, which her son in law Thomas Fleet the
printer printed, doesn't doesn't exist. But there was a Mother
Goose who was telling the famous Mother Goose stories in
the thirteen hundreds in Denmark. The stories survived. Sadly, Elizabeth
Vergose does not accept in legend, so she is not
buried in the granary.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
So that's good now, and you can probably win arguments
at parties now that you know this.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
It makes you really popular. By the way, when you
win these historical arguments, you're not going to be invited
to many more parties.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Now you can go with people too the granary bearing
ground and say you know it's not true. Okay, now
there's a situation where someone fell, yesund.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
Into a crypt. If you look at the granary, you
see lots of rows of headstones. The headstones don't necessarily
represent a person buried beneath that stone the way you'll
see in a modern cemetery. Instead, under the ground are crypts,
and those are arched brick vaults in which you could
(03:22):
place caskets. By the way, here's another legend, kind of
in the foreground of the granary, the Franklin Monument is
in the center, and the head of that is a mound,
And for years we said that was a tomb for
children who died before their second birthday and they were
buried there, the Tomb of the Innocence. That's actually not true.
I don't know who is buried there. But the crypts
(03:43):
are available most of the year because you had of
a key who go down a set of steps and
open up the door. Now, there were coverings over these
sets of steps, and a few years ago an unwary
tourist stepped in the wrong place and fell into one
of the crypts. And you can imagine it's an unnerving
thing to fall into a crypt when you're touring an
(04:04):
historic barrier.
Speaker 5 (04:05):
Yeah. Yeah, So.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Do people know which exact bonds belong to whom?
Speaker 4 (04:12):
No, because they would be put in wooden coffins, wooden
caskets and the bones there. I have not been down there,
so maybe I shouldn't talk about.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
What if you if you go down, can you see bones?
Speaker 5 (04:27):
It depends.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
It depends a few and where you were looking. In
the winter time and in the fall lot of rain
winter this would freeze and people in the spring would
go and kind of rearrange inside the family crypt. And
these crypts are all owned by certain people. If you
go to the burying ground and the common there, a
(04:48):
number of them are actually owned by an undertaker because
there are people too poor to afford their own crypt.
So he would know for a fee you could use
one of his crypts that he leased. And there is
a crypt that belonged to Samuel Adams's father in law,
and that is where the victims of the massacre were buried.
And later Samuel Adams was buried there as well, not
(05:11):
because he wanted to be with the victims of the massacre,
but because that was the family crypt.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
So Samuel Adams is buried on the common.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
He is buried in the granary, and he is the
Paul Revere is buried there as well. The Christmas Addics
is there with the other victims of the massacre. And
what happened in the eighteen thirties when they built the
wall along the front, they excavated and they found these
five bodies, six bodies killed by gunshots and someone remembered
(05:41):
his father telling him remembering when the victims of the
massacre were put into that particular crypt. So that's how
we know they were there.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Wow, that's deep stuff. And so what about King's Chapel
burying grounds.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
Well, the first thing to know about Kingschapel burying ground
is it's not really King's Chapel Bury. That's the oldest
burying ground in town, by the way.
Speaker 6 (06:02):
It right across the street from Granary, pretty much across
the street across from one beacon next to King's Chapel.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
And King's Chapel was put there in the sixteen eighties
by Governor Andros because he wanted to have an Anglican
church in town. And the Puritans said the Puritans didn't
really venerate the burying grounds. They put buried people there
because they were dead. And then he said, okay, you're
not really using this part of the burying ground, I'll
put a chapel here. And suddenly the Puritans became really
(06:29):
invested in the graves of their ancestors. But John Winthrop
is buried there alone with a woman named Elizabeth Payne,
and her gravestone has kind of a neat a on it.
And one story is Nathaniel Hawthorne saw that and it
gave him the idea for Hester Prynne and the Scarlet Letter.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Oh wow.
Speaker 4 (06:46):
Yeah, So Winthrop is buried there and King's Chapel took
up about a third of this burying ground. I know
it probably has an official name, but it's not a
fill with King's Chapel.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
See. So in Boston. Boston was populated by Puritans, Yes,
and that means that they had real control over your
everyday life.
Speaker 7 (07:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
The Puritans were not an easygoing group.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Correct, they were not an easygoing group. They did accomplish
a number of really important things. It's easy to bash
the Puritans, but they did give us public education as
well as the ideas of democracy, which are not insignificant things.
Hl mankinsat a Puritan is someone who has a sneaking
suspicion that someone somewhere is having a good time. Another
monument I want to talk about ron King's Chapel is
(07:35):
the Son Savert chevalier Son Savert, who is a French soldier.
He was the King's friend, the chamberlain to the King
of France, and he is sent to be the King's
eyes and ears when the King, King Louis the sixteenth
sends forces to fight on the side of the Americans.
And he is in Boston with the French fleet in
seventeen seventy eight, so he's.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Kind of, as you say, the eyes and airs, not
a spy, but he's reporting.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Back together because the King is supporting the American So
want someone along, you want to make.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
And there's a kind of.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
A bread shortage in Boston at this time, and the
French fleet is in town refitting, and the French bakers
bring their ovens ashore and they're baking bread, and there's
a grain shortage, bad year for her harvest. Much of
the grain is going to support the Continental army. And
suddenly people start smelling this French bread being baked on
the docks of Boston, and they go down to the
(08:26):
docks to demand bread, and the French bakers say, no,
you can't have the bread because this is for us,
and the townspeople start attacking them, and the Chevalier sense
of Air gets between them to try to break this up,
and the mob kills him. This is a that he's
the King's best friend. The King's helping us win this war,
and so Massachusetts sends an abject apology and says, okay,
(08:48):
we will spend five thousand pounds on a monument to
the chevalier sense of air. And also we will allow
a funeral mass to be said for him inside King's Chapel,
which is closed. It's an Anglican church. The Anglics had left,
so they have a funeral mass. And for the Puritans,
having a mass celebrated was to them a tremendous concession.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
I can't help but notice that it was a more
violent time.
Speaker 5 (09:11):
It hung for No, all kinds were.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Relatively things we would think, is not that big a deal.
Now you were whipped, yes, for not going to church,
and you could be killed by simply preventing people from
stealing red. Just oh yeah, let's kill him.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
Well to up he gets in the middle, I am
told by the way the fight was broken up by
British soldiers who were in town as prisoners of war.
They're part of General Burgoyne's army that have been captured
at Saratoga. So anyway, the town says, we'll spend five
thousand dollars on a monument, and the king says okay,
And later on he sends another army to help out.
And then in about nineteen fifteen, a guy in France,
(09:49):
reading about the American Revolution says, oh, in Boston they
built a monument for five thousand pounds. I must be
quite a monument. He writes to a friend in Boston.
Next time it comes to town, I'd really like to
see the monument to the Chevete Saver And as friend says, Mote, Yeah,
that would be great, because we never got around putting
it up.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
So you get them.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
They wel, we told the king will build it. How
likely is it the King is going to show up
here to see it. So Mayor Curly had the monument built,
and it has the inscription by the calm Destang in
French about what a wonderful guy the Chevalier sin Saver was.
But the cement was still wet when they dedicated it
in nineteen fifteen when there was a French delegation coming
(10:27):
to town.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Wow, so they had to get it up there quickly
for the French delegation.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
That's right to show that we really love the Chevalier
of Saint Savert and people will always remember him.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
And where's that monument?
Speaker 4 (10:37):
It's right next to King's Chapel. If you're standing in
front of King's Chapel, it's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah to know, you know, it's going to be much
more fun for me and hopefully for you all to
walk around Boston. I mean I already loved it, but
now there's much more for me to to see. And
don't miss the Edgar Allen post at.
Speaker 5 (10:54):
That's a great statue.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Okay, six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty. We've
had some folks call, don't be shy? Is there anything
you'd like our guest Bob Allison to drill down on
any of the historic spots that you are curious about?
Speaker 8 (11:10):
Now?
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Fedal Hall people go there to shop and drink, but
there's a lot of history there and that never gets
talked about. Maybe we should address that after this.
Speaker 5 (11:18):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Okay, cool, it's WBZ News Radio ten thirty.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
You're on night Side with Dan Ray. I'm WBZY, Boston's
News Radio Brandy J.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
For Dan Tonight. Here's something cool. Do you remember how
I explained how simple it was to use the new
talk back feature on the iHeartRadio app. Well check it out.
Somebody has followed my directions, which are quite simple. Open
the app, you hit the red microphone in the upper
right hand corner, you start talking and it sends the
(11:49):
message to us. Well, someone has done that, and Rob's
gonna play the message and we'll see what they would like.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Go ahead, Rob, I was wondering if you could please
talk about the molasses flood. Oh thank you?
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Oh yeah, the molasses flood nineteen eleven.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
No, nineteen twenty, nineteenineteen or nineteen twenty, I'm not.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Good with nineteen nineteen, all right.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
But it was January fifteenth, and the industrial it was
an industrial alcohol they were making actually to make munitions,
and this boatload of molasses had just come up from
Cuba and in the molasses tank there was really hardly
frozen molasses because it was a cold January. Pumped it in,
(12:37):
covering the frozen molasses. Then the temperature rose. But also
the structure itself wasn't a sound.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Side I heard it was always leaking.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
It was leaking, and when people in the neighborhood said, hey,
looks like it's leaking. What the company did was painted
brown so no one would notice that it was leaking,
and kids from the neighborhood, this is in the North
End it's on the waterfront of the North End where
the baseball field is now, and kids would go and
get my glasses, and so the company was really negligent.
(13:05):
Well usually also because twenty one people die in this.
On January fifteenth and about noon, the tank explodes. People
said it sounded like machine gun fire as the rivets
popped off.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Now how did it explode? Did it just did the
structure break and stuff leaked out or was there and
you know, come by it.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
It was a chemical reaction inside the tank as the
molasses is expanding, and as I said, it wasn't structurally sound.
So it pushes the plates apart. The rivets pop off,
and these huge steel plates, and there's a trolley line
running a long commercial street and some of the plates
hit that, and there's actually a trolley it's able to
(13:43):
stop before it gets there. But there's twenty one people die,
including a number of children and horses. A lot of
horses are get stuck and the horses have to be
shot because they can't move them out. And so yeah,
it's really a disaster and fortunately wrong way to put it.
There was a lot of training for dealing with disasters
(14:04):
because this is just after the Great War, and so
there is actually a medical station set up at Haymark
and a lot of people are treated there. But you
have then this fifty thousand gallons of molasses just coating everything.
By the way, if you go to the Congress Street
to the Fire Museum, they have a pumper that was
(14:24):
used actually to spray salt water at the molasses to
push it into the harbor as part of the cleanup.
And then after this is why, by the way, gas
tanks have to be inspected. Right across the street is
the parking garage and behind it's a little park that
folks in the North Ends still called the gasse Sey
because that was where the gas company was. Boston was
lit by gas made from coal, so you have a
(14:48):
lot of processing plants to turn coal into gas and
then these big storage tanks. So there's a big gas
storage tank. And the state reps from the North End said,
is it really safe to have these storage tanks filled
with gas in the middle of the neighborhood, And people said, oh, yeah,
that's of course, it's perfectly safe. But then you have
a tank filled with molasses, explodes kills twenty one people.
(15:08):
What's going to happen if a gas tank explodes, which
is why we don't have gas tanks in the middle
of crowded neighborhoods, and also why tanks now have to
be inspected. The argument was when it went up that
this was not a building, it was a structure, so
it didn't have to be inspected. I'm sure some palms
have been greased to.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
I guess that doesn't seem right. And of course there's
the rumor, and it is a rumor, and I don't
think it's true because I saw a special funny just
the other day where some person took three bricks, what's
mere pizza on one and molasses on another, and he
did it blindful of smell tests, and then a brick
from an area that they said was from and nobody
(15:48):
could tell.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
You know, I think into the nineteen forties, maybe you
could today. I think you could. You know, we lived
in South Boston for a number of years, and there
was an old molasses plant there when was a center
for producing rum, and one of the old molasses plums
was there and when they were made, when they were
processing the molasses, you could smell it. It's now condos.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Now it's Karen and reading you're on with Bob Allison.
We're talking Boston historical sites. How are you doing, Karen,
I'm doing.
Speaker 9 (16:18):
Well this evening. Thanks for thanks for taking my call.
I'm really enjoying. I'm driving home from work. I actually
just pulled in my driveway and said, let me see
if I can give a call. I really enjoyed listening
to this conversation tonight, so thank you for doing this.
Of course, I've got I've got two particular places I
wanted to well, one I wanted to ask about. One
(16:41):
I wanted to just make a comment about. But I now,
having heard this last thing about the gas tanks, I
just want to also add I grew up in Arlington
and we used to have a big gas storage tank
right on Massaf behind the stocking shop, and I lived
right up the street from there, and we'd see it
go the go up and then go down as the
(17:02):
amount was going down, and then go back up to
the shop and then go down. So I've totally forgot
about that until you were talking about those gas tanks.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Yeah, and what was the other thing?
Speaker 9 (17:12):
So I wanted to two things, and I apologize if
you've already made mention of either of these two, because
I've only been listening to the last like forty minutes
or so, so if this is a repeat, you can
just say we already talked about it, and that's okay.
The first, I don't know how much you know about
(17:34):
mass General Hospital and the original Bullfinch Building and when
the Bullfinch Building was built in eighteen twenties, I think
eighteen twenty one, eighteen twenty, eighteen eighteen, Okay, so maybe
it was completed in eighteen twenty and something, but yeah,
eighteen eighteen it to this and even now today in
(17:55):
that building is still standing in the courtyard in front
of it with all the other new buildings that are
built around it. There's a corner right next to one
of the newer buildings where if you walk over, there's
a little bit of a railing and you look over
the railing and you can see a piece of what
used to be the dock on the on the bank
(18:17):
where the Charles River would come up that close, and
there's still a piece of the dock where they would
come up.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Yes, it's amazing to see that because it was built
right on the water of the Charles River.
Speaker 9 (18:27):
Yeah, and they would bring patients, they would bring patients up.
I just I love that they still that they have
preserved that spot.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
And Etherdome is tremendous on the top floor of that
and mess General is terrific. The Paul Russell Museum on
Cambridge Street is well worth seeing. It's free and great
museum of medical innovations.
Speaker 9 (18:47):
That's the new one with the that's all glass, Yes,
yes glass. Yes, I've been in there once, but I've
actually brought I'm a nurse, I worked in many many
years and i've and I keep periodically bringing younger nurses
to the Ethodome, you know, to visit because it.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
Really is really and in the next building they have
some of the old ambulances.
Speaker 5 (19:11):
And other things.
Speaker 9 (19:12):
Oh that I don't know if.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
You're able to get in, if the members of the
public can't, but if you have a if you can
get in, because they have amb so to the building
to the right as you're looking at the Bullfinch building.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
I've never been to the Etherdome. You've not been, Can
either or both of you tell me what it's like
and what do you have to do to get in?
Speaker 4 (19:32):
I don't know what you have to do to get
in expert if you go in with If you go
to the Paul Russell Museum and arrange a tour, they
will take you there. And lucky enough to have tours
with a gentleman who is an intern a resident at
Mass General in nineteen fifties and went on to have
a long distinguished career in medicine. But he would take
us there and they still use it for training. But
it's like a theater and it's built at the very
(19:53):
top of the building. They built the operating theater there
a so they've had of a skylight that would let
in light. Also so it would be far enough away
from the other patients so they wouldn't hear their screens.
As you were saying, this was built in the eighteen twenties.
Ether isn't introduced in the eighteen forties, and most people
would die of the shock of an operation. But ether
(20:15):
is such. There's an ether monument in the public garden.
In every October there is Ether Day when doctors and
nurses from Mass General go to commemorate this innovation.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
I didn't think they had anesthetic in the Civil War,
but I guess they did, but they just didn't have
enough of it probably not enough of it.
Speaker 9 (20:31):
Yeah, and in this particular and correctly if I'm wrong,
but this is my recollection. The dome. You had described
that they had sunlighting because of the dome, but the
dome was actually open so that there was ventilation because
they were, you know when as they were using the ether,
and apparently the first operation that was performed using ether
(20:55):
as an anesthetic was done in that in that in
the ether dome.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
And there's a fairly they.
Speaker 9 (21:01):
Have photos, Yes, that's it. They have photographs and paintings
documenting with pictures of the surgeons in street clothes. Yes,
just barely washing their hands.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
That was another innovation that happens in the eighteen fifties,
the idea of washing your hands.
Speaker 5 (21:20):
Yeah, we can think.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
Another thing they have up there is a mummy because
they brought over an Egyptian mummy, thinking we can put
the mummy on tour. People will pay to see the
mummy and that will be a way of raising money
for the hospital.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
So now I understand why I looked up why they
felt it was okay to have a big hole in
the roof and still do surgery. The theory of right Geram.
There was the Louis Pasteur in the mid nineteenth century.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
Yeah, Oliver Wendell Holmes in the eighteen fifties wrote an
article about doctors should wash their hands. He was actually
looking at women getting purpurle fever and dying in childbirth.
And if you have your baby early in the day,
you're probably gonna live. Later in the day probably not.
And he ties it to your the same doctor as
attending them, and he doesn't wash his hands. And a
(22:06):
lot of doctors when they get this idea that we
should wash our hands, but this is nonsense. Why just
should we wash our hands?
Speaker 2 (22:12):
I tell you what, I'm glad I did not live
then it's all my what a terrible mess. Thanks, so,
you know, Karen, I love it just speaking with you,
and I love hearing from all you. You're so nice.
Anyone else six one seven two five. It's fun to call, right, Karen, Yes,
it is.
Speaker 9 (22:30):
Thank you very much to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Okay, Well, we'll spend some more time with Bob Allison
after this on BEZ.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
You're on night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's
news radio.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
It's great to have you with us on night Side
with Dan. Right, I'm Bradley j for Dan tonight and
we're talking Boston history. We're doing like a deep dive,
drilled down on some of our more popular historical sites.
I have a story to share with you that involves
meat Loaf and Feneral Hall. And that's a little tease there. Yeah, Meatloaf,
(23:05):
the guy in the band. And then after that, Bob Allison,
our guest, is gonna give us some actual history. And
the number is six one, seven, two, five, ten thirty
if you would like to join us, and it's wonderful
to see that some folks do want to join us. Bob,
let's talk to Al in Quincy first and we will
get to Pennel Hall and the Meatloaf story. Hi, al.
Speaker 10 (23:30):
Hi, how are you today?
Speaker 7 (23:31):
We are well, that's good.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
I enjoy your show.
Speaker 7 (23:35):
I love history.
Speaker 10 (23:37):
So I'm calling to let you know a little something
that you may not know. And the reason I'm saying
this is because I participated in it. So okay, in
front of you know where the Ben Franklin statue is
down near the Ruth Chris Steakhouse, which would be the
old Boston City Hall. So long story shot, I'm in
the crane business. My name is My nickname is Ali.
(23:58):
I own a business called Ali Cat Brain Service. I'm
one of the Shaughnesses. My father was Shaughnessy and her
and the riggers. It moves all kinds of stuff all
over the place. Anyhow, the Ben Ben Franklin statue had
gotten blown over by the wind some little wind events
some years ago, just before COVID.
Speaker 7 (24:16):
They shipped that.
Speaker 10 (24:17):
They shipped the statue to out. They brought it back
and we brought in my mini crane to hoist it
back into place. And it was about seven o'clock in
the morning, and I'm running the mini crane and as
I'm getting ready to lift up Ben Franklin, it dawned
on me that we couldn't put bang Brent Franklin back
up on top of his granted pedestal until we put
(24:39):
one hundred dollar bill underneath it. And so the rigor
is the riggers that I was working with from Shaughnessy
and Her and said, what are you talking about? Ally,
I said, you guys, this is the only opportunity we're
ever going to have to put one hundred dollar bill
underneath Ben Franklin. I mean, who has one hundred dollar bill?
I don't have one out. So I had two fifty
(25:01):
dollar bills and I said to a young apprentice it
was seven in the morning. I said, run across the street.
Please over to the park House Hotel.
Speaker 7 (25:09):
Go up to the.
Speaker 10 (25:09):
Counter at the desk and tell him exactly.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
What you want.
Speaker 10 (25:13):
One hundred dollar bill, not twenties, not tens. Give him
these two fifties, and he gives them a hundred dollar bill.
Bring it over. I had a tuni for sandwich and
a ziplock bag. I threw away the tunif for sandwich.
I put one hundred dollar bill in a ziplock bag.
My business God. We all signed it. And then the
person that worked on the statue is like, well, can
(25:33):
I put something in there too?
Speaker 7 (25:34):
I said sure, So he put his god.
Speaker 10 (25:37):
Into my little tuni for his ziplock bag, and we
placed it underneath Ben Franklin. So if anybody get Ben Flanklin,
they can get that hundred dollar bill there.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
That's actually Boston's oldest statue. Yeah, the Beast statue is
put up in eighteen fifty six, one hundred and fifty
years after Franklin's birth. He was born around the corner.
That is a great story, and of course frank and
is on the hont What a great idea to think
of that.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
That is something that no one knows. Tell this moment, I.
Speaker 7 (26:07):
Was, no one knows.
Speaker 10 (26:08):
So I was standing on the corner like six months
later working on the old Shaman Bank built and running
one of my cranes, Ali Kakhrane and the Taralli comes
along and he stopped at the light there and he's
describing all these different historical things and I'm looking over
over the people. I go, did he tell you about
the hundred dollar bill underneath Ben Franklin? And the driver
(26:29):
spins around one hundred dollar bill on.
Speaker 7 (26:31):
The Ben Frankly.
Speaker 10 (26:32):
I go, I put a hundred dollar bill underneath Ben.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
That's just about the coolest thing ever. And I'm very
glad that you shared that with us at this time.
That's tremendous.
Speaker 10 (26:42):
Well, I'm glad I called him too. I enjoy I
enjoy the history. I love the story about the molasses pot.
I just happened to have read that recently as well.
And pretty fascinating. I am pretty fascinating stuff. My father
has been gone for years, but he was a rigor
in Boston and he told us stories about, you know,
taking weapons and guns for the war effort. He was
(27:06):
a young man and they would have to rig him
to the top of buildings for anti aircra you know,
for the war effort. And they didn't have cranes that reached,
so they used to hoist them up by by rope
and winch.
Speaker 5 (27:17):
If you believe it's amazing.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
It's amazing to think about that, and how they built
the Bunker Hill monument before the age of cranes.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
How did they do that?
Speaker 10 (27:29):
That's right, Quincy Granted And I happened to live in
the Quincy Granted city, right.
Speaker 5 (27:35):
My wife grew up in Quincy.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
And the first railroad in the railway in the country
was built to bring the blocks of granite from the
quarries down to the four River to put on boats.
They're down to the water to ship them to Charlestown.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
O great story.
Speaker 10 (27:50):
I really appreciate thanks, thank you very much for your time,
you guys, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Of course. Now we're going to talk to Steve in
New Hampshire. But he's only been on all for four minutes.
We squeezed the Fannel Hall a couple of fings. I'll
give my little dumb story about Quincy Market. The only
thing I can bring to the conversation about Quincy Market
is I introduced I MC an event where meat Loaf
(28:16):
played there. And the interesting part about that is, prior
to that event, we went to the Blue Diner. I
went with meat Loaf and his entourage. And at the
Blue Diner, Meatloaf actually ate meat loaf and I ate
meat loaf too, so I ate meatloaf with meat loaf.
(28:36):
And then we went to Quincy Market. Now, but give
us some legit history about that area.
Speaker 5 (28:44):
Well.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
Faniel Hall was the city's meat market and produce market
and Quincy. It was built in the eighteen seventeen forties
and then expanded in eighteen oh six and then by
the eighteen twenties Mayor just say Quinsy who wanted to
modernize the city, and Mayor Quinsy is still called the
Great Mayor. He served six terms until he was voted out.
(29:06):
Those are a mayor's term then was one year. But
he built Quincy Market, which he wanted to call the
Fanuel Hall marketplace. Officially that is what it is. He
didn't think his name should be on a public building,
so Mayor Quinsy, of course he does have a connection
with the city of Quinsy. That's where his family is from.
The family the town city is named for the Quinsy family.
(29:27):
So he built this as a modern market place for
the city and it remained the city's meet and produce
market into the nineteen sixties when Boston was really in
a state of decline. And so it's really that building.
The center building where you introduced meatloaf was built by
the city. The two buildings on either side were built
by private investors as an expanded meat market. Also on
(29:51):
the waterfront, Fanuel Hall had been the waterfront. The waterfront
has extended out to the end of Quincy Market.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (29:57):
So that's right.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
The water was right there, and you know that if
you go there because since etched in, yes recently etched
into the pavement, you can see little fishes and that
used to be right.
Speaker 5 (30:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
Ross Miller marked out the waterfront in front of the
Samuel Adams statue and.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Mayor Kevin White statues. That's still there.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
It is still there, Mayor Kevin White statue there.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Okay, Steve in New Hampshire, you're on WBZ.
Speaker 7 (30:25):
Hi, I love your discussion tonight to both of you.
I used to work at one Beacon and I used
to walk up from downtown, crossing up School Street, and
I believe wasn't it the old Statehouse that was on
the right as you were going up the street?
Speaker 4 (30:40):
There, my correct, on that School Street, that's the old
City Hall. There was the city Hall from the eighteen
sixties until the new City Hall that Bradley loved so
much was built in the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 7 (30:52):
Ah, and well, that's interesting. I thought, that's what it was.
It wasn't quite certain the new funny story, the new
new City Hall, as you want to call it, a
new city Hall. We lived in andover and one of
the architects I don't know if you know, Amil Herval,
but he was apparently he was a member of our
(31:14):
church and he was one of the architects for that
new city Hall.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
Okay, yeah, and architect. I loved the building. It's a
great architectural achievement. I'm not a fan. It has been
the landmarked so because it when it passed its fiftieth
year it opened. It was actually Mayor Collins who oversaw
the building up. But he wanted to show this is
a new Boston. In the old days, you would get
(31:38):
a contract to build a city building by bribing someone.
In this case, he had a panel of architects choose
the winning design. And the story is that Mayor Collins
was going to then unveil the winning design he had
never seen and they have this at the Boston Public
Library and the model is underneath a sheet and he
pulls off the sheet and he gasps and says, we've
(31:59):
got to kill this thing. That's the ugliest thing I've
ever seen. And his say says, no, mister Mayor, you're
committed to this process. So it is built and he
moves in very briefly. In January of nineteen sixty eight,
it would have been when may Or White is then
going to become mayor, and pretty much every mayor since
is thought this was a mistake. In fact, Marty Walsh,
when he announced he was running for mayor, said we're
(32:20):
going to blow up city Hall.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Well, Steve, thanks a lot, thanks Steve. So we have
about fifteen more minutes, and we have a Jack in
Dorchester and Daryln New Runswick, and we'll get right to
you after this.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
On w b Z Night Side with Dan Ray on
WBZ Boston's news.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Radio, We're talking Boston area history with our great guest,
professor Bob Allison from Suffolk University. And we have Jack
and Darryl in New Runswick and Frank on the phone,
and we'll try to get to all three of you
before we get to the top of the hour, so
start right away. And this is Jack and Dorchester.
Speaker 7 (32:54):
Hello, Jack, Hey, how you doing.
Speaker 11 (32:58):
One quick comment by uncle was on the Boston timent
during the Great Molassus Flood.
Speaker 6 (33:06):
Wow wow yeah.
Speaker 11 (33:09):
And also what I wanting to talk about the Great
Boston Fire. I believe it was eighteen seventy seven.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
Eighteen seventy two, destroyed the area roughly between South Station
and Old South Meetinghouse. That whole area was destroyed in
this fire. And two problems, a number of problems. They
had granite explodes, buildings had mansard roofs, these timbers that
(33:36):
were soaking in kerosene and that helped the fire spread.
And there was an epidemic of flu among horses, so
the horses couldn't pull. Also, there wasn't enough water pressure.
So it really was a disaster that could have been worse.
And it does lead to a better fire signal system
in the city. After a Chief Damrail was the fire
(33:59):
chief at the time. There's actually a good video Damrell's
Fire that is really a great documentary about the Great
Fire of eighteen seventies that was Boston's financial center too.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Thanks Jack. Thanks Now it's Daryl in Brunswick.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
Hi, Darryl, Hey, Bradley and Bob. Hopefully things are going well.
You're you're very informative as well.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Well. Thanks. What would like to check that well?
Speaker 3 (34:29):
That fire issue reference how change is made?
Speaker 7 (34:32):
Right?
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Yes, my recollection is in the past. You had a
boxer down there named Sear back in the early turn
of the century.
Speaker 7 (34:43):
How do you spell it, see y r.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
Well, he used to be a lumber Well, he was
a lumberjack at one time, and he had such natural
strength that I think Boston might have been one of
the fights I recalled where they went sixty or one
hundred rounds could be.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
I mean, that was a tough in. The Matthews Arena,
which I think Northeastern is about to do something with
that was built as a boxing arena in nineteen ten
and John Sullivan, John L. Sullivan used to go there
and greet the fighters and bare knuckles. Those guys were
really tough.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
So Louis Seer. It was a French Canadian strong man
and he was born in October eighteen sixty three, and
so you're right. Yeah, he was a former International Fitness
Bodybuilding Federation chairman, et cetera. So there you go.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
Because of the reason I'm saying is Boston, the history
possibly with this is they may be because of those rounds,
the amount of rounds and the punishment these guys were
taking went to fifteen rounds.
Speaker 6 (35:58):
Interesting, I'm just saying that was a fight. There went
one rounds, he said, sixty rounds.
Speaker 7 (36:03):
Sixty rounds.
Speaker 4 (36:03):
And I know the John L. Sullivan and the Patty
O'Ryan fight went, I don't know, fifty rounds, something sixty
round I would.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Think everyone would be bored and give up and go home.
Speaker 4 (36:12):
Oh no, see, guys, if you guys started punching each other,
people would really be tuning in for a while.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Yeah, until after a couple hours of people beaten.
Speaker 5 (36:22):
Teddy Roosevelt was a boxer.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Of course he was, of course he was. Well, thank
you very much for that, Darryl and new in New Brunswick,
and now we go back, come back to Boston here
and talk to Frank Hi Frank.
Speaker 8 (36:35):
Hello, good conversation to Back Bay Beacon Hill. How tall
was Beacon Hill? That they were a will get all
that land and spread out a question.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
So the back Mountain.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
If you stand go behind the State House and see
the Bullfinch monument with the Eagle on it, that's how
tall Beacon Hill was. There was another hill to the
east of it where one be in is now. That
was Mount Pemberton. And then to the west there was
another hill that was the only name I've seen for
it is Mount Horeedom. That was on the west. That's
why it's called the Trimount because there are these three peaks.
(37:11):
But the dirt from the fills in the Back Bay
mainly came from the town of Needham, which is west
of the Boston. They had a railway train that would
every forty five minutes would bring a lot of gravel
in to fill in the back Bay land. The Beacon
Hill dirt was taken down first decade of the nineteenth
century to fill in the mill pond, the area or
(37:33):
near Causeway Street, the Bullfinch triangle, and so that was
Beacon Hill. Mount Pemberton probably went to fill in the
area in front of Fanuel Hall. So all of that
is landfill around the Boston Harbor side of the town.
I mean, so much of Boston is built on landfill,
and there wasn't enough just from taking down the hills
(37:55):
to fill in the back bay.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Is it sinking? You'd think that artificially introduced dirt would sink.
Speaker 4 (38:03):
Well, no, it doesn't seem to be. And the buildings
in the back bay are all built on piling. So
Arlington Street Church is on about nine hundred and ninety
nine of these oak piling. If they are exposed to air,
they rot very quickly. If they're underwater, they're fine. So
if you're in one of these houses on the flat
of the hill or in the back bay and you
(38:23):
get some of a leak so the water table falls,
you're in big trouble.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Because you'd never be able to replace those.
Speaker 5 (38:32):
Well you could. It takes me, costs a lot of money.
Speaker 8 (38:35):
And I hear the earthquake, the spout feneris sink like
quick snate it could.
Speaker 4 (38:41):
I mean we do have tremors here. I mean we've
experienced a few tremors of late a serious earthquake, you know,
I guess we have bigger we have early big problems everywhere.
Speaker 5 (38:52):
Thanks Frank.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
I was just picturing the train bringing in load after
load after load of dirt. How long, just like in
five seconds, semi how long it took to.
Speaker 4 (39:06):
From the eighteen fifties until the eighteen nineties.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
So it's forties. Imagine being the being having the last
load come in. Here it comes, here comes guys, the
last load.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
Yes, such, Okay, we're done. From Arlington Street to Kenmore Square.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
All right, thank you so much. Wonderful guest Bob Allison,
Professor at Suffolk University, and thanks to all of you
for joining in on the celebration of Boston culture in
Boston history. It was it was great. Next guest is
Doug Arion. We're going to talk about maybe nuclear power
being an option, and we're going to get a call
from Ukraine at the eleven o'clock hour to talk about
(39:44):
what life is really like in a war zone like that.
It's WBZ and we're really happy to have you with us.
Remember the number to call in is six one, seven, two, five,
four ten thirty. Write that number down. Thanks Bob.
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