This is mainly for Bostonians, or previous residents of Boston, but you all are welcome to eavesdrop.
I was in the Kenmore MBTA station tonight, looking at the local street map installed inside the station. I think this was installed when the Green Line was upgraded in the 1970s, when I was still in college, and so it is a bit out of date. The current "mistakes" in the map reflect the growth and changes in the academic and medical complex in the Longwood area.
There are some names that are unchanged, mainly the colleges and schools -- Wheelock, Simmons, Emmanuel, Winsor, Boston Latin, Harvard Medical School.
But there are some that no longer exist, in name or at all -- Hospital of the House of the Good Samaritan; Peter Bent Brigham Hospital; Jimmy Fund Research Lab; State Teachers College of Boston; Boston English High School; New England Deaconess Hospital; Beth Israel Hospital; Sears Roebuck and Company; Children's Hospital Medical Center; Boston Lying Inn Hospital; Joslin Clinic.
Today, these hospitals are Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; Brigham and Women's Hospital; Dana Farber Cancer Institute; Children's Hospital; Joslin Diabetes Center. And Sears is now the Landmark Center.
Some trivia, as noted by MASCO. The Longwood area is 213-acres formed by the Riverway, Fenway, and Huntington Avenue. More than 37,000 people work within this area, 15,000 students attend school here, and each year more than two million patients visit the area's hospitals for medical care. This small area generates over $3.4 billion in annual revenues. It is truly one of the economic engines of the city and regional economy.
... and apparently, it never stands still.
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15 comments:
Paul,
Thanks for the nostalgia. I got a sense of how much the area has changed and grown a week ago on an
early morning flight to somewhere. After taking off, the plane swung west and I started trying to see if I could pick out my house in Brookline. I oriented myself by the Pru and Hancock, the Christian Science Center but I was momentarily perplexed by this enormous mass of tall buildings--then I realized it was the Longwood area. With all the construction at HMS, Simmons,
the hospitals and pharma, the area is quite something from the sky!
"State Teachers College of Boston" became Boston State College, which was later abolished and combined with UMass-Boston. Mass. College of Art now occupies the former Boston State College building.
I know that Peter Bent Brigham and Boston Lying-In merged to form Brigham & Womens, while Beth Israel and Deaconness merged to forum the institution that you run. But what happened to Good Samaritan and the Jimmy Fund Lab?
And Boston English is now Harvard!! having attended Boston English in the seventies busing crisis I have only bad memories of that place.
I was parked in front of what must have been the original Boston Latin on Louis Pastuer today. I didn't know what the school was, but it's apparently part of Harvard Med now.
What I want to know is, what the heck is all that construction going to house? The whole area is just going wild with new buildings.
State of Thelma? (See last link of post.) Hope she's doing well... oh, I see.
I don't know about Good Sam. Jimmy Fund is now part of Dana Farber Cancer Institute.
And, right, English High is now Harvard Institutes of Medicine, a research lab building owned by HMS.
Next to it is the "New Research Building", owned by HMS and looking for a new name, i.e., a donor!
Behind that is the Center for Life Sciences building, a privately developed research building. Adjacent to it is the Merck research building and the Children's Hospital Karp research building.
It's amazing how things have changed here. I've lived in Boston all my life and am more than impressed at the development of the Longwood medical area. We are very lucky to have all this at our desposal.
Can you confirm that Beth Israel is the House of God?
I take it you are referring to the book of that name. If so, there are very strong reasons to believe the answer is "yes," but, as I am not the author, I cannot say so definitively.
I recently saw the same map in the subway station. Talk about memories:
I attended one of those high schools and my father taught history at the other one across the street for 34 years; my first child was born at Lying In; one of my brothers graduated from BLS and the other from English; my mother went back to school for a masters degree at Boston Teacher's College so she could return to teaching (in two schools now long gone in Roxbury); She had graduated from Girls Latin between Fenway Park and Longwood; I nearly died from post concussive complications at Peter Bent Brigham and on and on.
I see this post is a year old, but was searching family records about my grandmother (1929-2005). She was born at the "boston lying inn". Your post is informative.
I know this is two years + from the original post - But -
Boston (formerly "Boys") Latin School is still there on Louis Pasteur across from what was once English High (what happened to the football rivalry when English closed, I wonder) -- mistaking it as now "part of Harvard" makes me "LOL" because BLS always fancied itself such anyway. I believe it's been in that building since the 1920's.
The original building (from the 1600-1700s) is long gone now -- was downtown near King's Chapel and the Granary Burying Ground -- there's a small plaque.
I was reading the posts because I'm trying to figure out if "Boston Lying Inn" and "Boston Lying-In Hospital" are the same place. Anyone still reading here?
My mother attended the Robert Brent Brigham School of Nursing. Does anyone know what happened to that facility?
I am looking for records of births at Boston Lying Inn Hospital in 1957 - November specifically. I know it has become Brigham and Women's Hospital but I have been in contact with them and have been sent from source to source to source in six different trys - does anyone have any information that could help me?
The City of Boston has records of all births.
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