Built as the center of government for the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Old State House is the oldest surviving public building in Boston. It was built on the site of Boston's first Town House, which was completed in 1658 and subsequently burned in 1711. Following the Revolution, the building served as the seat of Massachusetts government until January 11, 1798, when all government functions migrated to the new State House was built on Beacon Hill. The Old State House is now home to the Old State House Museum, a project of The Bostonian Society. The Old State House is a site on the Freedom Trail.&nbsp;

ABOUT THE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS "The old state house, which dates from 1713, is historic in more ways than one. Not only was it, at various periods, the Capitol of Massachusetts, the City Hall of Boston, and the site of the Boston Massacre, but it was also a 19th-century attempt at a shopping center. Old State Mall, they’d call it today. You can see it tricked out with shop signs and ornaments in the older photo, as undignified as a puppy wearing a tutu. Indignity wasn’t the Old State House’s only problem. Twice it came near to being demolished. In 1826, patriots proposed to replace it with a pavilion containing a statue of George Washington -an early instance of the American preference for media versions of history over the real thing. And in 187 5, Chicago offered to remove it to the shores of Lake Michigan, to allow Boston to ‘improve’ its narrow streets. A private group formed, instead, and got the building restored as a museum of Boston history. That group, The Bostonian Society, still occupies it today. On October 15 the Old State House will formally reopen after a stem-to-stem restoration by architects Goody, Clancy &amp; Associates for the Park Service. Among its exhibits will be one on its own history, the checkered biography of a very American building." -Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker, "CITYSCAPES - The Old State House," Boston Globe, 4 October 1992

ABOUT THE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS "The old state house, which dates from 1713, is historic in more ways than one. Not only was it, at various periods, the Capitol of Massachusetts, the City Hall of Boston, and the site of the Boston Massacre, but it was also a 19th-century attempt at a shopping center. Old State Mall, they’d call it today. You can see it tricked out with shop signs and ornaments in the older photo, as undignified as a puppy wearing a tutu. Indignity wasn’t the Old State House’s only problem. Twice it came near to being demolished. In 1826, patriots proposed to replace it with a pavilion containing a statue of George Washington -an early instance of the American preference for media versions of history over the real thing. And in 1875, Chicago offered to remove it to the shores of Lake Michigan, to allow Boston to ‘improve’ its narrow streets. A private group formed, instead, and got the building restored as a museum of Boston history. That group, The Bostonian Society, still occupies it today. On October 15 the Old State House will formally reopen after a stem-to-stem restoration by architects Goody, Clancy &amp; Associates for the Park Service. Among its exhibits will be one on its own history, the checkered biography of a very American building." -Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker, "CITYSCAPES - The Old State House," Boston Globe, 4 October 1992

ABOUT THE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS Almost since there has been a Boston, there has been a State Street (or a Great Street or a King Street, to give it the two names it carried before the Revolution). Running from the Old State House down to the water and then, as Long Wharf, out into the harbor, State Street has never ceased to be the backbone of the city's business life. These views show it as it looked in about 1892 and as it looks today. The two most recognizable survivors are the Old State House and the Exchange Building. There have been a few improvements at the Old State House since 1892: Its tower has been painted a light color, and its cupola has been gilded. The Exchange (in the rear middle of both photos) is the first in a row of four turn-of-the century buildings that, taken together, give this part of State Street much of its character. The Exchange, designed in 1891 by Peabody and Stearns, unfortunately was shorn of its rear portion in 1981 to make room for the new mirror glass tower called Exchange Place, a glossy packaging job that is completely inappropriate to Boston. The second building in the row of four is the Worthington Building of 1894, a thin sliver of a building which, at 11 stories, is one of Boston's earliest steel-framed "skyscrapers." Then comes the marvelous Brazer Building rising right behind the Old State House cupola in the new photo. It was designed in 1896 by Cass Gilbert, who later designed the Woolworth Building in New York, for many years the world's tallest. The Brazer tells much about the pride and craftsmanship with which Boston's office buildings were once built. Its top two floors are treated as a loggia in the Italian Renaissance manner, with round, glass medallion windows punctuating a kind of wickerwork of stone detail that contains reed and floral motifs. At the skyline is a copper cornice with alternating spikes and shells. Down at street level, the Brazer lines the sidewalk with a dignified series of arches. Where the building curves at the comer, the glass in the windows curves, too. The fourth building in the row is the Easton Building of 1902, by Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, which now contains the Boston National Historic Park Visitor Center. A handsome structure, it is similar to the Brazer but lacks the Brazer's flair. Though none of these four buildings alone is an architectural stunner, together they are an important part of State Street. All have been included by the Boston Landmarks Commission in its Exchange District, an area of "significant" office buildings. They demonstrate that the character of a city isn't created so much by a few very special buildings as it is by plain but good groups like this. -Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker, "CITYSCAPES - All in a Row", Boston Globe, 29 September 1985

Old State House

 Professor of Urban Design Alex Krieger discusses the urban renewal of Boston from what it was to what it is today. 

Old State House

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