Scollay Square (c. 1838–1962) was a city square in downtownBoston,Massachusetts. It was named forWilliam Scollay, a prominent local developer andmilitia officer who bought a landmark four-story merchant building at the intersection of the Cambridge andCourt Streets in the year 1795. Local citizens began to refer to this intersection as Scollay's Square, and, in 1838, the city officially memorialized the intersection as the Scollay Square. Early on, the area was a busy center of commerce, includingdaguerreotypist (photographer)Josiah Johnson Hawes (1808–1901) and Dr.William Thomas Green Morton, the firstdentist to useether as ananaesthetic.
As early as the 1950s city officials had been mulling plans to completely tear the Square down and redevelop the area. Eventually more than 1,000 buildings were demolished and 20,000 residents were displaced. With $40 million in federal funds, the city built an entirely new development there,Government Center.
Scollay Square was located "at the junction ofTremont and Court streets,Cornhill andTremont Row". Initially the city designated itPemberton Square, but changed the name to "Scollay Square" when Phillips Square changed its own name to "Pemberton Square". The building that gave the area its name, Scollay's Building, was the last remnant of a once-larger group of buildings: "at one time a wedge-shaped row of wooden buildings, extending from the head of Cornhill to opposite the head of Hanover street, separated Tremont row from Court street (see Bonner's map, 1722); at the southeasterly end the second schoolhouse in the town was erected, 1683-84; at various times portions of these buildings were removed, leaving only the Scollay brick building, supposed to have been built by Patrick Jeffrey, who came into possession in 1795; named for William Scollay, an apothecary... removed about 1870."[1]
Among the most famous (and infamous) of Scollay Square landmarks was theOld Howard Theatre, a grand theater which began life as the headquarters of aMilleriteAdventist Christian sect which believed the world would end in October 1844. After theworld failed to end on schedule, the building was sold in 1844 and reopened as avaudeville andShakespearean venue. Later, in the 1900s and 1910s, it would showcase the popularminstrel shows.[2]
By around the 1940s the Scollay Square area began to lose its vibrant commercial activity, and the Howard gradually changed its image and began to cater to sailors on leave and college students by includingburlesque shows, as did other nearby venues such as the Casino Theater andCrawford House. "Always Something Doing" became the Old Howard's advertising slogan. The venue also showcasedboxing matches with boxers includingRocky Marciano,[3] and continued to featureslapstick vaudeville acts, from likes ofThe Marx Brothers andAbbott and Costello.[4]
But it was the success and prominence of the burlesque shows that brought the Old Howard down. In 1953,vice squad agents snuck ahome movie camera into the Old Howard, and caught Mary Goodneighbor on film doing herstriptease for the audience. The film led to the closure of the theater, and it remained closed until it caught fire mysteriously in 1961.
The square was also the home ofAustin and Stone's Dime Museum.
To mark the 250th anniversary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the sculptorRichard Saltonstall Greenough was commissioned to create a bronze sculpture ofJohn Winthrop, the first Governor of the state. The statue was installed in September 1880.
Scollay Square was also a flashpoint for the earlyabolition movement. AuthorWilliam Lloyd Garrison was twice attacked by anangry mob for printing his anti-slavery newspaperThe Liberator, which began publication in 1831.Sarah Parker Remond's first act ofcivil disobedience occurred in 1853 at the Old Howard when she was refused the seat she had purchased but was instead seated in the'black' section. Many of the buildings in the area in and around Scollay Square had hidden spaces where escaped slaves were hidden, as part of theUnderground Railroad.
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By the end ofWorld War II, Scollay Square had deteriorated into a shanty town and ared-light district. The Old Howard had become an increasingly tawdryburlesque establishment.
As early as the 1950s, city officials had been mulling plans to completely tear down and redevelop the Scollay Square area, in order to remove lower-income residents and troubled businesses from the aging and seedy district. Attempts to reopen the sullied Old Howard by its old performers had been one of the last efforts against redevelopment; but with the theater gutted by fire, a city wrecking ball began the project of demolishing more than 1,000 buildings in the area; 20,000 residents were displaced.
The city offered to give any demolished materials to anyone who could load and take away a full dump truck load. The materials included street paving blocks (Belgian blocks quarried inQuincy), granite, lintels, and bricks.
With $40 million in federal funds, the city built an entirely new development on top of old Scollay Square, renaming the areaGovernment Center, and peppering it with city, state, and federal government buildings:Boston City Hall,City Hall Plaza,Government Service Center, and theEdward W. BrookeCourthouse.
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42°21′34″N71°03′34″W / 42.35944°N 71.05944°W /42.35944; -71.05944
