Maps: A Mappe of Colonel Römers Voyage to ye... (1700), Map of Plymouth, Kingston and Duxbury shewing landmarks of ye olde dayes (1929), Armour food source map [ca. 1950–1959], Peace map of the world united [1944?]

The result of Higginson and McKim’s hard work was widely celebrated. Isabella Stewart Gardner herself paid over a thousand dollars to acquire a seat at opening night. Here’s to many more years for the musical jewel of Boston!

To design the new hall, Higginson hired none other than Charles McKim, the architect of the BPL. Building a concert hall is no easy task! The designers even consulted a Harvard physics professor to ensure that the reverberations would be perfect.

Prior to 1900, the city’s musical center was the Boston Music Hall, today’s Orpheum Theater. However, Henry Lee Higginson, founder of the Symphony Orchestra, wanted to move out of the Music Hall into a place with better ventilation, farther away from Boston Common.

That’s right, Boston’s most prominent classical concert hall opened in October of 1900, to a widely celebrated reception! Located right on the intersection of Mass. Ave and Huntington, Symphony Hall is considered among the greatest concert halls in the world for its acoustic design.

Mini-Boston isn't just for professional planners! The model room is open to the public from 9 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday. You can visit the model room on the 9th floor of Boston City Hall. For more information, see buff.ly/Qnhq72H

Though it may be difficult to see why the city needs an itty-bitty version of itself, visualization is a key aid to good urban design. Even though computer graphics now allow for new forms of visualization, planners and designers still keep this physical model up-to-date with Boston's changing form.

The Boston Planning Department maintains a fully up-to-date basswood model of Boston. The 1:40-inch scale three-dimensional replica depicts downtown Boston proper and several surrounding neighborhoods.

Among the only remnants of the quaint 19th century neighborhood is the Sears Building, today facing the City Hall plaza, and filled with various shops and businesses. A particular standout among these is a large brass kettle hanging above a Starbucks. But you’ve heard that story from us before 😉

Notable figures like William Lloyd Garrison lived and worked in Cornhill, with his office as a notable stop in the Underground Railroad. Most of Cornhill was demolished during the Government Center project in the 1960s, and was replaced with space for government buildings, like City Hall.

Cornhill was home to the majority of Boston’s printing offices, bookshops, and all manner of utilities and services. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, it also hosted Boston’s largest newspapers, including the “Massachusetts Spy” during the Rev. War and, a century later, the Boston Globe.

Once upon a time, this neighborhood, called Cornhill, was centered around the intersections of Queen, King, and Cornhill Street. Doesn’t sound familiar? That’s because, after the Revolution, those streets were renamed to Court, State, and Washington, respectively.

Even though there’s no need to manually look up addresses today, the Blue Books still have a role to play as valuable documents for genealogical and historical study, thanks to their detailed insight into the names and lives of turn-of-the-century Bostonians.

But the Blue Books weren’t meant for just anyone. The “elite private address, carriage, and club directory” was marketed towards the upper class, as one could tell by looking at the ornate blue-gold cover. Boston at this time was highly segregated by class and social status.

However, the Boston Blue Book was not just a list of addresses. It contained indexed advertisements from all manners of shops, from locksmiths to clubs to breakfast cocoa vendors, as well as seating arrangements for the Boston’s premiere theaters.

At the time when the Blue Book was published, city maps became more common and more detailed, so many editions supplemented the addresses with an easier to navigate city plan.