Jul

3

The Boulevard of Broken Limbs

Posted by nathanael. Filed Under photos 

2009 marks the 100th anniversary of the Albert Kahn-designed Packard Building in Packard’s Corner, Allston. The history of this location makes for some interesting reading over at the Brighton Allston Historical Society. It’s a surprisingly modern story about the transition between different transportation types & the resulting safety issues. In 1909 the Packard family shifting from breeding horses to building cars.

As early as 1885, John D. Packard and his sons Albion and Herman started a successful sales stable and riding school on a site to the west of the Packard Building, on Brighton Avenue. Between 1885 and 1920, this equine oriented enterprise sold more than 250,000 thoroughbred saddle horses.

The building Kahn designed replaced those stables with one of the first “all under one roof” auto manufacturing facilities in the country. He would go on to build many larger but similar structures in Detroit for Ford and General Motors. This period also included the introduction of the first electric streetcars down Commonwealth Ave. If I’m interpreting this map of horse drawn streetcars correctly this wasn’t replacing existing service which ran further south on Beacon.

The safety issues introduced by cars were a major concern prior to the opening of Storrow Drive in the early 1950’s, ergo the nickname “The Boulevard of Broken Limbs”. From the Brighton Item, in 1948 (again via BAHS)

“Something has to be done with Commonwealth Avenue, the broad and landscaped parkway that is perhaps Allston-Brighton’s handsomest thoroughfare and undoubtedly its most lethal one. Multi laned, well paved, and alluring to the motorist made fretful by the cold molasses in Boston’s ever cooking traffic jam, it is the Circe of highways.”

Too many lanes, too high speed, excessive injuries and fatalities? This sounds like something out of a liveable streets discussion on Streetsblog today. If you’re interested in more modern Boston-area transportation blogs, here’s a few I’ve been reading off & on: Mass Transport, Newton Streets and Sidewalks, Boston Biker & Car Free with Kids.

Post to Twitter

< | | | >

Comments

Leave a Reply