Scollay Square was located "at the junction of
Tremont and Court streets,
Cornhill and
Tremont Row". Initially the city designated it
Pemberton 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."
Culture Old Howard Theatre Among the most famous (and infamous) of Scollay Square landmarks was the
Old Howard Theatre, a grand theater which began life as the headquarters of a
Millerite Adventist Christian sect which believed the world would end in October 1844. After the
world failed to end on schedule, the building was sold in 1844 and reopened as a
vaudeville and
Shakespearean venue. Later, in the 1900s and 1910s, it would showcase the popular
minstrel shows. 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 including
burlesque shows, as did other nearby venues such as the Casino Theater and
Crawford House. "Always Something Doing" became the Old Howard's advertising slogan. The venue also showcased
boxing matches with boxers including
Rocky Marciano, and continued to feature
slapstick vaudeville acts, from likes of
The Marx Brothers and
Abbott and Costello. But it was the success and prominence of the burlesque shows that brought the Old Howard down. In 1953,
vice squad agents snuck a
home movie camera into the Old Howard, and caught Mary Goodneighbor on film doing her
striptease 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 of
Austin and Stone's Dime Museum.
John Winthrop Statue To mark the 250th anniversary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the sculptor
Richard Saltonstall Greenough was commissioned to create a bronze sculpture of
John Winthrop, the first Governor of the state. The statue was installed in September 1880.
Abolitionism Scollay Square was also a flashpoint for the early
abolition movement. Author
William Lloyd Garrison was twice attacked by an
angry mob for printing his anti-
slavery newspaper
The Liberator, which began publication in 1831.
Sarah Parker Remond's first act of
civil 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 the
Underground Railroad.
Destruction and redevelopment and Mayor
John F. Collins in the 1960s holding plans to build Government Center in place of Scollay Square By the end of
World War II, Scollay Square had deteriorated into a shanty town and a
red-light district. The Old Howard had become an increasingly tawdry
burlesque 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 in
Quincy), 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 area
Government Center, and peppering it with city, state, and federal government buildings:
Boston City Hall,
City Hall Plaza,
Government Service Center, and the
Edward W. Brooke Courthouse. ==In popular culture==