Scollay Square Was Boston’s Rowdiest Neighborhood Before It Became City Hall Plaza
Burlesque at the Old Howard, sailors on leave, and then more than 1,000 buildings torn down for Government Center.
Scollay Square was Boston’s entertainment district for more than a century, and it disappeared almost overnight. Today the same ground is Government Center and City Hall Plaza.
Where was Scollay Square?
It sat where Cambridge and Court Streets meet, on the spot now covered by City Hall Plaza. The name comes from William Scollay, a developer and militia officer who bought a building at that corner in 1795. The city made the name official in 1838.
What was the Old Howard?
The Old Howard was the square’s most famous theater. Its building started out as the headquarters of the Millerites, a religious group that expected the world to end in October 1844. When it didn’t, the building was sold and reopened as a theater.
It changed with the times:
- vaudeville and Shakespeare in the 1800s
- minstrel shows in the 1900s and 1910s
- burlesque by the 1940s, which is what most people remember
In 1953 the vice squad filmed a striptease, and the Old Howard was shut down. A mysterious fire hit the building in 1961.
Why was Scollay Square torn down?
By the end of World War II, the square had a reputation as a run-down red-light district, and city leaders wanted it gone. Redevelopment plans took shape in the 1950s. More than 1,000 buildings came down and about 20,000 people were displaced.
What’s there now?
Government Center, built with $40 million in federal money: Boston City Hall, City Hall Plaza, the Government Service Center and the Edward W. Brooke Courthouse. City Hall Plaza is where many of the city’s free events happen now.
For the neighborhood that took over as the city’s adult district, read about the Combat Zone.
Sources: Wikipedia: Scollay Square.
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