Product Description

America's oldest major city, Boston has adapted to the modern age while still retaining an old-world charm. With many of her streets tracing original ox-cart paths to historic waterfronts, Boston is "America's Walking City." This volume documents the amazing changes that Boston has undergone during the last 150 years. Seventy modern color photographs are compared side-by-side with seventy archival photographs from the 1850s to the 1950s. While focusing on famous vistas and familiar landmarks, it also explores well-known neighborhoods. The Then and Now series includes: New York, Washington, Boston, and San Francisco.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #486820 in Books
• Brand: Thunder Bay Press
• Published on: 2002-05-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 144 pages

Customer Reviews

great coffee table book
Boston history lovers will enjoy this. Specific parts of Boston shown on one page in a historic photo and on the next in current day. Mostly buildings, intersections, and famous sites. Large pictures, nice descriptions that aren't too lengthy. Photo labels at the top corner of each new picture. A really nice book.

A good backstop to any trip to Boston's sites
We purchased this book in Boston and found almost all of the sites we saw in town in this book. In this book, the older, up to 150-year old photo of the original structures on the current site, or older pictures than offered a juxtaposition of the surrounding landscape of buildings present in the past and now around selected sites.

While I was a little disappointed in no picture of Fenway Park, or in a map to help locate where some of these pictures were taken in the city (after all, I'm not a native of Boston), I found the book to very ably support the exhibits we saw on Boston's history, and add greatly to my understanding of the city and the growth of urbanism in general. The architecture depicted is often unique, and the descriptions offer a bit of information on who the architects were, how the areas shown were constructed, and more.

Overall, I came out pretty pleased by what is found in this book.

Then and Now
The photographs in this book are good shots - clear, and larger than I had expected. It is very interesting to see how the historical city of Boston was, and how it has changed over the years, most times for the better, though sometimes for the worse.Perhaps I would get more out of this if I knew more about Boston. Unless you are already familiar with this city, then "Boston Then and Now" gives you the feeling of peeping through the windows of a house that's up for rent, rather than being taken on a guided tour. A map certainly would have been helpful, and how about an entire page of background information rather than a footnote? Just an idea, in case someone decides to revise it someday. Nice book. Worth buying.