Boston's Red Line (eBook)

In the fall of 1897, over 250 baseball fans from Roxbury, Massachusetts, traveled to Baltimore with saloon keeper Nuf-Ced McGreevy and Pres. John F. Kennedy's future grandfather Honey-Fitz Fitzgerald to cheer their Beaneaters to the pennant. They became known famously as the Royal Rooters. Singing their fight song, 'Tessie,' they cheered on five world champion teams in the early 1900s. When Babe Ruth was sold to the Yankees after 1919, 'Tessie' all but disappeared from Fenway. A new generation of Fenway Faithful suffered through decades of heartbreak until 'Tessie' returned in 2004 to deliver another world title. In the course of a century, the original group of rooters has grown into a legion of fans known as Red Sox Nation. Boston's Royal Rooters chronicles the rich tradition of Boston's pioneering fans like Nuf-Ced, Honey-Fitz, and Lib Dooley, 'the Queen of Fenway Park,' and examines through rare images their influence on modern-day fans.

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When the Boston Elevated Railway Company broke ground for the Cambridge Subway in May 1909, its intention was to provide the cities of Boston and Cambridge with the finest and most efficient rapid-transit system of the time. Other cities, such as New York and Philadelphia, paid close attention, adopting many of the Cambridge Subway's revolutionary design features. The subway became known as the Red Line and eventually extended from Cambridge across the Charles River through Boston, serving Dorchester, Braintree, and Mattapan.Boston's Red Line: Bridging the Charles from Alewife to Braintree details one of Boston's oldest and busiest subway lines. This nostalgic collection of vintage photographs documents the line's construction and its engineers and leaders, such as Maj. Gen. William A. Bancroft, mayor of Cambridge and president of the Boston Elevated Railway Company. In these pages, watch as crews break ground in Harvard and Andrew Squares and see the 1929 trolleys that replaced Mattapan's commuter train service. Through exciting, historic photographs, Boston's Red Line: Bridging the Charles from Alewife to Braintree tells the fascinating story of how the Crimson City's subway became the modern Red Line, taking passengers beneath the streets of Boston to landmarks such as Harvard Square, Massachusetts General Hospital, historic Park Street, and the Longfellow Bridge.