Ghosts and Shadows of Automobile Row, with Ken Liss (episode 180)

Transcript

Music

Jake Intro:
[0:04] Welcome To Hub history, where we go far beyond the Freedom Trail to share our favorite stories from the history of Boston. The Hub of the universe.
This is Episode 1 80 Ghosts and Shadows of Automobile Row with Ken Liss. Hi, I’m Jake.
This week. Ken Liss is gonna tell us about an era when Comm Ave in Allston was the epicenter of the automotive business in Boston.
In the early 20th century, car dealerships, tire companies, parts distributors and other related businesses lined what was known as Automobile Row, a sort of urban forefather of the suburban auto Mile.
Ken is gonna tell us what made these early dealerships special, who some of the personalities behind automobile Row were and where you can see traces of this history Today.
Ken is the president of the Brooklyn Historical Society, and he writes and speaks frequently on local history, like our guest last week and our guest next week.
Ken was scheduled to speak it History Camp Boston on March 14th before the pandemic force it to move to July.
But before we talk about the car business on com EV, it’s time for this week’s Boston Book Club selection and our upcoming historical event.

[1:20] Our pick for the bust in Book Club this week is The Forgotten Aquariums of Boston by Jerry Ryan.
Originally published in 1995 this slim volume is a history of the aquariums in Boston that preceded today’s magnificent New England Aquarium.
It mostly focuses on the several incarnations of the Boston Aquarium Gardens, which opened in April 18 59.

[1:44] The preface to the third edition points out that just 85 years after Paul Revere’s famous ride, an entirely different kind of ride was taking place in the heart of Boston’s downtown crossing.
This ride was performed by a woman seated in a Nautilus shaped boat being pulled by a beluga whale through the largest tank in the first aquarium in the United States.
If you think that’s incredible, then keep reading. You’re about to unravel a complicated story featuring a brilliant inventor named Cutting,
and an infamous showbiz entrepreneur named Barnum, who managed to circulate 600,000 gallons of seawater from Boston Harbor to Boston Common without electricity.
The story begins with banjo playing gun toting harbor seals proceeds through a dent of serpents and without giving too much away features a tragic one way trip to an asylum, and this story doesn’t stop there.
The book recounts how P. T. Barnum gradually transformed Boston’s original aquarium gardens into more of a zoo before seizing control and turning it into one of his variety shows featuring attractions like General Tom Thumb and the Fiji Mermaid.

[2:56] Then, 50 years after Barnum’s aquarium closed up shop, the book covers a new aquarium based in South Boston and how that venture helped spawn today’s New England Aquarium.
The book’s heavily illustrated with historic photos, documents, illustrations, advertisements and Maur, and the whole thing runs to about 75 pages, not counting appendices.
The best part is that it’s available to download as a free PdF from the doing with aquarium website, so you don’t have to wait for the library to reopen or for Amazon to deliver. You can start reading today.

[3:30] Does this spring of social distancing have you missing sports? Well, you’re in luck, then.
Our first virtual event this week is a session with Red Sox historian Gordon Edes. Thanks to the Massachusetts Historical Society, bring your questions about the socks and baseball to this unique event.
The image just says.
Join Red Sox historian Gordon Needs in a virtual Q and A where we’ll take your questions on one of baseball’s most legendary and celebrated franchises.
Subscribers will get access to a curated list of videos from the MHS program archive to watch at home.
This content will help viewers engage with the Red Sox, Laura, head of the question and answer session.
The events free but advanced registration is required. After you register. You’ll get the link to join the Webinar as well. Liss links to the videos to review in advance, and I know it’s hard to believe that it’s already April.
But that’s what happens when the whole society stays endorse for a month.
With April who comes Patriots Day, one of the most important dates on Boston’s revolutionary calendar.
For many families, the reenactment on Lexington Green is a treasured part of their patriots day tradition.
But of course, large gatherings like that are for boating these days.
Luckily, the Lexington Historical Societies decided to take Patriots Day on mine.
They have a whole series of events plant from April 18th through the 25th.

[4:57] The whole thing starts out with a portrayal of Deborah Sampson, who dressed is a man to serve in the Continental Army.
On Saturday, April 18th Judith Cholera of History at play will transform herself first into Deborah Sampson and then into Robert Shirt Life, the name under which she enlisted in the Continental Army.
On Sunday, the 19th Children’s author, Jenny L. Coat will explain what happened on the original Patriots Day by reading selections from her book, The Declaration. The Sword in the Spy.
The highlight comes on April 20th when the famous battle in Lexington Green will be reenacted not on Lexington Green but instead on your computer screen.

[5:39] Many of us know the story of the Battle of Lexington that the plucky band of local militia faced off against the mighty British army on the town, comin on April 19th 17 75.
But what actually happened on the battle green that day and how did we get to that point?
Join the Lexington Historical Society for a deeper dive into the story of that day as they show their award winning short film First shot The day the Revolution began.
Following this viewing, local reenactors with experience recreating the battle will be available to answer your questions about the history of the battle, the context of the Revolutionary War and what it’s like to step back in time and relive the past.
Rounding off the program will be a performance by Diane Tara, says founder and leader of the Lexington Historical Society. Colonial Singers What will it be like to watch Patriots Day unfold on a laptop screen?
Check out this week’s show notes at Hub history dot com slash 180 for the links you need for that, as well as a link to Forgotten Aquariums of Boston, this week’s Boston Book Club pick.

Jake Of The Future:
[6:47] Hey, listeners, this is Jacob. The future from the editing room. Just pointing out that in this next sequence, I refer to Josh Clark of the stuff you should know podcast as Jock, and I apologize for that.

Jake Intro:
[7:01] Before I bring in Ken Liss, I just want to pause for a moment. It’s been funny to watch all our favorite shows make the transition to social distancing.
Late night talk show hosts first of their monologues and empty theatres, then from their living rooms and back yards.

Clips:
[7:17] Only people. The eyes right now are some members of my staff. Hi, guys.
Hi, Wanda. Honey, sit down over here. Okay, But I I Welcome to my bathroom. I’m your host, Stephen Colbert.
You’re watching a very special social distancing edition of the Late Show are, as I now call it, the Lather Show with Scrubbing Colbert.

Jake Intro:
[7:44] CNN correspondents have been giving updates from their basements.

Clips:
[7:47] A lot of news. CNN tonight, D lemon On top of all that, as always, What’s going on today? Something’s different about your set, is it?
Yeah. Merger’s worked on This are.

Jake Intro:
[8:02] Even big time podcast hosts like Jock and Chuck of stuff. You should know where Ira glass of this American life or having to adjust to bringing this studio ho.

Clips:
[8:10] I think everyone knows right now that we are now set up to record apart from one another. Yes, Chuck. Um, So my first question before we have to get serious is What are you wearing? I knew it.
We’ve all been holed up in her own homes. Everybody on the staff. We are one of the many businesses that have decided that it’s safer for everybody if we’re working from home.

Jake Intro:
[8:35] For us. Small time Indy podcasters. Not much has changed.
If I sound different this week, it’s because I’m not recording in my usual space.
I mean pandemic or not. I’m still usually podcasting from the same improvised vocal booth in the home office made out of a TV tray and an old moving pad.
But since I’ve been at the desk in that home office all day, every day for four weeks, I decided to mix things up today and go down the hall to the spare room.
Listen, my ask is a little bit different this week. America’s basically experienced all the job losses of the entire Great Depression within the past month.
If you still have a job and you can afford it, support a local history organization you have a connection with or a historic site, donate to a food pantry, get takeout from a local restaurant or order a book from a local bookstore.
Once you’ve done all those things, if you still want to support what we do here at Hub history, we appreciate it to get started.
Just goto patriot dot com slash hub history or visit hub history dot com and click on the support link. Thanks a lot.
Now it’s time for this week’s main topic. Ken Liss is the head of instruction for the Boston University library system, and he’s an independent researcher with a strong interest in the history of what was once known as automobile row.

Jake Interview:
[10:01] Ken Liss, I just want to say welcome to the show.

Ken Liss:
[10:03] Thank you. Glad to be here?

Jake Interview:
[10:05] Can your the second of what I’m calling our history camp refugees. So you’re schedule.
You’re scheduled to speak in history. Can’t Boston in March, your topic was gonna be the ghosts and shadows of automobile row. And then, of course, history camp got delayed until July, thanks to Cove in 19.
Can you start out by just explaining where In Boston Automobile Row Waas and when it was at its peak.

Ken Liss:
[10:29] Well, it ran along Commonwealth Avenue from Kenmore Square.
Two more. Let’s Packard’s Corner, which is where Commonwealth Avenue makes a big turn to the left and brighten Evan.
You continue straight, although some of the automobile row,
businesses and buildings were around the bend or on Brighton Avenue as well, but mainly from Kenmore Square two to Packard Corner and, ah, it started more or less around 1910,
and continued to some extent and into the 19 eighties.
But really, the the heyday ended in the fifties and sixties.

Jake Interview:
[11:06] So who were some of the car makers who would have been represented on automobile row where there makes that we wouldn’t recognise today?

Ken Liss:
[11:13] Oh, so many Ah, one of the things that I learned as I was researching This is how many how many names and makes and models they were that I had never heard of before.
A swell Liss, many that we know very well. So, uh, Cadillac and Packard and Pierce Arrow some some no longer around but are fairly well known, but others that are still here to Chevrolet on many, many others.

Jake Interview:
[11:38] So if the automobile row is really getting rolling around 1910 that can’t be the first center of the automotive business in Boston. There there was a car industry for at least a few years before that. What?
Where was the auto, where we’re auto dealers coming from when they moved out to automobile row.

Ken Liss:
[11:56] Well, it an initially a lot of the auto dealers for in existing spaces that were not built specifically for automobile dealerships.
But, ah, the first kind of ah, center of the automobile trade was something called the Motor Mart in Park Square, which opened in 1906 a za large building that was home to multiple dealers.
And that was where Motor Mart still it still exists, and old Ah, newer building replaced it in later decades, and still there is at a hotel built on top of it.
But that was that was in many ways the first center, the most prominent of the locations where many dealers were gathered.

Jake Interview:
[12:41] So if the automobile industry in Boston was centered at first round Park Square, who starts first moving out Commonwealth Avenue.

Ken Liss:
[12:50] Well, the person probably most responsible for the growth of the Commonwealth Avenue Auto. Rowe was Alvin Teeth Fuller.
He wasn’t the first, but ah, he brought ah, new kind of auto dealership that really led to many changes, and he started,
in his hometown of Maldon as a bicycle dealer, later added automobiles in Mauldin and then established a business in Parks Square before the Motor Mart Open and then moved into the motor mart with, along with many other dealers.
But just three years after the opening of the Motor Mart in 1906 In 1909 he announced he was building a new facility on Commonwealth Avenue in Allston at what later became known.
It’s Packard’s Corner, and that was a very different kind of dealership and really opened up the way for the growth of the new automobile road.

Jake Interview:
[13:39] And so what makes were Alan Fuller’s selling at the time?

Ken Liss:
[13:42] Well, he sold a number of different cards. Initially, the Packard is what he was most known for.
He also sold a non mobile known as the Northern Ah. He added Cadillacs at one point as a more affordable alternative to Packard because which is kind of fun.
But that’s that’s it was Packard, So it was mainly what he was known for.

Jake Interview:
[14:04] So is Packard Corner named after the Packard motorcar, or is that just a coincidence?

Ken Liss:
[14:10] Well, uh, the stories that when I started researching this, I had heard and read in other places that it was called Packard Corner.
Before he established his business day, there was a man named Packard who had a stable in a riding school, not quite in the corner, but nearby.
I’ve kind of cast some doubt on that. I I haven’t seen any use of the term until 1941 so I I kind of doubt that it was actually named for this other Packard who was indeed in the area.
So I think it really was named for the backer dealership that Fuller established.

Jake Interview:
[14:46] Now I want to come back in just a second and talk more about that dealership.
But before I do, what made somebody like Alvin T.
Fuller want to move out to combat? Was it simply the fact that it was undeveloped space, or was there something about that area that was fertile ground for auto businesses?

Ken Liss:
[15:04] Well, I I think the undeveloped space was a big part of it.
Ah, the taxes were cheaper. It was further out some of the buildings, although not, uh, not not the Packard building that he built, some of them on the south side of Commonwealth Avenue. We’re in Brookline, not in Boston.
Um, but, uh, it was also a place where no, there was automobile traffic.
So it wasn’t as crowded as Park Square.
And you had people coming by both in automobiles and also on the the street cards so that the show rooms that were built along come both avenue had a lot of traffic where,
there, their wares could be seen. So that was a big part of it as well.

Jake Interview:
[15:50] Now you mentioned showrooms and you talked about Alvin Fuller’s Packard dealership being pretty unique.
And for most of us, when I think about buying my last car, I went out to the suburbs out to the current Auto Mile in Norwood and went to a big paved parking lot that had hundreds off like a Subaru is parked on it,
and then a small building sort of at the corner, where you would go in and talk to a salesman and talk to the finance person.
Try not to get ripped off too badly, but it sounds like the car dealerships of this period on the on automobile row on calm, ever very different from what we picture most car dealerships being like today.

Ken Liss:
[16:29] They really were. They they were really showcases in showrooms, and part of that was as the automobile was still relatively new, that, uh, people,
wanted assurance of quality of, ah, of luxury, of stability.
With so many car companies, they wanted to be sure that the company was continue would continue to be around.
So the facilities had showrooms with large plate glass windows where you could see the cars, but they were much more than that. They were really full service facilities with elaborate architecture.
The Packard building was designed by an architect named Albert Kahn, who was quite a well known architect. He did a lot of work for Henry Ford, including the famous River Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan.
Ah and many others was said in the 19 thirties, that of the about 1/5 of the industrial buildings in the U. S. Had been designed by Albert Kahn.
And he did. He designed this building.

[17:33] It had a ah park adjacent to the building that was 350 feet by 190 feet, with elm trees, oak tree of trees, maple trees and iron fence.
Cars would drive through the park to the car entrance. It was really different than anything that had been done.
And the interior of the showroom, uh, had 28 foot high ceilings, mahogany chairs and tables. There was a telephone exchange, bathrooms, a mezzanine where the office workers were all stationed.
So so. Those are the kinds of things that the the customers would see.
But there was much, much more because it was really, uh, the building would set had 256 skilled mechanics. There was a stock room with parts for every Packard in Cadillac model ever built.

[18:22] Ah, they didn’t build the cars there, but it was said they had enough parts to put one together, that there were Body Shop’s, a blacksmith, a fabric shop of machine wash car wash in some of the luxury cars.
In those days, they would change the bodies in winter and summer, and they bring them there to be changed.
So they would. They would shift the the body from the winter body to the summer body, and it was said the top floor could could work on 75 cars at a time.
There were two large dining rooms, one for the office workers one from the for the mechanics, so it was really ah, full service center.
That wouldn’t have been possible in the early show rooms that were made in buildings that had other purposes and not even really in in in the Motor Mart.

Jake Interview:
[19:09] It’s interesting you mentioned the Rouge River plant in Michigan and that yours picture trees and iron or coming in one into that in a model T rolling out the other end.
And it sounds like some of the businesses. Some of the dealerships along come F were almost the retail version of that, with everything housed under one roof.

Ken Liss:
[19:28] Yes, they really were full service operations. Fuller was was successful enough that within seven years he expanded and built a second wing for trucks and used cars.
And ah later enclosed the front to so Hee hee.
This building was, ah, major expansion of what he had in Park Square, and the building itself was expanded two times and really provided a lot of, uh, full service for everybody.

Jake Interview:
[19:58] After Packard. What were the other early car manufacturers to have a presence on automobile row?

Ken Liss:
[20:07] Well, some of the others said that came very soon in the wake of Packard’s innovation worth the other ended at the Commonwealth, the Kenmore Square.
And there the Kenmore Square end of automobile row in building Centre that are still there today, Uh, and there were peerless auto.
Um and um, uh, I’m trying to remember the names of the other ones there, but there were several that were there at the same time, and these two were large full service buildings.
One of those buildings were appear. Liss Auto was is the building that now has the Citgo sign on top of it.
And while the building to the west of it has been torn down that building and and the two former auto dealerships that we’re next to it are still there. And as I understand that are going to remain.

Jake Interview:
[20:57] Was automobile robe. Just car dealers, you know, selling you. Ah, finished automobile. Or were there other automotive related businesses along that strip?

Ken Liss:
[21:07] There are a lot of automotive related businesses, tires and parts, and, uh, and many other kinds.
And, uh, and and and again, lots of other deals that filled in that space between Kenmore and and Packard corners. Well, um, many of which are now buildings used by Boston University where I work.
So, um ah, and and, uh, in the I was in the 19 thirties, it was said there were as many as, ah, 117 uh, auto related businesses along Commonwealth Avenue.

Jake Interview:
[21:42] Is that roughly when the number of businesses would peak, do you think just to help me sort it out?

Ken Liss:
[21:45] I think so, yeah.

Jake Interview:
[21:48] In my mind, we’re not talking about manufacturing automobiles in on the Auto mile or the other, about a mile on the automobile roar on Kamat, right? We’re talking more retail.

Ken Liss:
[21:59] Right. These with these will retail. There was just just across what’s now the BU bridge in Cambridge. There was a Ford factory where where cars were actually built, but not in it. Not in any of the ones of the Commonwealth Avenue.
They were some of them.
We’re, uh, kind of central distributorship. So Ah, So part of the reason they were so large is that,
automobiles of different makes would be sent there from the factories and then distributed to dealerships around around New England.
So one of the buildings that came a little bit later,
that’s another of probably equally impressive to the Packard building is the building that’s now the College of Fine Arts at Boston University and was a a Buick dealership.

[22:48] That, uh, that opened in 1920 um, and was opened by a man named, um Harry Noyes, who began as a had a Buick dealership in Low.
And ah. He then took over a building that had been a stable owned by an African American businessman named Henry Turner, that,
Turner got into automobiles briefly, But then, uh, it in 1909 it was taken over by Buick Noyes and took it over.
And in 1920 he built this building that’s now the culture fine arts that, like the Packard building, was a full service building.
And he was the leading distributor of Buicks in New England through the 19 forties, who the building was bought by Boston University in the 19 sixties.
And this is this is one of the more fascinating buildings.
One at one of the reasons I called my, uh, earlier talk on this ghost shadows is there are.
There were remnants of these buildings and and this building in,
on the first floor in the building that the space that has been ah, an art gallery for the College of Fine Arts has probably the most fun of all the ghosts and shadows.
They are some Corinthian columns inside this space and a grand staircase and at the tops of the columns, air gargoyle like figures that are actually auto mechanics.

Jake Interview:
[24:15] Uh, that’s great. So you say Harry Noyes started creating this this Buick empire in the 19 twenties and was certainly active.
Sounds like through the 19 forties.
I’m just old enough that I can remember before. Every car on the road was a Toyota old enough to remember coming out of a store one day, and somebody left a note on our family car saying by American a hole.
When did foreign car manufacturers start to have a presence on automobile row?

Ken Liss:
[24:50] I think they came much, much later. I can’t say for certain, but I believe it was more like the 19 sixties.
And I think it may have given a little bit of a late surge to Oughta Row.
One of the dealers who was selling foreign cars at that point was Peter Fuller was the son of Alvin T. Fuller.
And he, uh I’ve taken over.
Ah, the later building, which which we definitely should talk about, which is Thea on the full of Cadillac building, right by the BU Bridge.
But by the sixties, he was, uh, also selling foreign cars further down for the Western Commonwealth. I haven’t you?

Jake Interview:
[25:36] So it sounds like the foreign car started to move in, just sort at the tail end of the heyday before the decline of automobile row.

Ken Liss:
[25:44] Yeah, I mean, I I think in some ways the clients sort of started after.
After World War Two, and especially in the fifties, as some of the,
the growth of the suburbs and the bike, the car buying public was moving out to the suburbs, and even some of the Commonwealth Avenue auto dealers started displaying their cars in parking lots on Commonwealth Avenue.
And that became kind of more what we have today where you you drive in and they’re just lots of cars parked in a big parking lot. So the the big showrooms, where the glass windows were kind of fading away.
So I think the growth of the fire in dealerships kind of gave a little be extended. Oughta row for a little while.

Jake Interview:
[26:28] Now I want to circle back to the comment you just made about Fuller’s Cadillac dealership. So what made that business distinct from his his Packard business?

Ken Liss:
[26:41] Well, I I think, uh, probably with the changes in the fortunes of the different automobile companies, maybe some consolidation with General Motors and others on and fewer automobile companies.
He, in 1928 had the fuller Cadillac Olds building built, Also designed by Albert Kahn.
It was actually built by the Cadillac company for, um Fuller.

[27:09] And like the Packard building, it was really a full service building.
And it’s ah, um, he sold, whereas initially introduced Cadillacs as the lower price.
Will Turner if the Packard’s here he was selling Cadillacs is the higher price than Oldsmobiles.
Just the lower priced um, but it was very similar in the way it worked and that it had aah, sales departments and service departments.
It had and still has a ramp that goes over the five floors of the building that was wide enough for two cars.
Cars could be going in both directions and pass one another going up and down.
The building is now owned by Boston University. I’ve walked those ramps.
There are a lot of student art projects that take place in that building and this the detriments of a lot of the art projects that fill some of those rams.
But there are still science ing don’t walk on ramps and and, uh, and other clear indications of, ah of its past.

Jake Interview:
[28:15] That right off the bat gives to me a picture of how different the dealerships alone.
Calm f where than what we’re used to in sort of the suburban auto mile today that the simple fact that it’s a multi storey building with with different elements of the dealership happening on each floor.
When you think again we’re usually used to seeing a single story or maybe two story building surrounded by a large open area full of car. So it’s a very different visual of what? Ah, a car dealership would have looked like a time.

Ken Liss:
[28:47] Yeah, I think so. I think the car buying experience was was different.
I don’t know at what point ah, car dealers got their reputation is as being shady and trustworthy.
And I don’t I don’t know that that was necessarily different in the days of the big showrooms, but ah, but but certainly the experience was was different, different kind of experience.

Jake Interview:
[28:58] Huh?

[29:04] Uh huh.

Ken Liss:
[29:09] And and, of course, you know, in 1910 when the Packard building was built in, probably even in 1928 not everybody had a car. So So it was.
It was a different kind of experience that the buyers were differences as well as the sellers.

Jake Interview:
[29:24] It’s amore exclusive experience, I guess, at the time. And that’s interesting, because if the few, uh, storefront dealerships I can think of that still exist are tend to be boutique,
Aston Martin or something, these really unique imports, where they’re still cultivating that sort of boutique exclusive experience that sounds like any car fire would have had at the time.

Ken Liss:
[29:48] And and And there are still ah, few dealerships just past Packard Corner.
Um, there is, um Herb Chambers is out there. He has three different dealerships. He’s got ah ah.

Jake Interview:
[29:57] This is a herb chambers out there.

Ken Liss:
[30:03] Believes the Honda Toyota and, ah, the 3rd 1 And it’s one that they recently tore down the building and our ability that they’re building a new building, which at first I thought there probably turning it into apartments.
But I’ve been told that no, it’s, ah, it’s going to be another dealership. It’s It’s oh, it’s Audi thinks an Audi dealership.

Jake Interview:
[30:19] Huh?
Yes. A little bit of that old auto row tradition still happening in pretty much the same spots. That’s nice to see.

Ken Liss:
[30:28] Yep. And there are a few ah Sullivan tire there.
There are some auto parts stores still on. What was Automobile Road?

Jake Interview:
[30:33] Mmm.

[30:39] So at some point, we have to talk about the inevitable decline of automobile road.
But before we get to that talk about another one or two of the landmarks, you also already mentioned the Chevron sign that’s in Kenmore Square today.
We’re back in the day. That’s That’s a Chevron side.

Ken Liss:
[30:56] The Citgo sign.

Jake Interview:
[31:00] Yes, you mentioned the landmark Citgo sign fits in, uh, Kenmore Square today.
Back in the day, there was another giant neon petroleum sign very nearby, the big shell sign.

Ken Liss:
[31:14] There was. So there was Ah, um, this was not so much an auto dealership, but the building pretty much right next to the what’s now.
The being bridge was a Shell service station and the New England headquarters for the Shell Oil Company.
And on its roof, it had a large, uh, neon shell sign that, uh, based in both directions east and west along the Charles River, and the building’s still stands.
It’s now the Boston University Academy, a private high school, and there are kind of shell motifs along the outside of the building that I had never noticed until I started researching this.
But the the shell sign itself. Eyes no longer there, but 1/2 of it still exists.
It was moved across the Charles River to a shell station on Memorial Drive in Cambridge, where it still stands today.

Jake Interview:
[32:11] Okay. I was gonna ask if that was the same sex. I see that if I go to AA Micro Center over on Memorial. Yeah, I see. Ah, Shell Sign that I wondered if it was the same one.

Ken Liss:
[32:13] Yep, the same sign. Yeah, yeah, I’ve been there, too. Yeah,
yet that’s the same one, although only half of it. I don’t know if it was the Western facing after the Houston based again, but it’s only only only 1/2 and, um, and and there are Ah, few other remnants that are left.
One of the longtime dealerships was Commonwealth Chevrolet, which actually occupied two different buildings, both still standing.
One of them is now the star market, your Packard’s corner.
And when I was first researching this as I walked by that building,
there was in on iron fence with these brick fence posts, and there was a symbol on all of these fence posts, metal symbol of a like a tire with an arrow going through it.
And I looked at that nice that. I bet I know what that is. And sure enough, that building was originally a dealership for the Pierce Arrow Automobile Company.

Jake Interview:
[33:09] Uh, so that’s the star market. That’s right. On comma of right near the split, huh? That’s something I just learned.
Are there other places, businesses or campus buildings that you can go into today where you can see visible remnants of old automotive businesses?

Ken Liss:
[33:28] There are a few, um, you may not recognize them is remnants of auto businesses, but But they are.
And I, um there was kind of a fun one that I just came across recently.
I have, ah, photograph of a, uh, Rio deal R E O.
Which is another old automobile, which I, which I’ve learned more about people know more about cars will laugh at me from a lack of knowledge and some of the old dealerships.
But, um, first of all, I learned that Rio is named for, and I’m forgetting his first name.
But his middle initial z and his last name’s Olds he was to found their Oldsmobile, and he later,
formed the Rio on gave it his name and ah, on the window of this building in this this picture, one of the models they were selling was the Speedwagon, the r e o Speedwagon.

Jake Interview:
[34:21] No.

Ken Liss:
[34:22] Which lady gave the name of a band?
Um, but the picture is,
there’s this beautiful staircase leading up to ah balcony and have given too much thought to it until I recently saw a KN article that ah,
Brookline was getting its first Taco Bell in a long time, and it was going to be in a building along Commonwealth Avenue, and it’s going to be different than most Taco Bell’s is gonna be table service.
Um, and I looked at the building and ah, and realize that it’s the same building.
And it it had, I think, most recently been a 7 11 and ah, least part of it. And when I went by Ah, that staircase is in there with a balcony.
Um, so I have this great picture of this very elegant looking place, and now it’s kind of a construction site.

Jake Interview:
[35:11] Huh?

Ken Liss:
[35:17] But I went in and talked to some of the workers and got some pictures of it.
Um, the staircase that not quite as elegant as the Packard building but like the Packard building and the Noyes building, had kind of a mezzanine where some of the office workers where this had one, too.
Now it’s going to be a talk about, but the staircase is still there.

Jake Interview:
[35:36] Earlier, in our conversation, you mentioned that one of these dealerships had columns with with essentially gargoyles but gargoyles of mechanics. Which building was that originally and.

Ken Liss:
[35:46] Yep, that was that was Thea Noyes Burek building the one that’s now the culture Fine Arts. And by and by the way, Ah.
BU has been doing some major renovation on that building and One of the things that they’re doing is tthe e storefront windows along Commonwealth Avenue had been filled in, and they’ve opened them up and put glass back in.
And, uh, and they’ve cleaned up the the gargoyles and the space in the grand staircase and much more I’m looking forward to ah, when it’s open again. And when we could actually going there again when we could leave our homes.

Jake Interview:
[36:19] Yeah, yeah, I’m looking forward to going in anywhere again, so that raises an interesting point.

Ken Liss:
[36:24] Yes.

Jake Interview:
[36:28] A lot of the buildings that physical buildings that used to be part of the automotive industry on comma for now, part of the BU campus.
And I don’t have a clear picture of how much of that is.
They’re a competition between BU and the car industry and how much of that is just BU picking up properties as they became available?
Is, is there any relation between the decline of the car business and the growth of the BU campus, or is that just purely coincidence?

Ken Liss:
[36:55] No, I don’t. I don’t think so. I think it Ah, it really came later, some of those buildings were acquired by BU summer.
Still like the building where the Rio dealership was. That’s going to be a Taco Bell is not owned by BU.
Some of the BU own buildings are given over to retail space, and some of them are used by by BU, as as buildings and certainly between the, uh,
the BU Bridge and Kenmore Square.
There are a number of buildings there that our classroom buildings and labs that were auto dealerships And, uh, I I was waiting to go into, ah, class and one of the buildings, uh,
few months ago and just kind of waiting for the previous class to come out.
And I noticed this this column that just had a very industrial look to it, and I realized it was it was part of the old building.
I also see in some of these classroom buildings there are these very wide elevators, some of which I don’t think I used anymore, But they were wide because they were used to to move automobiles.

Jake Interview:
[38:03] That is truly a ghost or shadow of automobile row. Is there anything you wish I had asked about or asked about more detail before we start moving toward Couldn’t conclusion.

Ken Liss:
[38:05] It really is so.

[38:13] Well, I I think one of the things that’s Ah, that’s interesting is is Thea full of building um, which I mentioned the Rams and various other things.
But the first floor, which was the showroom, is a cZ recently been redesigned and actually opened up to the second floor as something called the Howard Thurman Center of Common Ground.
And this is a, uh, a the Thurman Center.
Howard Thurman was a from school divinity. He was a mentor to Dr Martin Luther King when Dr King studied at at BU in a big influence on him and his philosophy of Nonviolence, resistance and protests.
And the Thurman Center, which has been in the basement of the student union in a small space, does a lot of work to kind of foster common ground. Ah, how people can come together and then think about and talk about issues.
And that first floor and much of the second floor has been turned into a new space for the Thurman Center. That is Ah ah, quite quite quite beautiful, really just opened a few months ago.
I’ve gone in there to take some pictures of spaces that I have old pictures of including,
I have one picture of a ah, seconds in the early sixties of a Cadillac on the floor, and I got a picture more or less of the same space.

[39:38] We’re less from the same angle, and while it looks very different, you can definitely see the floor.
It’s got, ah, sort of an ornate floor, and that that is Ah, that is still there.
Still still visible, Um, and and and a few other things.
There’s a a picture of Alvin Fuller in his eighties, so I think that would probably be in the 19 fifties with automobile in front of an elevator.
And ah, that space is now Ah ah, kitchen for the Thurman Center.
But you can still see the elevator on. And the little alcove where where he was standing is still there. So so just kind of.
I mean, that’s That’s one of the things that I’ve always found, uh, intriguing about about history and historical places that, uh, places change.
But you know that they’re the same place and that, um, something, whether it’s a Civil War battlefield or ah, protest march took place in a space that you’re standing in.
And while I wouldn’t put on auto dealership in the same category as either of those just knowing that you’re standing in the same space that was used for a different purpose. Just be a little chill sometimes, so.

Jake Interview:
[40:51] I’m not originally from the Boston area. I’m from deepest Appalachia.
And so it took years for me to adjust after moving here to just being able to go and stand on,
the side of the Boston Massacre on the side of the tent city protests on the site of the name your era and topic of history in the Boston area.
Just go and see the actual place where it happened is it’s a great feeling.

Ken Liss:
[41:16] And I grew up in New York, in the Bronx, And, um and, uh, I think many of us Ah,
I don’t appreciate that the places we grow up and we think that nothing happened there anyway, So So, uh, I think there are people who grew up here, maybe didn’t appreciate it until they were all there as well.

Jake Interview:
[41:35] So it’s interesting as we look at com f running through the heart of the BU campus today and look back at combat running through the heart of the, uh, auto row almost a century ago.
At the time, you would have had trolleys, street cars coming in and out of Boston, so much wider network than we have now.
At the same time, you had auto traffic going by outside the windows and people coming into the automotive dealerships.
And today we have. That same stretch is one of the first areas of the city to get protected bike lanes, and the Green Line still runs right outside with still plenty of automotive traffic foot traffic.
So it’s interesting to see that Though the car was king for much of the past century, there’s still many modes of transportation for any healthy city.

Ken Liss:
[42:25] Yeah, it’s very true when you stand in the Howard Thurman Center, the former ah Fuller Cadillac Oldsmobile dealership.
And you look out the large windows that once gave use of the automobiles inside.
Looking out now you see cars going by, green line going by bicycles going by on the protected bike lane. Lots of pedestrians.
Ah, one point Ah, I was walking this with Sharon Brody from W B.
You are taking pictures. The helicopter flew over. We couldn’t quite get it in the picture.
But, um and, uh, it’s been pointed out that you also have ah, um, the railroad down below which you can’t quite see and the boats going by in the river.
So it really is a kind of multimodal transportation hub. And and it’s ah, it’s nice to think that, well, automobile history might not being made along Commonwealth Avenue anymore.
Transportation mysteries is changing, and it’s reflected in this place that once was a mecca of the automobile. In the early and mid 20th century.

Jake Interview:
[43:32] Yeah, there’s an old joke that the BU Bridge is the only place where you can have a plane flying over a car, driving over a train that’s going over a boat.
Well, can. If people want to learn more about automobile row and they’d like to hear more from you, where can they learn more about that?

Ken Liss:
[43:52] I I haven’t put anything myself online about automobile row.
But when I first did this story Ah, I did it for, um the new city space that W bur which itself is an old auto showroom, and that was recorded.
And, ah, they did a nice job of, ah, video capturing on video and putting on my slides up.
So if you go to the w b u R City space YouTube channel, you confined that presentation, and I do a lot of work about Brookline history.
Not all of it has a CZ much kind of broader impact as Automobile Row, which is more of a regional story.
Not just a Brookline story, but ah, I Blawg at Brookline History that block spot dot com.

[44:40] And the Brooklyn Historical Society website at Brookline Historical Society dot or GE has many of photographs and stories.
And in this time of working from home, I’ve been turning a lot of my presentations into virtual walking tours and video presentations.
And ah, we will, uh, get those up onto our website as well. So, um, it’s ah, I think as, uh, all of us are learning. That is where we’re doing new things by necessity.
We’re also finding new ways of doing things that will be worthwhile once we’re out of this crisis as well. So ah, a cz. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you.
Ah, it’s such a joy doing historical research, but it’s even more of a joy being able to share it with others.
And that’s what that’s what you do with your podcast. And that’s what I do with the walking tours, presentations and a lot more online.

Jake Interview:
[45:37] And assuming we’re all able to gather in large groups again by July. Are you still planning to present at history camp this summer?

Ken Liss:
[45:44] I am. I actually attended the very first history camp, which I think was seven years ago at M I. T. With about 85 people and I missed.

Jake Interview:
[45:53] I was also there.

Ken Liss:
[45:54] I missed the next to cause I was away. When I came back for the 4th 1 I was really astounded that it had grown to about 350 people, and I have been presenting ah ever since then.
So, uh, I, uh, lot songs I’m I’m not away when it’s scheduled.
I I really look forward to being able to present and share what ah, what I have found and learned, and to see all the many other wonderful presentations that history campus ableto offer.

Jake Interview:
[46:24] I’ll include the ah, the link to History Camps website in the show notes this week, so people can look forward to seeing you there. Ken Liss, I just want to say thank you very much for joining us this week.

Ken Liss:
[46:31] Great.

[46:35] Well, thank you, Jake. It’s been a pleasure.

Jake Outro:
[46:37] If you’d like to learn more about comma of when it was still known as automobile roe, check out this week’s show notes at hub history dot com slash 180 We’ll have links to Ken Liss is website in his interview at W Bur City Space.
We’ll also have a wide selection of pictures from the heyday of automobile Row.
And of course, we’ll have links to information about our upcoming virtual events and the forgotten aquariums of Boston, this week’s Boston Book Club pick.
If you’d like to leave us some feedback, you can email us at podcast of hub history dot com.
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Music

Jake Outro:
[48:15] That’s all for now. Stay safe out there, listeners.