When Mechanics' Hall was demolished to make way for the Massachusetts Turnpike (in a tunnel below Boylston Street at this point), the city decided to build a new Municipal Auditorium on air rights over the Turnpike tunnel. The Auditorium later became the Hynes Convention Center, and was for many years Boston's only major convention facility. By the 1990s, many conventions bypassed Boston entirely because the Hynes was too small a venue; the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in South Boston opened in 2004.
This is the corner of Boylston and Dalton Streets.
Copyright 2007, Garrett Wollman. All rights reserved. Photograph taken 2007-04-21.