Sports Temples of Boston: Boston Arena

South End Grounds

Title:"Grand Stand" South End Grounds

Date: 1890

Creator:

Original Media: albumen silver print

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Located on Columbus Avenue and Walpole Street at the present site of the MBTA’s Ruggles Street Station in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood, the South End Grounds was the first baseball "temple" and a home for Boston major league baseball for over four decades. The South End Grounds was also used for college sporting events including baseball and football. Harvard College football games were sometimes played in the South End Grounds in the days before Harvard Stadium was built.

First constructed and opened in 1871, South End Grounds was best known as the original home park of the Boston Braves. In 1888, the original structure was torn down and rebuilt as Boston’s first double-decked ballpark. Looking like something out of a baseball fairytale, it was known as the Grand Pavilion. This remarkable structure was designed with covered viewing stands, turrets, and intricate ornamentation. Unfortunately, the Grand Pavilion burned to the ground in 1894 when a fire in the bleachers got out of control. The fire destroyed not only the Grand Pavilion but quickly spread to neighboring buildings and ended as the Great Roxbury Fire of 1894 which destroyed much of lower Roxbury.

A third ballpark was built and was the home of the Boston Braves until August 1914. (The Braves played at the Congress Street Grounds for the several months that it took to rebuild the ballpark.) The new structure was not as grand as its predecessor and the growing crowds and popularity of baseball, not to mention competition with the new Red Sox field, Fenway Park, drove the Braves to build a larger and more modern steel and concrete stadium – Braves Field - on Commonwealth Avenue in Allston. The South End Grounds is now just a memory in Boston’s sports history.

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