Cyclorama Building (first) opens.
December 22, 1884
Architect: Cummings & Sears. It is located on the former site of the Moody and Sankey Tabernacle at today’s 539 Tremont Street. The circular building is built by Chicago businessman Charles Willoughby to display the 400 x 50-foot circular painting The Battle of Gettysburg by Parisian Paul Dominique Philippoteaux, which is later removed to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Common at the time, only three such buildings remain in North America today (the others in Atlanta and Quebec City). After 1890, it becomes home to the Boston Bicycle Academy, a carousel, roller skating rink, carnivals, boxing matches, and an automobile manufacturing plant, and the Albert Champion Company in 1906. It becomes home to the Boston Flower Exchange in 1923, then home to the Boston Center for the Arts in 1973.*
Sources
- Morgan, Keith N.
- Southworth, Susan and Michael