Scollay Square is a pictorial history of the infamous Boston entertainment district that was wiped away by urban renewal in the 1960s. Now Government Center, this twenty-two-acre area was once an entertainment hub where entrepreneurs, scientists, politicians, performers, and even con artists worked side by side. Inside are dozens of never-before-published photographs of the Old Howard and Ann Corio, the Crawford House and Sally Keith, Joe and Nemo, and the Casino Theater, along with the many characters and landmarks that made this area a favorite of high-school truants, businessmen, and...

Route 128 traces its origins to the late 1920s, when the Massachusetts Department of Public Works cobbled together a makeshift network of existing roads through Boston's suburbs. Between 1947 and 1956, during a statewide push to build new highways, Route 128 was reconstructed as a major regional expressway. The new highway immediately fueled explosive growth in many of the region's once bucolic suburbs.

What was once "the road to nowhere" quickly became a major commercial nexus for eastern Massachusetts and a critical link in the region's highway network. The visionary highway project...