Boston Drivers

The Boston Public Library is the repository of the work of Boston Herald-Traveler cameraman Leslie Jones (1886-1967). It’s created a webpage for this collection, which contains 34,000 negatives, and shared a significant selection on Flickr.

One category getting a lot of attention lately is Jones’s photographs of early auto accidents. The outcome of a slide on an icy road above, for example, comes from the Norumbega section of my home town.

This one is labeled “Fire truck goes into Charles River near Cottage Farm Bridge.” Which leaves some unanswered questions, like “Why"?”

It’s startling how flimsy these old cars seem—and this was decades before seat belts became common, much less mandatory.