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Enjoy a glimpse of daily life in Boston in the last years of the nineteenth century through the lens of "Boston Close Up: Windows on a New Century" on view at the National Heritage Museum now through August 2008. Organized by Historic New England, the exhibition presents the rich tapestry of urban life more than 100 years ago with views of Washington Street, the waterfront, and Charlestown taken in 1899, 1900, and 1901. The photographs were chosen from a collection of 533 cyanotype prints in the Historic New England Library and Archives. The prints were most likely commissioned by the Boston Elevated Street Railway Company to record buildings along its proposed route from Sullivan Square in Charlestown to Dudley Street in Roxbury.

Probably taken for insurance purposes, the photographs capture details of ordinary life as it appeared in utilitarian commercial and residential streets. Mundane subject matter such as this is a rarity among historic photographs, which more commonly document icons like the State House, churches, and fashionable neighborhoods. Comparing past and present, there are also several views of the same sites today by photographer Peter Vanderwarker, who has been documenting the city since 1977. Vanderwarker's photographs reveal continuity as well as a century of changes, inviting the visitor to ask, "How will these streets look in the next 100 years?"