Big Scores · STOP 11 · Downtown Crossing
The Boston Post won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for exposing Ponzi, and this block is what's left of the street it printed on.
In 1920 every daily in Boston printed within a few blocks of this corner, and one of them, the Boston Post, won the Pulitzer Prize for taking down Charles Ponzi. Ponzi once walked past its office leading the crowd in 'Three groans for the Post.' Two buildings from the old Newspaper Row are still standing here. The lettering on one of them isn't about newspapers.
This is stop 11 of Big Scores. Walk it - any two stops are free.
The plate
Collected on site
Milk Street just east of Washington Street (Transcript Building, 322-328 Washington / 5-11 Milk; Post Building, 15-17 Milk)
Directions
The Post sent a reporter, Herbert E. Baldwin, to Montreal. He came back with the 'Charles Ponsi' record that ran on August 11.
More footnotes on the story card, in the app.
Argue about it
Who actually took down Ponzi: the Post, his own publicist, or the bank commissioner?
Both sides, with their sources, are on the story card in the app.
In these collections: Crime Scenes
Near Downtown Crossing · Near State · Near Government Center · Near Park Street · Near Bowdoin · Near Chinatown · Near South Station
Sources (5)
- Washington Street, Boston (Newspaper Row ca. 1906)Lost New England · 2016-01-27
- Boston Transcript Building (HMdb marker 176112)Historical Marker Database · photos 2021-06-13
- Newspaper Row - National Register of Historic Places nominationCandace Jenkins and Rosalind Pollan for the Massachusetts Historical Commission / Boston Landmarks Commission (NPS NPGallery) · 1983-01
- Bubble, Bubble - No Toil, No TroubleAmerican Heritage (Donald H. Dunn) · 1975 (web)
- 1921 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service: The Boston PostThe Pulitzer Prizes · n.d.