Copley Square Boston in the Future — Edwardian Retro-Futurist Postcard c.1905

Remarkably prescient about elevated transit and automobiles yet hilariously wrong about personal dirigibles and straddled torpedo-craft, this Edwardian chromolithograph postcard imagines Copley Square's future skies swarming with airships, hot-air balloons, and a lone daredevil riding a cigar-shaped flyer. Below, early horseless carriages and electric streetcars share the plaza while a dramatic lattice-steel elevated railway dominates the right. Trinity Church and the old Museum of Fine Arts anchor the scene in recognizable Boston geography, grounding wild aerial fantasy in real streetscape.