Also in the 1960s the federal government proposed to extend Interstate 95 into the center of Boston and began buying property and demolishing houses in the Roxbury Crossing section of the neighborhood along the Boston and Providence Rail Road. Roxbury Crossing, once known as Pierpoint Village after the Pierpoint family and their mills (the earliest of which began in the 1650s), was a stop along the Boston & Providence Railroad in the 1840s, and was once a vibrant commercial area with the 749-seat Criterion Theatre, a Woolworth's, and some restaurants catering to market tastes.