Boston’s 1st Urban Renewal – New York Streets At West End Museum

From February 21 through Fall 2017, The West End Museum hosts The New York Streets: Boston’s First Urban Renewal Project, a new exhibit that tells the story of this lost ‘sister’ community. At the opening reception—February 21, from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m.—attendees can tour the exhibit and enjoy light refreshments. The exhibit and reception are free and open to the public.

“The New York Streets project preceded the more infamous redevelopment of the West End,” says Museum Curator Duane Lucia. “But, in much the same way, federal funding was used to demolish an entire neighborhood and displace its residents with total disregard to the hardship it would cause them.”

The New York Streets encompassed 24 acres of land comprising 12+ city blocks in the northeast corner of the South End. The area got its moniker when roads there were named after cities along the Erie Canal to commemorate the connection of railroad between Boston and Albany in 1842. They included Troy, Rochester, Genesee, Oswego, Oneida, Seneca and Albany itself, the sole remnant street name from that era in today’s South End. That corner of the Mass. Pike and Interstate 93—now home to the Ink Block complex and other high-rise apartments and a hotel with ground-level shops and restaurants—is otherwise unrecognizable.