West End Museum seeks to preserve neighborhood's stories

Each time Bruce Gaurino recounts the story of the razing of the old West End, he is filled with indignation.

Stiffening his back and punching the air with his fingers, Gaurino is still angry even though a half-century has passed since the city bulldozed his neighborhood and uprooted residents from their homes in the name of urban renewal.

“Of course I’m angry,’’ Gaurino said recently. “When I see those monstrous high-rises out there now it hurts.’’

Gaurino, a 70-year-old bespectacled museum tour guide, is among the last generation of West Enders still clinging to that bitter legacy. Now pushing their 70s, the gray-haired gatekeepers are trying to pass their torch to a new generation of West Enders who don’t share the old-timers’ memories of the neighborhood — or their zeal.

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