James Butler (1845-1921) was a famous rower who lived most of his life in the West End after his family came to the US from Ireland. He was instrumental in founding the West End Boat Club on the Charles River in 1865, and won many races with his brother, Thomas Butler.
The story of the fabled Boston Garden is nearly as winding as the 10 tracks that snake from beneath its modern-day successor on Causeway Street. The intersection of frontier entrepreneurship and New England business interests, the arena came to represent the crosswinds of the rapidly changing American public and the economic forces that shaped it during the Roaring Twenties.
From 1956-1969, Bill Russell won eleven championships in thirteen seasons with the Boston Celtics, playing at the Boston Garden in the historic West End. Russell’s activism on and off the court advanced social justice and made him a role model for many athletes today.
The Lancaster Street Garage, located in the West End, was the “business office” of James “Whitey” Bulger and the Winter Hill Gang in 1979 and 1980, until they learned that State Police bugged the building.
The West End Mothers’ League organized mass meetings and boycotts to address the high cost of food in 1917, just before the United States entered World War I.
Jeremiah J. Gilman, a Civil War veteran who lived on Chambers Street and Eaton Street in the West End, witnessed the immediate aftermath of President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination on April 14, 1865. After the Civil War, Gilman made it in the local newspapers not only as a veteran, but also as the purchaser of an investment property on Eaton St. that later became his home.
The West End’s Police Station at 74 Joy Street was built in 1863 less than a decade after the formation of the Boston Police Department. It served an important role in the community until 1962, after closing in 1937 and reopening due to public demand. The building now serves as the home of the Beacon Hill Civic Association.
Rose Berger Kubitsky immigrated to the West End from Poland in the early twentieth century. In the 1930s she founded “Berger’s Deli.” On Leverett Street, the deli was known by West Enders as “Berger’s Bar” because it evolved into a tavern, where Kubitsky simultaneously worked as owner and bouncer.
