Era: New Boston(~1950-1995)
Urban renewal, the taking, Government Center, Charles River Park, highways, bussing
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’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.
Abbott Lowell Cummings, once the leading expert on early New England architecture, spoke out and took action in response to the indiscriminate clearance of the West End during the urban renewal period.
Executive Director Sebastian Belfanti explains the many answers to a common question: where, geographically, is the West End?
In the late 1950s, the Committee to Save the West End brought residents and political leaders together to vigorously oppose the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s plan to raze 50 acres of the neighborhood.
A report on the population of the West End from the late colonial period through the modern day.
