Where is the West End?
Executive Director Sebastian Belfanti explains the many answers to a common question: where, geographically, is the West End?
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Era: New Boston(~1950-1995)
Urban renewal, the taking, Government Center, Charles River Park, highways, bussing
The Committee to Save 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.
Population Over Time in the West End
A report on the population of the West End from the late colonial period through the modern day.
The Last West Enders
The history of urban renewal in the West End is well-known, and locals are familiar with names of the “last West Enders” who refused to leave their neighborhood. As the aftermath of urban renewal lives with us today, there are a few ways to look at “the last” of the old neighborhood.
Augustus Mantia’s Parking Lot
Augustus Mantia and his family owned the West End parking lot Staniford Street during the 1960s. Cars parked on an unpaved field where vibrant tenements once stood before their demolition by the Boston Redevelopment Authority in the late 1950s. Public backlash against the Mantias’ monopoly over the lot – with high profits, abnormally low rent, and no competitive bidding process – led the City to close the parking lot in January 1971.
Ed Logue
As director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority in the 1960s, Ed Logue was the highly visible face of urban renewal in the period following the destructive and controversial redevelopment of the West End.
Jane Jacobs
Jane Jacobs was a journalist, author, and activist who argued for the prioritization of people in urban planning projects.
Victor Gruen
Victor Gruen was the Austrian-born architect whom Jerome Rappaport, Sr. hired to design Charles River Park, the development that replaced the demolished West End in the 1960s. But Gruen’s work also had national significance as “the father of the shopping mall.”