Era
Organizational category for historical articles
“Doc” Sagansky, the Jewish gambling boss who became the oldest organized crime figure to serve prison time, is one of the old West End’s more notorious residents. The money Sagansky made from illegal bookkeeping funded his business ventures and philanthropy: legitimate on the surface, corrupt at the source.
Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin and George Ruffin were eminent African-American residents of the West End in the late nineteenth-century. Josephine’s newspaper, The Woman’s Era, was published from her home and instrumental to the founding of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) in 1896. She was its first vice president.
John S. Rock was an accomplished Black dentist, doctor, lawyer, and abolitionist lecturer who resided on the north slope of Beacon Hill shortly before and during the Civil War.
Sumner Redstone was a West Ender and controlling shareholder of Viacom CBS. Redstone worked with his father to establish a series of companies, eventually forming one of the U.S.’s largest media companies.
Richard H. Recchia, an Italian-American sculptor, achieved early artistic success growing up in the West End before achieving fame at major exhibitions.
William K. Porter was an old West Ender who had made millions in real estate by the early twentieth century. Although Porter and his family moved to Commonwealth Avenue in 1906, he continued to manage a livery stable and all of his properties in the West End.
Elizabeth Peabody was a teacher, publisher, and writer, who introduced kindergarten in the United States on Pickney Street.
George Parkman was a prominent businessman and philanthropist in Boston. He is best known for donating land to Harvard Medical College (now part of MGH) and his murder in that very location.
