History
Organizational category for all historical articles
Pedestrianism, or competitive walking, was a nationally popular sport in the 1870s and 1880s. The old West End was captivated by local competitions and news of world record-breaking pedestrians such as Boston’s Frank Hart, the most successful African-American pedestrian in the 1880s.
Dr. Thomas Jenks, one of Boston’s leading figures in medicine, business, and politics during the late-eighteenth century, lived in the West End for most of his life. In 1893, when Jenks chaired the Board of Public Institutions, his refusal to accept a donation of rocking chairs to the Rainsford Island hospital put him at odds with Alice Lincoln, an advocate for the poor in Boston, and Martin Lomasney, the political boss of the West End.
Massachusetts General Hospital was built in the early nineteenth century on four acres of land in the old West End called Prince’s Pasture. Many doctors and prominent citizens of Boston can be counted among its founders.
The West End Woman Suffrage League connected African-American leaders in the old West End to the larger movement for women’s suffrage in Boston, the rest of New England, and the country as a whole.
In 2015, Brian Golden, director of the BPDA, gave the City of Boston’s formal apology for the destruction of the old West End. He delivered the apology in a speech at The West End Museum, and his words continue to hold meaning for current debates about urban renewal powers in the city.
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 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.
Our Lady of Ostrobrama, the Polish Catholic Church on Chambers St. in the West End, was founded in 1920 and demolished in 1958 on account of the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s urban renewal plan.
