Topic: Neighborhood Life
Street corner society, urban villagers, peer group society, life in the immigrant era
Reclaiming History in Three Boston Neighborhoods: Sharing Memories of Chinatown, Little Syria, and New York Streets Reclaiming History: A Journey Through Three Neighborhoods explores the histories and community life of Chinatown, Little Syria, and the New York Streets before urban renewal, and the different fates of each post urban renewal. Window clings, a display case,…
123 Causeway Street and the Waldorf Cafeteria Craze On the odd-numbered side of Causeway Street, between the Santander Bank and Halftime King of Pizza, sits a building that looks out of place. Its street level is adorned with an unmarked door flanked by McDonald’s ads. The second story is dominated by a large, uniquely framed…
Uncovering Lindall Place Tucked away in a cozy nook off Cambridge Street, on the border of the West End and Beacon Hill, tiny Lindall Place can easily be overlooked by passersby. The street is modest in size and camouflaged by the elevated Red Line tracks leading to Charles MGH Station from the Beacon Hill Tunnel…
The Signscape of Scollay Square Scollay Square, Boston’s port-side entertainment center, was full of flashing marquees. Directional signs on theatres, peepshows, and taverns helped people find their way through the maze of cobbled streets and guided crowds to transportation or fun. Though Scollay Square was destroyed by urban renewal, the vibrant electric atmosphere has been…
Boston’s Rat Day of 1917: When the West End Joined a Citywide Rodent War On February 13, 1917, Boston witnessed one of the most unusual civic experiments in its history. The Boston Women’s Municipal League declared war on the city’s rodent population, organizing the first—and as it turned out, only—Rat Day. While this peculiar event…
The West End News: Headlines in the Summer of 1926One Summer in the West End, Part Two Over the course of four months in the summer of 1926, Lou Coffee and Francis R. Whelton published a newspaper by West Enders for West Enders. These papers gave a glimpse into the diverse immigrant neighborhood facing the…
The West End Branch of the Boston Public Library Library service in the West End neighborhood began in 1896 in the Old West Church on the corner of Cambridge and Lynde Streets. The branch remained there until 1960 when the West End Redevelopment Project forced its closure. In 1968 the current library building opened at…
Joseph Caruso’s novel The Priest (1956) vividly captures daily life for the West End’s Italian immigrant population in the mid-twentieth century, drawing on actual events, historical landmarks, cultural rituals, and economic challenges which shaped the West End community for generations.
