Topic: Politics & Law
Politics, politicians, political clubs, laws, lawyers, courts, jurisprudence, criminals, crime, law enforcement, jails
In 1931, Mayor James Michael Curley planned to sell 50,000 square feet of city land, on North Grove Street in the West End, to Massachusetts General Hospital. Because this land was used by the Public Works Department for sanitation in the West End, residents – and city councilor John I. Fitzgerald – strongly opposed the sale. Fitzgerald, associated with West End boss Martin Lomasney, successfully advocated for the proceeds of the sale to be allocated for continued sanitation services in the West End.
Michael Powars carefully planned the murder of his cousin, Timothy Kennedy, but his fatal mistake was thinking that the law required an eyewitness to convict someone of a crime.
For months, in 1885 and 1886, newspapers reported on a murder conspiracy which rocked the cities of Boston and Baltimore. West End locations played host to both the hatching of the plan to murder Mary (Somerset) Mellen in Baltimore, and the subsequent acts of justice in Boston.
The convergence of Puritan values, attitudes toward immigration, and the prevalence of one university surrounding almost every aspect of the event, made the Parkman-Webster murder case a distinctively Boston story.
One of the few independent female lawyers of her day, and a staunch supporter of her community, Gladys Shapiro became one of the most influential women to emerge from the West End.
Arguably the most famous arts facility in the world, Lincoln Center is a present-day, glittering example of American urban renewal gone wrong.
Inspired by his experiences at the West End House and Hale House, Joseph Rosen became one of the country’s leading engrossers, thanks in part to the kindness of James Jackson Storrow. He inscribed over 125,000 diplomas during his career, mainly for Harvard graduates, but he also produced honorary degrees for dignitaries such as the Roosevelt’s, Kennedy’s, and Winston Churchill. Despite his success, he never forgot the opportunities he received in the West End and found ways later in life to honor the West End House and its great benefactor.
Thomas L. Banks left New Hampshire for Boston in 1845 to pursue a degree in medicine from Harvard University. He settled in the West End where he built a successful medical practice and forged a career in local and state politics. The site of his successful apothecary business, formerly known as the Jenks Building, still stands today at 132 Portland Street and is noted as one of the more architecturally unique historic buildings in the Bulfinch Triangle.
