Join The West End Museum for an author talk with Dan Dain as he walks us through his new book, A History of Boston. We’ll learn about how certain policies have caused urban success and failure throughout Boston’s history, and how the West End neighborhood has been impacted by these cycles. Dan will talk about this history and its implications for Boston’s future. There will be time at the end for a Q&A session.

A History of Boston (2023) Description: 

Boston is today one of the world’s greatest cities, first in higher education, hospitals, life science companies, and sports teams. It was the home of the Great Puritan Migration, the American Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the first civil rights movement, the abolition movement, and the women’s rights movement. But the city that gave us the first use of ether as anesthesia, the telephone, technicolor film, and the mutual fund—the city where Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott founded their world-changing partnership—was also the hub of the anti-immigration movement, the divisive busing era, and decades of self-inflicted decay. Boston has the most important history of any American city. Yet its history has never been given a comprehensive treatment until now. Join Dan Dain as he acts as your tour guide from the arrival of First Peoples up to the election of Boston’s first woman and person of color as mayor. Dain’s masterful work explores the policies and practices that took Boston from its highest heights to its lowest lows and back again, and examines the central role that density, diversity, and good urban design play in the success of cities like Boston.

About the Author:

Daniel Dain was born in Boston and grew up in Newton. A graduate of Vassar College and Michigan Law School, he’s spent his professional career as a lawyer in Boston, working with commercial property owners and developers on issues related to their use and development of real estate. Dan writes and lectures widely on land use law and urban planning and is the founder and president of the law firm Dain Torpy, where he chairs the firm’s real estate litigation practice. He is the manager of an equity fund that invests in independent local restaurants, a co-founder and treasurer of the Needham Land Trust, and is a board member of the business advocacy groups NAIOP of Massachusetts and A Better City, as well as the Vilna Shul, Boston’s Center for Jewish Culture. Dan also chairs the arts company White Snake Projects, the Town of Needham’s Golf Club Advisory Committee, and the Massachusetts Real Estate Bar Association’s Litigation Section. He lives in Needham with his wife and two kids.