From the mid-17th century to the end of the 19th century, the rope-making industry thrived in Boston. Ropewalks—long, narrow plots with covered walks and sheds that housed rope-making facilities—dotted the landscape of West Boston and supplied rope primarily for seafaring vessels. One of the city’s earliest ropewalks lay less than 100 yards from today’s West End Museum.
Ward Boss Lomasney, commemorates the legendary status of Martin Lomasney, the undisputed boss of Boston’s Ward 8 (later Ward 5, then Ward 3 under redistricting) from about 1885 until his death in 1933. Reproductions of W. Norman Ritchie’s political cartoons from the Boston Post and others from the Boston Globe are display together with graphic panels featuring related articles and Lomasney’s most renowned quotes, including “Don’t write when you can talk. Don’t talk when you can nod your head.”
25 Years of “The West Ender” Since 1985, “The West Ender” has been the voice of a lost neighborhood. The paper became a catharsis; a way for people, who had no other medium to express themselves about their one time beloved neighborhood. They could share their stories from when they lived in the West End.…
The Last Tenement “The Last Tenement” exhibition, originally set up in 1992 at the Old State House by the Bostonian Society through a grant by the National Endowment for the Humanities and relocated to the West End Museum in 2006, was permanently housed in its own dedicated 1100 square foot space until it was destroyed…