Bonner Map 1739

Street Names: Lost and Found

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Bonner Map 1739
A New Plan of ye Great Town of BOSTON in New England in AMERICA with the many Additionall Buildings & New Streets to the Year, 1739 (The Leventhal Collection, Boston Public Library)

Street Names: Lost and Found focuses on the changes to Boston’s Old West End brought on by the Urban Renewal period of the mid-20th Century. Both the physical geography and the names of streets changed significantly between 1955 and the present day. For example, Green, Chambers and Allen Streets were reconfigured and made into Cardinal O’Connell Way; Lynde Street was made a dead end; and new streets with new names sprang up, such as Lomasney Way, formerly Lowell Street, which is named after the famous West End ward boss Martin Lomasney. Several other streets have disappeared altogether.

Street Names: Lost and Found is an attempt to recover some of that history lost during Urban Renewal, exploring old and new pathways and the characters after whom they are named.”

This exhibition is the first of two exhibitions delving into the history of West End street names.