Historic New Year’s Celebrations in the West End

The West End was home to many New Year’s celebrations at sites of community for the neighborhood’s Black residents, Polish Catholic residents, and Jewish residents.

Like all neighborhoods of Boston, and the entire country, the West End has been home to many distinct celebrations of the new year. Not all of these gatherings took place on New Year’s Eve. On January 3, 1889, the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Zion Church at North Russell Street, on the north slope of Beacon Hill, held a “New Year’s supper” organized by Brother John Harris and the members of the A.M.E. Church. The A.M.E. Zion Church was located at the corner of North Grove and Cambridge Streets in the West End before moving to a larger building on North Russell Street in 1841, in order to serve an ever-growing congregation. The New Year’s supper was well-attended and included many speeches. According to the Globe on January 4, 1889, “There was a good attendance. Spirited addresses were made by Rev. S.C. Burchmore, pastor; Philip Allston, toast master [sic]; John J. Smith, Stephen Long and others. Much merriment prevailed.” When Black Bostonians in the West End began to relocate to the South End at the turn of the century, the A.M.E. Zion Church followed suit and moved to Columbus Avenue in 1903.

On New Year’s Eve, midnight masses were a regularly held gathering in the West End, particularly at the turn of the century. On December 31, 1900, the midnight mass at St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church, composed of another Black congregation in the West End, was “the first announcement of the parting century,” according to the Globe, in the West End. St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church was established in 1886 on Anderson Street, and later on Phillips Street in 1892. The midnight mass was presided over by Reverend Charles N. Field, a white priest who presided at services at St. Augustine’s for forty years until his death in 1929. The presently merged Church of St. Augustine and St. Martin, on Lenox Street, notes in its own history of the Church that “under the leadership of The Rev. Charles N. Field, St. Augustine’s served as a center of community, cultural and religious life for people of color.” Additional services in the West End that welcomed the new year of 1901 took place at St. John the Evangelist on Bowdoin Street, St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church on Chambers Street, the Church of the Advent on Brimmer Street, and the Tabernacle Baptist Church at Bowdoin Square.

New Year’s celebrations in the West End during the 1930s also brought together the Polish Catholic community and the Jewish communities of the West End. On December 31, 1933, more than 1,100 people attended midnight mass at the Church of Our Lady of Ostrobrama, the West End’s Polish Catholic church, on Chambers Street. This midnight mass was especially significant because, according to the Globe, it “marked a new era in the parish’s history.” Cardinal William H. O’Connell, the Archbishop of Boston (from 1907 to 1944), only allowed a few churches in the Boston archdiocese to hold midnight masses. The following year, on December 31, 1934, the Hecht Neighborhood House on 22 Bowdoin Street hosted a childrens’ New Year’s party, where 150 children were hosted by the Hecht Rover Scout Crew. The Rover Scouts were adult members of the Boy Scouts of America, aged 19 to 21, and gave each of the children a pair of mittens after an event of movies, vaudeville, and marionettes. The Hecht Neighborhood House was originally the Hebrew Industrial School in the North End, founded by Lina Hecht in 1889 to teach immigrant women how to sew. The Hebrew Industrial School was renamed as the Hecht Neighborhood House after relocating to Bowdoin Street in 1922. 

Each of these New Year’s celebrations brought West Enders of many backgrounds and faiths together to reflect on the previous year and welcome the arrival of new beginnings.