Urban Renewal? BRA Debate Goes RetroBoston Globe If Brian Golden and Corey Zehngebot were selling the exact same policy under any name but “urban renewal,” they’d make more headway among Boston’s wary grass-roots activists, who remember what that phrase used to mean. Golden is director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority, the muscular agency that’s been reshaping the…
BRA Apologizes for West End Urban RenewalBeacon Hill Times During the opening reception of an exhibit exploring the impact of urban renewal on the West End in the 1950s and ‘60s, the director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority issued the first formal apology on behalf of the city agency for its role in demolishing vast…
New Boston Exhibition Tackles Urban RenewalNext City In what it admits is an “unlikely partnership,” the Boston Redevelopment Authority and the West End Museum have collaborated on an urban renewal exhibition, which opened at the museum last week. The BRA, of course, is the agency behind the controversial demolition of Boston’s West End neighborhood in the 1950s, and…
BRA On the West End Demolition in the 1950s: Our BadCurbed Boston In the late 1950s, the Boston Redevelopment Authority oversaw the wholesales demolition of several acres of the West End and the displacement of thousands of residents, many of them long-timers. It was all in the name of urban renewal, a mid-20th-century effort that turned…
BRA director offers formal apology for West End’s demolitionBoston Globe It’s never too late to say you’re sorry. Just ask Jim Campano. Campano was among the nearly 50 people on hand at the West End Museum last week for the opening of an exhibition on the history of urban renewal. During the reception, Boston Redevelopment Authority director Brian Golden issued a formal…
GentriWatch: The BRA Apologizes For That Whole West End ThingBoston Magazine THE OVERLY REPENTANT tone taken by the Boston Redevelopment Authority in regard to its collaboration with the West End Museum on a new exhibition on urban renewal is nice, if a bit odd. How often does a public entity issue a mea culpa, especially when the deed…
GentriWatch: Thanks to Luxury Condos, Small Business Could ‘Meat’ Its DemiseBoston Magazine “AFTER JUST FIVE YEARS in business, Australian meat pie peddler KO Pies could soon be snuffed out by luxury condominiums, in a scene ripped from Pixar’s.” “KO Pies, located at the corner of A and West Third streets, is situated in the middle…
West End Museum Hosts Annual Italian Heritage Month Celebration: Features Italian Photography Exhibit, Honoree Night & Film Series Boston, MA—The West End Museum will host events celebrating Italian Heritage Month in October for the sixth consecutive year. Prior to the demolition of Boston’s Old West End during the “urban renewal” of the 1950s, many Italian-American…
Life On The Corner: The West End, Part 1North End Waterfront There are still a few of us left who remember when the West End was demolished and replaced with Charles River Park. It’s a sad story and one that has always been of particular interest to me because my wife was born there and…
Boston Redevelopment Authority to Partner with West End Museum on New ExhibitionBoston Magazine The Boston Redevelopment Authority is making nice with the neighborhood it once used its power to demolish, in an effort to extend that power another 10 years. The BRA is partnering with the West End Museum on a new exhibition, titled “Dewey Defeats…