Behind the Scenes at the Museum

At the Museum, we refuse to let the pandemic keep us down! We’ve been focusing on projects with long-term impact. From renovations to demographic research to a website overhaul — we’ve got some big news to share and opportunities for you to be part of the action.

Museum Renovations
The Museum layout and permanent exhibit, “The Last Tenement,” have long been the same. Planning underway since March aims to reinvent the Museum space in order to improve the visitor experience, expand the West End’s story, and strengthen community engagement — thereby increasing revenue and securing the Museum’s future.

With the Board’s approval, the Exhibit Committee — Director Sebastian Belfanti, Board President Duane Lucia, Board member Lois Ascher, and volunteer Philip MacLeod — has been meeting weekly to advance the project.

The plans would reconfigure the current Main Exhibit Gallery space to create clearly defined areas, the largest section being the new home for “The Last Tenement.” Other areas would include a/an:

• Welcome/greeter station encompassing the Museum gift shop
• Striking, historical mural leading from the entry to the permanent exhibit introduction area
• New Main Gallery to house an augmented Last Tenement exhibit with previously unseen pieces from the Museum’s archives
• Immersion Room that presents recreated spaces and places from the neighborhood’s past on a rotating basis

The current permanent exhibit space would become a Program Gallery for Museum and community events as well as a research area. Temporary walls and removable panels would support smaller, rotating exhibits. Another idea intended to draw in passersby and boost community impact would utilize the large on-street window space for additional rotating exhibits.

Historical Demography & Economy Project
Led by volunteer Adam Tomasi, this project began in late October at the request of Belfanti. At first, Tomasi sought to trace area population figures and trends from colonial times to the present-day West End. He has been digging deep into a variety of sources for his research. Those include: pre-1790 state reports, national census reports, scholarly writings by sociologist and author Herbert Gans, and information gleaned from the digitized collection of the Boston Public Library’s Leventhal Map & Education Center.

Now the project has evolved to examine the economic output of the West End over time, dating back to the ropewalks and tide mills of the mid-17th century through the end of the 19th century. Tomasi is also eager to compile what he calls “a people’s economy,” which would convey more anecdotal information about the kinds of small businesses, local shops, venues, and other sources of commerce in the neighborhood pre-urban renewal. He also hopes to learn about the economic impact of the Boston Garden and MGH as well as the types of jobs community members did and whether they traveled to other parts of the city for work.

If you are an original West Ender or descendent who would like to share such recollections, please contact Tomasi and Belfanti at tomasi.a@northeastern.edu and sebastian.belfanti@thewestendmuseum.org. If you’re interested in volunteering to help categorize the types of local businesses and connection to the city of Boston at large, please send a message to westendmuseumvolunteers@gmail.com.

Website Overhaul
As the Museum’s main online presence, the website is extremely important to the organization’s mission and public awareness. With a variety of functional and other challenges, the current site is not terribly user-friendly and no longer meets the Museum’s needs. Belfanti has been working toward a completely new site for several months. Unfortunately, stops-and-starts associated with volunteer turnover have made it very difficult to complete the project. But now, with a couple volunteer actively working on the project, Belfanti hopes its completion is in sight.

The structure of the new website is largely fleshed out, but streamlining it for the best user experience still needs to be done. If you have website development and organization skills and/or writing and editing experience, and have some time to spare to volunteer on this project, please send a message to westendmuseumvolunteers@gmail.com.