Jerry Rappaport was a great philanthropist — and a developer who helped destroy a neighborhood

When he died earlier this month, at 94, Jerry Rappaport was hailed as a great philanthropist who also played a key role in developing a gleaming new Boston. A more complete picture of his legacy can be found at the West End Museum at 150 Staniford St.

The museum occupies a small space — just about 3,500 square feet. But it’s big enough to tell the story of a neighborhood demolished in the late 1950s in the name of urban renewal. This home to working-class Bostonians was ultimately replaced by Charles River Park, the luxury housing complex developed by Rappaport. A young Rappaport won the bid to redevelop the neighborhood after a stint in the administration of Mayor John Hynes. Afterward, as Jim Vrabel, a former senior research associate at the Boston Redevelopment Authority (now the Boston Planning and Development Agency) wrote recently in CommonWealth magazine, the city…