In the mid-19th century, Mary Ann Vincent, a popular English actress, arrived in the West End to expand her career. Her reputation for kindness and charity inspired those around her and blossomed into multiple institutions founded in her name, which to this day work to support women with access to advanced healthcare.
In 2015 Converse Inc. moved its world headquarters to Lovejoy Wharf in the West End. Its 214,000 square foot facility was a major part of an effort to rejuvenate the former industrial area bordering the Charles River and the North End. This was, however, not the first time a business founded by members of the Converse family chose the West End as an advantageous place to set up business.
On Christmas Eve 1896, the Society of the New Jerusalem church on Bowdoin St. in the West End held a Christmas festival for children, which featured an elephant bearing candy. Christmas festivals at West End churches, including the Twelfth Baptist Church on Phillips Street, were typical of the nineteenth century.
As the Salvation Army stormed into Boston to continue its evangelical and humanitarian mission, it chose a location in the West End for its headquarters in Massachusetts. From this initial foothold in the city, the Salvation Army and its leader Annie Shirley withstood the persecution of established churches and angry mobs, and expanded its operations throughout New England. The organization continues to pursue its mission today as one the country’s largest and most visible charities.
Though her humble immigrant background set her apart from her more affluent contemporaries, West Ender Bashka Paeff became a highly regarded member of the national arts establishment.
The Boston-1915 Committee was formed in 1909 to improve conditions in Boston and to make it “the finest city in the world” by 1915. For many West Enders, Boston-1915 represented the promise of a brighter future, but none of them could have foreseen that some of the movement’s ideas would inspire city leaders to demolish the West End half a century later.
In 1923, Annie, Jennie, and Rosie Klayman emigrated from Poland to reunite with their parents who lived on 16 Anderson St. in the West End. After arriving, the Klayman sisters were nearly deported because of restrictive immigration quotas, until President Calvin Coolidge intervened to let them stay in the United States.
For tens of thousands of daily commuters, North Station is a final destination to work and a starting point for home. For many others, it is a stop along the way to somewhere else. But few of today’s commuters know that over the past two centuries, there have actually been several train stations in the West End– built in grand style – that predated the North Station we know today.
