Topic: City Planning
City planning and design, built environments, urban planners, parks, roads
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.
Bostonians familiar with the demolition of the West End may not know how another once-prominent location in the city disappeared from the map. This spot, located on Beacon Hill, was designed for the homes of wealthy Boston families, and was established at about the same time as another famous residential location further down “the Hill.” But, unlike Louisburg Square, which is today synonymous with old Brahmin Boston, Pemberton Square remains largely forgotten, its remnants barely visible.
Urban renewal in Cairo, the capital of Egypt, over the past few decades has prioritized “slum clearance” with uneven results, and failed to ensure affordable housing for all of the city’s poor. Comparing urban renewal in Cairo to the West End suggests shared global challenges for urban redevelopment which remain with us today.
In the late 1950s, the Committee to Save the West End brought residents and political leaders together to vigorously oppose the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s plan to raze 50 acres of the neighborhood.
Joseph Lee, Jr. founded the “Community Boat Club” in 1937 so that West End youth could sail out from the Charles River Esplanade. Community Boating, Inc. was officially incorporated in 1946, and remains the oldest continuously operated public boating organization in the United States.
Ten-thousand West Enders received a creative New Year’s greeting card demanding improvements in children’s recreational opportunities, from William F. Brophy, a lawyer who worked in the West End, and James Lee, Jr., the son of the “Father of the Playground Movement” in America.
Before the City of Boston widened Chardon Street in the 1930s to develop the area around Haymarket Square, West Enders voiced their support for widening the street on a grassroots level.
Charles Bulfinch is regarded as the first American-born architect. He rose to prominence designing public buildings, including the Boston State House and US Capitol Building, and was a West Boston native whose designs still dominate the historic portions of the West End today.
