Topic: Sports
Sports, sporting events, athletes
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 1931, just three years after its opening, the Boston Garden hosted a new sports phenomenon sweeping the East Coast; the indoor urban rodeos of the kind produced by entrepreneur and cattleman Col. W. T. Johnson. These rodeos in the West End gave eastern sports fans a rare opportunity to relish in the romanticized cowboy image of the bygone American frontier, while also enjoying skillful, and often dangerous, feats of athleticism. Fans of these rodeos were also witnesses to the emergence of professional female sports and the birth of an organized rodeo profession.
When the gates of the newly-built Boston Garden opened in November of 1928, ticket holders flooded in to witness a world championship match befitting a celebration surrounding the city’s new sports venue. Local boxers from Boston also had the honor of appearing that night, including a teenage amateur champ from the West End named Arthur “Hy” Diamond. Diamond was just one representative of a West End sporting culture whose fame spread far beyond the confines of this small, immigrant neighborhood.
James Butler (1845-1921) was a famous rower who lived most of his life in the West End after his family came to the US from Ireland. He was instrumental in founding the West End Boat Club on the Charles River in 1865, and won many races with his brother, Thomas Butler.
The story of the fabled Boston Garden is nearly as winding as the 10 tracks that snake from beneath its modern-day successor on Causeway Street. The intersection of frontier entrepreneurship and New England business interests, the arena came to represent the crosswinds of the rapidly changing American public and the economic forces that shaped it during the Roaring Twenties.
From 1956-1969, Bill Russell won eleven championships in thirteen seasons with the Boston Celtics, playing at the Boston Garden in the historic West End. Russell’s activism on and off the court advanced social justice and made him a role model for many athletes today.
Senda Berenson, the “Mother of Women’s Basketball” in the United States, grew up in the West End after her Lithuanian family moved to the neighborhood in 1875.
Harry “Buddo” Greenberg, a long-time West End resident, was an experienced basketball referee who liked to call a fast-paced game. The way he called games helped shape the direction of what became the NBA.
