Urban Renewal in the 20th Century

The years 1950-70 brought a “New Boston” through major urban renewal projects. A “white flight” to the suburbs with a shrinking tax base, economic blight, aging tenements and a declining infrastructure, and poor leadership took its toll. Boston teetered on the edge of bankruptcy by the 1950’s as downtown buildings approached a 50% occupancy rate at its worst and whole townhouses in the Back Bay sold at a fraction of a small condo there today. After years of debate over revitalizing Boston, the new City planners won and the neighborhoods lost.

William F. Callahan, Commissioner of Public Works, drew up the Master Highway Plan for Metropolitan Boston with the assistance of federal highway funds. Parts of the financial district, Chinatown, and the North End were demolished to make way for the Central Artery and Expressways, cutting off the city from the waterfront above ground. Below ground, South Station Tunnel (now the Thomas P. O’Neil Jr. Tunnel), was finished by 1959 and the Callahan Tunnel (named after William’s son killed in WWII) opened in 1961 by the Sumner Tunnel.

The New York Streets section of the South End went between 1952 and 19xx. Bordered by Albany and Harrison Avenues and Troy and Way Streets, the streets were named in 1842 after cities served by the railroad ties between Boston and Albany, NY. Neighborhood associations were unknown and the project was strictly a public and private partnership designed to bring new industries to Boston and boost its tax base. One former resident of the blocks recalled that the City would shut off streetlights some nights to intimidate residents into leaving.

The Prudential Tower and Complex rose next in 1960-64 on a former Albany railroad yard. It was the second-largest tower in the world outside the Empire State Building, but not everyone liked the boxy look. One observer noted that it looked like the box that Trinity Church came in. It came to be known affectionately as the familiar and benign “Pru”; although, the “towers on an island” and major departure from the rest of Back Bay are now out of vogue architecture.

The West End blocks were next to go, causing a much greater stir. “Westie” once resembled the North End or Beacon Hill with tightly-packed buildings, meandering streets and small businesses. Irish and Italian immigrants followed by African Americans and Jews who escaped persecution in Europe were its chief residents. It was the most ethnically diverse area of Boston after the  white, mostly Protestant, middle class had long taken flight to the suburbs.  

The Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) replaced the Boston Housing Commission under Mayor John Hynes in 1957 and in 1959 the wrecking balls arrived. In all, 46 acres of the West End were cleared, displacing about 3,000 housing units as 7,500 residents were forced to move. In its place went up the pricey Charles River Park where “If you lived here, you’d be home by now”, but the five new residential buildings only had 477 units.

Gone with the West End were Leverett (c. 1733), Chambers (1788), Poplar (1800), Parkman (Vine in 1806) and North and South Allen Streets (1807). New were a nouveau Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Emerson Place. Only Blossom Street (1803) of the old West End survives.

 

A side note to the West End is its most famed resident, Leonard Nimoy, the Vulcan “Mr. Spock” in Star Trek movies. Nimoy had attended synagogue at the Vilna Shul in the West End with his grandfather.

“The special moment when the Kohanin blessed the assembly moved me deeply, for it possessed a great sense of magic and theatricality … I had heard that this indwelling Spirit of God was too powerful, too beautiful, too awesome for any mortal to look upon and survive, and so I obediently covered my face with my hands. But of course, I had to peek”.

 The blessing traced the Hebrew letter “shin” for “Shaddai” or “Almighty God” shown in the hands above. In the second year of Star Trek, Nimoy felt the need for a special hand blessing for his Vulcan Queen. He took the one-handed “shin” from his boyhood memories as the sign for “live long and prosper”. The second Vilna Shul at Phillips Street is still a thriving center for Jewish life on Beacon Hill and an occasional destination for the visiting “Trekkie”.

The handwriting was on the wall after the fall of the West End. Powerful citizen groups formed to protect their neighborhoods. The new Mayor John Collins offered a “planning with people” policy and worked together with the groups, historical preservation societies and the financial elite known as “the Vault”.  Edward Logue, “The Master Builder” and “Mr. Urban Renewal”, headed up the BRA in 1961 and spearheaded the next two great projects: Government Center and the Faneuil Hall/Quincy Marketplace.

Government Center once resembled the old West End with its meandering streets and tight blocks, but this time very careful consideration was given to the displaced. There were 440 families living in the “project area” of 33 acres of land, mostly white. All were attended by BRA relocation teams of “home finder” social workers. Forty-six businesses were also carefully relocated. Among those, the present Brattle Bookstore on Cornhill put up a fuss, but preservationists for the “Old Howard Theater” carried the banner for restoration. It was the oldest standing theater in America at the time, if not the world, but it went under the wrecking ball with all the others. Its history is found in the chapter on Government Center.

Parts of Court, Hanover, Portland, and Washington Streets were taken and all of Bowker, Brattle, Chardon, Cornhill, Friend, Howard, Pitts and Sudbury. A longer New Sudbury and a widened Cambridge and xxxx Streets took their places. Completed from 19xx-xx, the buildings were unremarkable except for the curious selection of “Brutalist” architecture for Boston City Hall. Like Mr. Spock, perhaps its architects had boyhood memories of life on the far-off planet Vulcan.   

Faneuil Hall Marketplace, opened in 1976, was a pioneer of the “festival marketplace“concept. It is now the 7^th most visited place in the world with 18 million visitors annually. Urban renewal brought all the successes envisioned, despite its rocky road, and continued up to the $   billion Central Artery/Tunnel Project (CA/T), or “Big Dig” completed in 2007.