The West End Clearance

Between 1958 and 1960 almost all of Boston's old West End, a working-class neighbourhood of three- to five-storey apartment houses at the foot of Beacon Hill, was demolished under the federal urban renewal programme. Mayor John Hynes's administration had marked it for "slum clearance" and luxury apartments. In November 1956 the Boston Housing Authority awarded the redevelopment to Charles River Park, Inc., with Jerome Rappaport, a former aide to the mayor, as developer; the project covered something under 50 acres. In April 1958 the Boston Redevelopment Authority gave residents formal notice that their homes would be taken by eminent domain. By November almost half of the 2,700 households had gone, and some 7,000 people lost their homes. The sociologist Herbert Gans lived in the West End from October 1957 to May 1958, and his 1962 book The Urban Villagers described a lively community of Italian Americans and other immigrant families, not the slum officials claimed; the displaced, he wrote, suffered emotionally and nearly all paid more rent afterwards. Most of the land was sold to the developer for $1.17 a square foot. The first tenants moved into Charles River Park in November 1961, but it was not finished until the early 1970s. Only a handful of old buildings survived, among them 42 Lomasney Way. In September 2015 Brian Golden, director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority, apologised on the agency's behalf at the West End Museum.