Tag Archives: Boston

Book Reading and Reception: A People’s History of the New Boston

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People's History of the New BostonWhen: Thursday, October 16, 2014 | 3:00 – 5:00 pm

Where: Point Lounge, Campus Center 3rd Floor, on the campus side, University of Massachusetts Boston

Join the Friends of the Joseph P. Healey Library for a reading from and reception for Jim Vrabel’s new book, A People’s History of the New Boston, published by UMass Press. Barbara Lewis, director of the William Monroe Trotter Institute, will introduce the author.

Books will be available for purchase, and refreshments will be served.

Although Boston today is a vibrant and thriving city, it was anything but that in the years following World War II. By 1950 it had lost a quarter of its tax base over the previous twenty-five years, and during the 1950s it would lose residents faster than any other major city in the country.

Credit for the city’s turnaround since that time is often given to a select group of people, all of them men, all of them white, and most of them well off. In fact, a large group of community activists, many of them women, people of color, and not very well off, were also responsible for creating the Boston so many enjoy today. This book provides a grassroots perspective on the tumultuous 1960s and 1970s, when residents of the city’s neighborhoods engaged in an era of activism and protest unprecedented in Boston since the American Revolution.

Using interviews with many of those activists, contemporary news accounts, and historical sources, Jim Vrabel describes the demonstrations, sit-ins, picket lines, boycotts, and contentious negotiations through which residents exerted their influence on the city that was being rebuilt around them. He includes case histories of the fights against urban renewal, highway construction, and airport expansion; for civil rights, school desegregation, and welfare reform; and over Vietnam and busing. He also profiles a diverse group of activists from all over the city, including Ruth Batson, Anna DeFronzo, Moe Gillen, Mel King, Henry Lee, and Paula Oyola. Vrabel tallies the wins and losses of these neighborhood Davids as they took on the Goliaths of the time, including Boston’s mayors. He shows how much of the legacy of that activism remains in Boston today.

Jim Vrabel is a longtime Boston community activist and historian. He is author of When in Boston: A Time Line & Almanac and Homage to Henry: A Dramatization of John Berryman’s “The Dream Songs.”

For disability-related accommodations, including dietary accommodations, please visit www.ada.umb.edu two weeks prior to the event.

Ring Them Bells! UMass Boston, Park Square, and Elevators

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100 Arlington Street, UMass Boston's first home in Park Square. UASC-UAPHO-0001-0112

100 Arlington Street, UMass Boston’s first home in Park Square. UASC-UAPHO-0001-0112

The Massachusetts Legislature established the University of Massachusetts Boston in 1964 and the university opened its doors in 1965 at a renovated building in Park Square. That building, located at 100 Arlington Street and built in 1927 to serve as the corporate headquarters for the Boston Consolidated Gas Company, was the primary home to UMass Boston until the university moved to Columbia Point in 1974.

100 Arlington continued to be used by UMass Boston for a number of years and, from 1995 to 2010, was home to the Boston Renaissance Charter School, one of the first 14 charter schools approved to operate as public schools by the Massachusetts Secretary of Education in 1994. Earlier this year, though, the building at 100 Arlington began a new life after being repurposed into retail space and 128 luxury apartments. A one bedroom/one bathroom apartment in the newly renovated building leases for $3,800/month.

A discussion of Boston real estate costs aside, something I enjoyed seeing on the website for this new apartment and retail complex was a picture of the lobby elevators – elevators I’ve read about and seen photographs of in our University Archives collections.

Students outside the elevators at the Arlington Street building in Park Square. UASC-UAPHO-0001-0097

Students outside the elevators at the Arlington Street building in Park Square in 1966. UASC-UAPHO-0001-0097

There are a few photographs that we’ve digitized as part of our 50th anniversary photo indexing project that show UMass Boston students, faculty, and staff outside the lobby elevators at 100 Arlington in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Much has changed, but if you look closely at the newly renovated lobby and the photographs on our digital collections site, you’ll notice that a few telling characteristics remain.

A mail chute between two of the lobby’s five elevators. Pillars along the wall leading up to the elevators. A building directory frame that, in the redesigned lobby, now frames a large mirror.

People outside the elevators in the lobby of the Arlington Street building in Park Square. UASC-UAPHO-0001-0096

People outside the elevators in the lobby of the Arlington Street building in Park Square in 1966. UASC-UAPHO-0001-0096

But more than these photographs, there are snippets of information in our collections, contributed by UMass Boston community members, about the elevators in the lobby of 100 Arlington.

In one story, Linda Dittmar, an early faculty member in the English Department, describes the “lurching elevator that ferried us up and down [and how the elevators] still had a live operator announcing each floor …”

In another story, UMass Boston alumnus Joe Szocik writes about how the elevators helped create a more social environment: “… waiting for an elevator and riding the elevator provided many opportunities for talking to people from different classes.”

And in an interview conducted in the fall of 1998 as part of an oral history project, an early faculty member in the Music Department, Nicholas Tawa, talks about trying to hold concerts in the Arlington Street building’s lobby and “having to muffle the elevator bells because they kept on ringing.”

A lot in the newly purposed building at 100 Arlington has certainly changed, but at least those bells are still ringing.

University Archives & Special Collections in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston collects materials related to the university’s history, as well as materials that reflect the institution’s urban mission and strong support of community service, notably in collections of records of urban planning, social welfare, social action, alternative movements, community organizations, and local history related to neighboring communities.

University Archives & Special Collections welcomes inquiries from individuals, organizations, and businesses interested in donating materials of an archival nature that that fit within our collecting policy. These include manuscripts, documents, organizational archives, collections of photographs, unique publications, and audio and video media. For more information about donating to University Archives & Special Collections, click here or email library.archives@umb.edu.

Historian and UMass Boston alumnus Anthony M. Sammarco ’79 publishes Lost Boston

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With Lost Boston, historian and UMass Boston alumnus Anthony M. Sammarco ’79 takes readers on a nostalgic journey back in time to visit some of Boston’s  disappeared buildings and places in all their grandeur, before the wrecking ball and decline set in. For information about upcoming book talks featuring Sammarco, click here.

From the 1870s up to the present day, 68 different losses are represented in Lost Boston, including schools, churches, theaters, grand mansions, dockyards, racetracks, parks, stores, hotels, offices, and factories. Organized chronologically starting with the earliest losses and ending with the latest, Lost Boston features much-loved institutions that failed to stand the test of time, along with old-fashioned hotels and sports facilities that were beyond updating or refurbishment. Losses explored include Franklin Place, Boston City Hall, Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Hancock House, Gleason’s Publishing Hall, Fort Hill, Franklin Street, Boston Coliseum, Boylston Market, Merchants Exchange, Haymarket Square, Boston Public Library, Horticultural Hall, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Revere House (Hotel), Huntington Avenue Grounds, Charlestown City Hall, Molasses Tank, Cyclorama, Readville Trotting Park and Race Track, East Boston Airport, Boston Latin School, East Boston Ferries, Braves Field, Massachusetts State Prison, Boston Opera House, Boston Aquarium, The Howard Athenaeum, and Dudley Street Station.

Well known locally for his community service in disseminating local history, Anthony M. Sammarco has donated his archives to University Archives & Special Collections in the Healey Library at UMass Boston. Sammarco intends to donate a copy of Lost Boston, along with his research materials and photographs, to University Archives & Special Collections.

For information about upcoming book talks featuring Sammarco, click here. Books will be available for purchase for $18.95 at these events and will be signed by the author.

State Library of Massachusetts to host presentation on “Great Molasses Flood”

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John Callahan was among the 21 people who lost their lives in the Molasses Flood. Callahan was a member of the Massachusetts Catholic Order of Foresters, the records of which are held in University Archives & Special Collections.

The death certificate of John Callahan, who was among the 21 people who lost their lives in the Molasses Flood. Callahan was a member of the Massachusetts Catholic Order of Foresters, the records of which are held in University Archives & Special Collections.

When: Thursday, January 23, 2014 | 12:00 – 1:30 pm

Where: State Library of Massachusetts | Room 442, State House

Bring your lunch to the State Library of Massachusetts (in the Massachusetts State House) on Thursday, January 23, and listen to John Horrigan, host of the 2013 Boston/New England Emmy Award™-winning historical television program “The Folklorist,” as he presents a short presentation on “The Great Molasses Flood.”

The Great Molasses Flood of January 15, 1919, as it’s come to be known, is perhaps one of the oddest disasters in New England history, and one that continues to capture the interest of historians and the general public alike. Read more about this presentation, part of the State Library’s Brown Bag discussion series, here…

Of the 21 people who lost their lives in the Molasses Flood, at least two, James Lennon and John Callahan, were members of the Massachusetts Catholic Order of Foresters, the records of which are held in University Archives & Special Collections in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston. The Massachusetts Catholic Order of Foresters was founded in 1879 by a group of Irish immigrants to provide life insurance benefits for its members. A Foresters member record includes an Application for Membership, health examination information, a Death Certificate, a Death Benefit Payout (with information about beneficiaries), and other supporting documents.

The Death Certificate for John Callahan, seen above, lists his cause of death as “Mult[iple] injuries including fracture of pelvis with consequent infection caused by the bursting of a molasses tank.”

Learn more about the Massachusetts Catholic Order of Foresters and the Foresters Mortuary Records here.

Moving from Park Square to Columbia Point: Records document the search for a permanent UMass Boston campus

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Buildings on the newly opened Columbia Point Campus of UMass Boston, circa 1974.

University Archives & Special Collections in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston is pleased to announce the availability of a set of records that document the search in the late 1960s for a permanent campus site for the University of Massachusetts Boston.

The University of Massachusetts Boston was established in 1964, with its first campus opening in downtown Boston at Park Square. Shortly thereafter, the University began a search for a permanent campus location elsewhere in the Boston area. The search culminated with the establishment of the Columbia Point campus in 1974. These records document the search for a new campus, the various sites that were considered, and the public’s reactions to the move away from Park Square.

Materials span 1966-1969 and include consultants’ reports, maps, memoranda, press releases, correspondence, and statements for and against the establishment of a University of Massachusetts campus at Columbia Point.

View the finding aid for this collection.

These records have been reprocessed and reorganized by Jessica Holden, Special Projects Archivist/Librarian, as part of the University Archives & Special Collections’ activities in preparation for the University’s upcoming 50th anniversary celebrations.

University Archives & Special Collections in the Joseph P. Healey Library at UMass Boston collects materials related to the university’s history, as well as materials that reflect the institution’s urban mission and strong support of community service, notably in collections of records of urban planning, social welfare, social action, alternative movements, community organizations, and local history related to neighboring communities.

University Archives & Special Collections welcomes inquiries from individuals, organizations, and businesses interested in donating materials of an archival nature that that fit within our collecting policy. These include manuscripts, documents, organizational archives, collections of photographs, unique publications, and audio and video media. For more information about donating to University Archives & Special Collections, click here or email library.archives@umb.edu.