The West End Museum (WEM) is a neighborhood museum dedicated to the collection, preservation, and interpretation of the history and culture of the West End of Boston in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. [1]
The West End Museum (WEM) is a neighborhood museum dedicated to the collection, preservation, and interpretation of the history and culture of the West End of Boston in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. [1]
In 1989, the editors of the West Ender Newsletter and members of the West End Historical Association developed a preliminary plan for a West End Museum. In 1991, The Old West End Housing Corporation (OWEHC) was formed as a Community Development Corporation (CDC) with the mission of developing affordable housing for former West End residents who had been displaced by the Urban Renewal programs of the 1950s, when their houses were seized by eminent domain. [2] After helping to develop affordable housing for former West Enders at West End Place (150 Staniford Street, Boston, MA 02114), in 2002 the OWEHC was awarded a commercial space for its offices along with the stipulation that it develop a West End Visitor Center. [3]
In 2003, the Bostonian Society donated and relocated its The Last Tenement exhibit to 150 Staniford St. This was an exhibition which had been displayed in the Old State House from October 1992 through April 1994, portraying the plight of the West End neighborhood. The exhibit laid the foundation for a permanent West End Museum. In 2010, members of the OWEHC along with West End residents formed a committee with the goal to establish a permanent 501(c) 3 non-profit called "The West End Museum, Inc". [4]
The museum space consists of three exhibition areas and an archive. [5] The museum hosts regular programming, including gallery openings, film screenings, book signings, and special guest appearances. [6]
The permanent exhibit The Last Tenement, designed by the Bostonian Society in 1992 and relocated to the West End Museum in 2003, is housed in its own dedicated 1,100-square-foot (100 m2) space. A larger temporary exhibition 1,400-square-foot (130 m2) space accommodates 3 temporary shows per year. Shows have included: The Middlesex Canal: Boston's First Big Dig [7] and Leaving the River. [8] The Members' Gallery adjacent to the administrative offices hosts six temporary shows each year. Past shows in this space have included: West End photographs from the archives of the Bostonian Society, The Boston Canal (which was an extension of the Middlesex Canal through Causeway Street in the Bulfinch Triangle to Haymarket Square), and Twenty Five Years of the West Ender Newsletter. [9]
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the most populous city in the county, the fourth-largest in Massachusetts behind Boston, Worcester, and Springfield, and ninth-most populous in New England. The city was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England, which was an important center of the Puritan theology that was embraced by the town's founders.
Medford is a city 6.7 miles (10.8 km) northwest of downtown Boston on the Mystic River in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. At the time of the 2020 U.S. Census, Medford's population was 59,659. It is home to Tufts University, which has its campus on both sides of the Medford and Somerville border.
Somerville is a city located directly to the northwest of Boston, and north of Cambridge, in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city had a total population of 81,045 people. With an area of 4.12 square miles (10.7 km2), the city has a density of 19,671/sq mi (7,595/km2), making it the most densely populated municipality in New England and the 19th most densely populated incorporated municipality in the country. Somerville was established as a town in 1842, when it was separated from Charlestown. In 2006, the city was named the best-run city in Massachusetts by The Boston Globe. In 1972, 2009, and 2015, the city received the All-America City Award. It is home to Tufts University, which has its campus along the Somerville and Medford border. Tufts, alongside Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, makes up one corner of the Brain Power Triangle, which thus includes the city of Somerville.
Charlestown is the oldest neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. Also called Mishawum by the Massachusett, it is located on a peninsula north of the Charles River, across from downtown Boston, and also adjoins the Mystic River and Boston Harbor waterways. Charlestown was laid out in 1629 by engineer Thomas Graves, one of its earliest settlers, during the reign of Charles I of England. It was originally a separate town and the first capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
The North End is a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is the city's oldest residential community, having been inhabited since it was colonized in the 1630s. It is only 0.36 square miles (0.93 km2), yet the neighborhood has nearly one hundred establishments and a variety of tourist attractions. It is known for its Italian American population and Italian restaurants.
Davis Square is a major intersection in the northwestern section of Somerville, Massachusetts, United States, where several streets meet: Holland Street, Dover Street, Day Street, Elm Street, Highland Avenue, and College Avenue. The name is often used to refer to the West Somerville neighborhood surrounding the square as well.
The Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway is a linear park located in several Downtown Boston neighborhoods. It consists of landscaped gardens, promenades, plazas, fountains, art, and specialty lighting systems that stretch over one mile through Chinatown, the Financial District, the Waterfront, and North End neighborhoods. Officially opened in October 2008, the 17-acre Greenway sits on land created from demolition of the John F. Fitzgerald Expressway as part of the Big Dig project.
The Charles River Dam Bridge, officially the Craigie Bridge, also called Craigie's Bridge or the Canal Bridge, is a six-lane bascule bridge across the Charles River in the West End neighborhood of Boston. The bridge, maintained by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, carries Massachusetts Route 28 next to the Green Line's Lechmere Viaduct. The Museum of Science is located on the dam and nearby piers. Charles River Dam Road connects Leverett Circle in the West End to East Cambridge, but most of the road is fixed, and the asymmetrically sited drawbridge is a short span entirely on the Boston side of the river.
East Cambridge is a neighborhood of Cambridge, Massachusetts. East Cambridge is bounded by the Charles River and the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston on the east, the Somerville border on the north, Broadway and Main Street on the south, and the railroad tracks on the west. Most of the streets form a grid aligned with Cambridge Street, which was laid out to directly connect what is now the Charles River Dam Bridge with what in 1809 was the heart of Cambridge, Harvard Square. The northern part of the grid is a roughly six by eight block residential area. Cambridge Street itself is retail commercial, along with Monsignor O'Brien Highway, the Twin Cities Plaza strip mall, and the enclosed Cambridgeside Galleria. Lechmere Square is the transportation hub for the northern side. The southern half of the grid is largely office and laboratory space for hundreds of dot-com companies, research labs and startups associated with MIT, biotechnology firms including Genzyme, Biogen and Moderna, the Athenaeum Press Building, light industry, an NRG Energy power station, and various small businesses. This half of the neighborhood is generally identified with Kendall Square. Along the waterfront are several hotels and taller apartment buildings.
The Lower East Side Tenement Museum is a museum and National Historic Site located at 97 and 103 Orchard Street in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The museum's two historical tenement buildings were home to an estimated 15,000 people, from over 20 nations, between 1863 and 2011. The museum, which includes a visitors' center, promotes tolerance and historical perspective on the immigrant experience.
South Medford is the southern neighborhood of Medford, Massachusetts.
The West End is a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States, bounded generally by Cambridge Street to the south, the Charles River to the west and northwest, North Washington Street on the north and northeast, and New Sudbury Street on the east. Beacon Hill is to the south, North Point is across the Charles River to the north, Kendall Square is in Cambridge across the Charles River to the west, and the North End of Boston is to the east.
Spring Hill is the name of a ridge in the central part of the city of Somerville, Massachusetts, United States, and the residential neighborhood that sits atop it. It runs northwest to southeast, roughly bounded by Highland Avenue, Somerville Avenue, Elm Street, and Willow Avenue. Summer Street runs along the hill's crest.
Assembly Square is a neighborhood in Somerville, Massachusetts, United States. It is located along the west bank of the Mystic River, bordered by Ten Hills and Massachusetts Route 28 to the north and the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston to the south. The district's western border runs along Interstate 93. Located 2.5 mi (4.0 km) from downtown Boston, the 143 acres (580,000 m2) parcel is named for a former Ford Motor Company plant that closed in 1958.
The North End Parks are the two northernmost parks on the Rose Kennedy Greenway, built over O'Neill Tunnel in Boston, Massachusetts and adjacent to the neighborhood known as the North End. Two landscape architecture firms designed the 3-acre (12,000 m2) North End Parks.
Sullivan Square is a traffic circle located at the north end of the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is named after James Sullivan, an early 19th-century Governor of Massachusetts. The MBTA Orange Line station of the same name is located just west of the square.
The West Ender is a Boston-based newspaper founded in 1985 by Jim Campano, who still serves as the editor and publisher.
The Seaport District, or simply Seaport, is a neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts. It is part of the larger neighborhood of South Boston, and is also sometimes called the Innovation District. The Seaport is a formerly industrial area that has undergone an extensive redevelopment effort in recent years. It is bordered by the Fort Point Channel to the west, Boston Harbor to the north and east, and the historic residential neighborhood of South Boston to the south. It is officially referred to by the City of Boston as The South Boston Waterfront. The Seaport District is at risk of climate-related flooding over the next 30 years.
Jules Aarons was an American space physicist known for his study of radio-wave propagation, and a photographer known for his street photography in Boston.
Julia Csekö is an Artist, Educator and Independent Curator having worked at multiple learning, non-profits, and cultural organizations, including Montserrat College of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
