Open Letter to the North End Elected Officials, I love living in Boston. I have lived in the North End since 2000. I have not owned a car since 2011. Carless residents are currently Boston’s stated goal; unfortunately, it is becoming more and more difficult to move around the city on foot. Construction of buildings Read More…
Street Corner Society is an iconic study published by William Foote Whyte in 1943. I read and researched this book 46 years ago in college and recently revisited it with the North End’s Dr. James Pasto of Boston’s University. I continue to be puzzled at his use of “gangs and slum” as major notation of Read More…
By the early 1920s my grandfather, Nicola, had saved enough money to buy a small tavern at the corner of Lewis and Commercial Streets which he named Nick’s Tavern. Nonno Nick came to America as a stowaway and there is no record of him entering the country at Ellis Island or any other port of Read More…
Giuseppe Verdi, the first child of Carlo Giuseppe Verdi and Luigia Uttini, was born in their home in 1813 in the town of Le Roncole, within the borders of the First French Empire. He died in 1901 in the newly formed Italian Republic so influenced by his passion and music. Verdi, was given private lessons Read More…
When I first emigrated from Sicily at age seven into the North End of Boston, my transformation from a country bumpkin to my new urban environment was a personal culture shock into the four story Hanover Ave. neighborhood. I was welcomed by my immediate neighbors with love and bore the taunts of a “grease ball” Read More…
We are writing to say thank you to State Representative Aaron Michlewitz for his advocacy to increase the state match for the Community Preservation Trust Fund in the state budget! In 2016 75% of Boston voters cast their ballot in support of the Community Preservation Act (CPA), enabling new funds for affordable housing, historic preservation, and parks and Read More…
Letter to the Editor: I wanted to highlight this post in the NY Times comments section today. It was a response to an article on Kamala Harris and busing. It mentions the Eliot School and a beloved teacher and North Ender, Sandra De Luca. Here is the post, signed by Sherry: “As an elementary-aged Bostonian Read More…
This is the fourth installation of Nicholas Dello Russo’s “A Shtetl in the City”, following part one, part two, and part three. My name is Solomon Levi,At my store in Salem Street,There’s where you’ll find your coats and vests,And ev’rything else that’s neat:I’ve second-hand Ulsterettes,And ev’rything else that’s fine;For all the boys they trade with me,At one Read More…
I was telling a friend, a Broadway aficionado, about the topic I planned for this column. He immediately thought of a song, although he couldn’t remember the title or the show, but he described how an older character sings of her new love. In the anthem, the character (he remembers actress Dorothy Loudon played her) Read More…
There’s been a lot of discussion about the building at the corner of Prince and Salem Streets which is owned by Joe and Fred Giangregorio. The building is slated to be demolished and replaced with an attractive, modern apartment building. North Enders refer to it as the “Postale” building because the latest tenant was a Read More…
October 1st in 1979 was a momentous day for the city of Boston and for the North End. The city was still polarized by the forced busing of its public schools and racial tensions were palpable throughout the neighborhoods. Ray Flynn was the mayor and Umberto Medeiros was the cardinal. The North End was rapidly Read More…
One of the biggest local news stories of the year nearly got buried under a pile of rubble. That story is the sudden shuttering of 454-464 Hanover Street in mid-March by Boston’s Inspectional Services after an engineer working for the department cited the deterioration of steel beams and reported the possibility of “catastrophic failure.” The Read More…