Well said, Humphrey. I hope you'll accept an informal bestowal of the title "honorary Bostonian."
The fact remains that while we drool over those pictures of the West End, it was historically impossible (not to sound too Hegelian) that they should survive. We see the beautiful granite masonry and hearty grain storage houses; the narrow, 17th-century streets; and the chaotic, fascinating and utterly human diversity of municipal and residential buildings and (importantly) ale houses -- and we think, "Wow, what a great bar and restaurant scene that would be, something along the lines of Dublin's Temple Bar," "What a cool loft apartment I could have in that building," "The Elizabethan-style Feather Shop could be a wonderful historical monument," and so on.
Without wanting to sound historicist or contextualist, all of the ideas we have when looking at those photos, ideas about how a great city was and could still be perfect, we would never want a return to the conditions that were part and parcel with those buildings. Poverty, lack of sanitation, neighborhood barter economies -- that was all industrialization's impact on the West End. The cramped slums and hodgepodge of new floors added to homes didn't come about because they were picturesque; they came about because landlords and families tried to cram as many people into overcrowded buildings as possible.
What we see in those buildings (cafes, gastropubs, tech companies) is a world away from the purpose they served, and to bridge the gap between early 20th-century European and American cities and what we have today, much had to change. Trucks and traffic brought industrialization and prosperity to cities; roads needed to be widened for the economy as it existed then to chug along. And when people at the time looked at the tenements of the West End, they saw an economic and social hindrance and little redeeming worth.
Today we know better. We aren't affected by mental associations of older, once-industrial neighborhoods with filth and poverty -- things that killed people in great numbers in the first half of the 20th century and were one of the great banes of American and European cities. E.g., my grandfather, whose rent-dodging family moved something like 20 times in the span of 14 years, all within a half-mile radius in Somerville, lost a brother to the flu of as millions in cramped quarters spread that disease in 1918.
But for the changes -- economic, mental, public health, etc. -- that were necessary to come about to get us to today, Boston perhaps had to be rebuilt to allow businesses to have office space, to allow 2nd-generation immigrant workers to escape the North End's slums for greener pastures and still be able to drive to work in the city, and to project a then-inspiring vision of progress and belief in a new postwar world. Would world-class hospitals, universities and financial institutions have thrived as they did in a city whose resistance to change made it economically backward and penurious?
Most of our urbanist fantasies of hip cafes, bustling streets and Priuses parked on the street -- but never in a parking lot -- are very divorced from the city, wonderfully urban and exciting as it was, as it existed two or three generations back, and the changes that occurred owe much to the Modernism that I dislike.
Now, we think we're wiser. At least I think we're wiser. We can afford to hate Modernism and its bastard stepchildren, including Brutalism, and the havoc they wreaked on Boston as a place for living. We're wealthy enough to think about chic lofts and cafes and boutique hotels, and our service- and knowledge-based economy has done a 180-degree turn from that of the industrializing slums of the '20s.
What's the point? I guess I'm just trying to say that we can't kick ourselves over what could've been. When I first saw those photos of the West End, I damn near punched the wall next to me; such a wonderful, real, primitive environment and so many beautiful buildings with so much history -- gone. But the urban-planning follies that we now so regret may have been quite necessary for us to get to the point where the average Bostonian (as opposed to a small elite) can put more thought into things like comfort, city living and aesthetics, as opposed to a deadly bout of measles. I love visiting Prague, but at the end of the day I'm grateful to have been born in Massachusetts (admittedly, in the suburbs -- even my parents' generation had that unfortunate whiff of the city as a dangerous and bad place, something which now seems to be changing).
Given the way we now feel vis-a-vis the urban model still found in most of Boston (even though the West End is gone, the "nicer" neighborhoods -- Back Bay, Beacon Hill, the Financial District, the South End, the North End, the Fens, Allston and so on -- still remain), we need to take it upon ourselves to change the West End and City Hall back to that more human, livable and chic old city.
While working to prevent new atrocities (look at Druker's proposal for the Arlington Building -- they still just don't get it), the city's residents need to push for the revolutionary spirit that destroyed the West End -- only this time to restore it by knocking down and redeveloping City Hall, the Charles River Middle-Class Ghetto, and the North Station/wasted waterfront areas.
Reimposing the old street grids and rebuilding the West End, not rueing what's gone, should be our goal. While the old West End structures that still stand should obviously remain, there's no need to fake it: Don't re-create what's gone, but give developers and private homeowners small plots of land similar in size to the lots that existed pre-Logue. Let them design their own buildings. Some might build throwbacks to the old West End, others Central European-style apartments or mansions, others glass-and-steel structures and maybe some would even try to mimic the Brutalism that we might even (doubtfully) be sad to see go. Make them prove they have the means to put up a building, and give the lots away for a nominal fee.
Rather than take the only approach cities seem to do these days and give all the land to one fat cat (the main Seaport developments, Hudson Yards), that sort of Oklahoma land rush-style auction would benefit all better. There could be clauses preventing people from buying their neighbors' plots pre-development, and regulations for height and density. Even better would be to re-make this car-reliant area into an environmentally friendly zone, with the neighborhood's energy needs met by geothermal heating or windpower, electric streetcars, and recycled water.
Is it likely? In today's Boston, no; but then again, this is the city that catalyzed the American Revolution. If we could kick King George III and the British Empire out, then why not Menino and his cronies? That was a middle-class revolution meant to allow people to live better and without the heavy hand of government interfering in their lives; so will this be.
Can this sort of development feasibly be done? They've done it over much larger territories all across Berlin, and while nothing will ever equal that poor city's lost history (just as we can't get the West End back), it's a thriving, dynamic place these days. The result of taking a similar route in Boston would be a definite economic boost to the city -- and create an urban environment on the Charles that is infinitely better than what we've got.
The fact remains that while we drool over those pictures of the West End, it was historically impossible (not to sound too Hegelian) that they should survive. We see the beautiful granite masonry and hearty grain storage houses; the narrow, 17th-century streets; and the chaotic, fascinating and utterly human diversity of municipal and residential buildings and (importantly) ale houses -- and we think, "Wow, what a great bar and restaurant scene that would be, something along the lines of Dublin's Temple Bar," "What a cool loft apartment I could have in that building," "The Elizabethan-style Feather Shop could be a wonderful historical monument," and so on.
Without wanting to sound historicist or contextualist, all of the ideas we have when looking at those photos, ideas about how a great city was and could still be perfect, we would never want a return to the conditions that were part and parcel with those buildings. Poverty, lack of sanitation, neighborhood barter economies -- that was all industrialization's impact on the West End. The cramped slums and hodgepodge of new floors added to homes didn't come about because they were picturesque; they came about because landlords and families tried to cram as many people into overcrowded buildings as possible.
What we see in those buildings (cafes, gastropubs, tech companies) is a world away from the purpose they served, and to bridge the gap between early 20th-century European and American cities and what we have today, much had to change. Trucks and traffic brought industrialization and prosperity to cities; roads needed to be widened for the economy as it existed then to chug along. And when people at the time looked at the tenements of the West End, they saw an economic and social hindrance and little redeeming worth.
Today we know better. We aren't affected by mental associations of older, once-industrial neighborhoods with filth and poverty -- things that killed people in great numbers in the first half of the 20th century and were one of the great banes of American and European cities. E.g., my grandfather, whose rent-dodging family moved something like 20 times in the span of 14 years, all within a half-mile radius in Somerville, lost a brother to the flu of as millions in cramped quarters spread that disease in 1918.
But for the changes -- economic, mental, public health, etc. -- that were necessary to come about to get us to today, Boston perhaps had to be rebuilt to allow businesses to have office space, to allow 2nd-generation immigrant workers to escape the North End's slums for greener pastures and still be able to drive to work in the city, and to project a then-inspiring vision of progress and belief in a new postwar world. Would world-class hospitals, universities and financial institutions have thrived as they did in a city whose resistance to change made it economically backward and penurious?
Most of our urbanist fantasies of hip cafes, bustling streets and Priuses parked on the street -- but never in a parking lot -- are very divorced from the city, wonderfully urban and exciting as it was, as it existed two or three generations back, and the changes that occurred owe much to the Modernism that I dislike.
Now, we think we're wiser. At least I think we're wiser. We can afford to hate Modernism and its bastard stepchildren, including Brutalism, and the havoc they wreaked on Boston as a place for living. We're wealthy enough to think about chic lofts and cafes and boutique hotels, and our service- and knowledge-based economy has done a 180-degree turn from that of the industrializing slums of the '20s.
What's the point? I guess I'm just trying to say that we can't kick ourselves over what could've been. When I first saw those photos of the West End, I damn near punched the wall next to me; such a wonderful, real, primitive environment and so many beautiful buildings with so much history -- gone. But the urban-planning follies that we now so regret may have been quite necessary for us to get to the point where the average Bostonian (as opposed to a small elite) can put more thought into things like comfort, city living and aesthetics, as opposed to a deadly bout of measles. I love visiting Prague, but at the end of the day I'm grateful to have been born in Massachusetts (admittedly, in the suburbs -- even my parents' generation had that unfortunate whiff of the city as a dangerous and bad place, something which now seems to be changing).
Given the way we now feel vis-a-vis the urban model still found in most of Boston (even though the West End is gone, the "nicer" neighborhoods -- Back Bay, Beacon Hill, the Financial District, the South End, the North End, the Fens, Allston and so on -- still remain), we need to take it upon ourselves to change the West End and City Hall back to that more human, livable and chic old city.
While working to prevent new atrocities (look at Druker's proposal for the Arlington Building -- they still just don't get it), the city's residents need to push for the revolutionary spirit that destroyed the West End -- only this time to restore it by knocking down and redeveloping City Hall, the Charles River Middle-Class Ghetto, and the North Station/wasted waterfront areas.
Reimposing the old street grids and rebuilding the West End, not rueing what's gone, should be our goal. While the old West End structures that still stand should obviously remain, there's no need to fake it: Don't re-create what's gone, but give developers and private homeowners small plots of land similar in size to the lots that existed pre-Logue. Let them design their own buildings. Some might build throwbacks to the old West End, others Central European-style apartments or mansions, others glass-and-steel structures and maybe some would even try to mimic the Brutalism that we might even (doubtfully) be sad to see go. Make them prove they have the means to put up a building, and give the lots away for a nominal fee.
Rather than take the only approach cities seem to do these days and give all the land to one fat cat (the main Seaport developments, Hudson Yards), that sort of Oklahoma land rush-style auction would benefit all better. There could be clauses preventing people from buying their neighbors' plots pre-development, and regulations for height and density. Even better would be to re-make this car-reliant area into an environmentally friendly zone, with the neighborhood's energy needs met by geothermal heating or windpower, electric streetcars, and recycled water.
Is it likely? In today's Boston, no; but then again, this is the city that catalyzed the American Revolution. If we could kick King George III and the British Empire out, then why not Menino and his cronies? That was a middle-class revolution meant to allow people to live better and without the heavy hand of government interfering in their lives; so will this be.
Can this sort of development feasibly be done? They've done it over much larger territories all across Berlin, and while nothing will ever equal that poor city's lost history (just as we can't get the West End back), it's a thriving, dynamic place these days. The result of taking a similar route in Boston would be a definite economic boost to the city -- and create an urban environment on the Charles that is infinitely better than what we've got.
Last edited:
