Boston’s neighborhoods have shifted and evolved dramatically since the Hub’s official township was declared in 1630, said architectural historian Emily Wolf.
At a lecture at the Old South Meeting House Thursday, Wolf, from the Boston Landmarks Commission, spoke about the progression of Boston’s historical neighborhoods.
The lecture is the first of a weekly series the Old South Meeting House will host until late March. The series, called “Building Beantown: Exploring the Neighborhoods that Make up the ‘Hub,’” will focus on the history of “some of the city’s most vibrant neighborhoods,” according to the OSMH.
Wolf illustrated the development of Boston’s original neighborhoods in the city familiar to Bostonians today with a series of rare maps and slides. Covering areas from Back Bay to Roxbury, she presented the historical annexations and inner shifts of the City on a Hill.
“The intent,” she said, “is to talk about neighborhoods that people might not know as much about, not the North End, Beacon Hill, places that are on the Freedom Trail that a lot of people know about.”
The first lecture was designed as an introduction to the series and each subsequent lecture will focus on eight of Boston’s neighborhoods. The series will cover such areas as Chinatown, Jamaica Plain and the South End, each time with a different guest lecturer.
Zerah Jakub, a visitor services and program assistant at the OSMH, said the museum sought to shift people’s attention to the less-explored areas of the city with the lecture series.
“We talk a lot about colonial Boston, but that leaves out places like Dorchester or Roxbury because they were their own towns,” she said.
Jakub said exploring Boston’s neighborhoods reveals how diverse they were when they originated and how diverse they still are.
Audience members said they were excited to learn more about Boston’s history.
“Boston has so much history,” said Mary Theresa, an OSMH member. “We have all this stuff in our backyards. Exploring the history in life makes it fun.”
Other audience members said after attending the lecture, they planned to attend more lectures in the coming weeks.
“We were interested to get an overview and we’re looking forward to the next ones which will focus on different neighborhoods,” said audience member Mary Butman, adding that she enjoyed seeing how the city was annexed and how land was literally shifted around to create a physical Boston close to the current one.
Some of the lecture attendees said they were impressed with the historian who gave the talk.
“She was rather knowledgeable about her subject matter [and] her illustrations were thorough,” said Mark Nystedt, a historian at Vilna Shul, a Boston synagogue.
The Old South Meeting House, the Boston Landmarks Commission and Historic Boston Incorporated are hosting the series and lectures are on Thursdays through March.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
