20th Century

This event celebrates 20 years of marriage equality in Massachusetts with an engaging and heartfelt discussion about its impact on the LGBTQ+ community. This event looks back on the transformative journey that started two decades ago and explore how marriage equality has shaped lives, families, and communities using The History Project’s archive.

The Southwest Corridor Park is one of JP’s many green spaces. It exists because of a grassroots effort to stop Interstate 95 (I-95). Residents came together, showing how neighbors could help determine use of the land in their communities. If not for that success, there would now be an enormous roadway scarring the center of our neighborhood, permanently dividing one side from the other.

In this presentation City Life/Vida Urbana (CLVU) shares its rich history of organizing in Boston to build the power of working class and BIPOC communities to fight for systematic change. Founded in 1973, and currently located in The Brewery, City Life is known for its anti displacement organizing, fighting unscrupulous landlords; defending families from foreclosures and evictions.

Emile Bernat, the founder of Emile Bernat & Sons, came to Boston from his native Hungary about 1902. In the 1930s he ran a company called “Bernat Superior Looms.” The address was 99 Bickford Street (they were in the old Thomas Plant Shoe Factory). The looms were to complement the work done with their “superior” yarns.

Video of a book talk held at the Connolly Branch of the Boston Public Library on April 2, 2022 featuring Wayne M. Miller the author of Burn Boston Burn. His book tells the remarkable story Boston in the early 1980s when the City is set ablaze. This is the true story of the deep conspiracy of nine men, determined to wreak havoc on the city and the relentless investigators who uncovered them. Told from the perspective of the head ATF Special Agent in charge of the investigation.

Jamaica Plain Spoken was a video/interview project that JP musician Rick Berlin started with his friend Todd Drogy in 2004. It consists of nearly sixty interviews with people of all genders, beliefs, ages and ethnicities. Just a bunch of local characters describing their lives and offering their opinions about Jamaica Plain. The project was stopped due to a lack of funding, so the YouTube clips are all that remain. Those links are gathered here.

The intersection of Prince Street and Pond Street (where it is contiguous with the Arborway) is designated as Matthew O’Gorman Square. This hero square was dedicated on October 12, 1921.

In 1918 a US Coast Guard Cutter was torpedoed in the Irish Sea.  One of its victims was from Jamaica Plain. One hundred years later his next-of-kin is being sought to receive the Purple Heart awarded to Lt. John Thomas Carr.

Jamaica Plain old-timers will remember that only two clocks really mattered in our youth.  One was outside of the Boston Five Cents Savings Bank at 696 Centre St. and the other important clock was in the lobby of the Jamaica Theatre at Hyde Square.

The International Chinese Business Business Directory of 1913 included four entries for Chinese-owned businesses in Jamaica Plain.

Jimmy Durante and his entourage paid a visit to Hanlon’s Shoe Store in Jamaica Plain in 1958.  During a visit to Boston to perform in a downtown club Durante asked where the best place was to buy shoes in Boston and was directed to Hanlon’s Shoes on Centre St.  Mr. Durante purchased five pairs of shoes on that first visit to Hanlon’s and returned on a number of occasions to make additional purchases.

The iconic 90s grunge band Nirvana first played Boston in Jamaica Plain. The band’s first Hub gig was at Green Street Station on July 15, 1989, a show notable in its own right: Cobain, who broke his guitar the night before, performed the entire nine-song set without one.

This 28 minute video consists of footage photographed by Samuel Minot on a 16mm home movie camera between 1939 and 1963.

What does a 1940’s type shoe repair shop, a fleet of World War Two B-17 Bombers, the Building 19 discount store in Norwood, Arthur Fiedler of Boston Pops fame and Jazz Maffie, the late Brinks bandit, have in common?  And the answer is: 90 year-old cobbler Guy Perito, formerly of Sedgwick Street, Jamaica Plain!

The coincidence of the house at 257 Lamartine playing a part in two family’s lives 80 years ago and then their stories coming to light almost simultaneously is, we think, very interesting, to say the least. 

How a chance meeting on Boylston Street reveals a Holocaust survivor’s brief connection with Jamaica Plain 80 years ago. 

In 1952, I was making 50 cents an hour at C.B. Rogers’ drugstore and had saved some money. I bought a used 1941 Ford. It was dark blue. It was one of the last models that Ford made before WWII ended all American car production during those years. I paid $60 for it.

This is the story of a personally conducted tour through Jamaica Plain.  It began about 6:45 last evening, and it lasted for about two and one half hours.  And if there were any streets that escaped, it wasn’t the fault of patrolman Joseph Cunningham of Station 13, the conductor, or Mrs Louisa Cline of 16 Dixville St., South Boston, the conducted.

Rememberances of David Mittell of his time at the Agassiz School.

The coal was in the cellar, a barrel of flour in the pantry, preserves and piccalilli stored away, plenty of beans for baking, a good supply of winter vegetables and you were all set for the winter.  Then one morning you would be awakened by the joyous sound of bells. To children this meant one thing - IT SNOWED!

Cardinal O’Connell at noon yesterday [9/28/1913] laid the cornerstone of the new Church of the Blessed Sacrament in process of construction on Center near Creighton St., Jamaica Plain. 

William Kelley was born of Irish parentage here on September 14, 1893 and was a fine representative of the many thousands of Irish immigrant families who came to Massachusetts' shores and made good. He served his country during World War I and entered the ranks of the New England Telephone & Telegraph Company. 

Ask anyone growing up south of the Monument in the later half of the 20th century where they could find industrial sized bologna and cheese sandwiches on super-fresh bulkie rolls, the plumpest jelly donuts, the smoothest ice cream, the foamiest root beer floats, the coldest tall bottles of Royal Crown, Pepsi and Nehi Orange, an honor-system penny candy case and a kind and trusting proprietor who’d carry your family “on-the-cuff” when needed, and the answer can only be “Bob’s Spa” at 128 South Street.

Two applications for warrants are pending in the West Roxbury Municipal Court because of the trap-gun shooting which occurred late Sunday night, while Henry Cantwell, the 15 year-old Roxbury boy, was near the grape trellis in the garden of Frank D. Seiberlich of 4 Boylston St.

Buff & Buff Manufacturing Company occupied the site of what is now the Buff Condominiums at 329R Lamartine Street in Jamaica Plain until the mid-1980s. They manufactured and repaired a variety of precision engineering instruments, most notably surveying transits and theodolites.