Sadayo fujisawa

Lecture 4.3 !1

Lecture 4.3 From the 1970s to the Present History 385

Julie de Chantal

Bicentennial At the height of the busing crisis, Boston was preparing for the bicentennial of the nation (1776-1976). The federal government started to think about the celebrations in 1966. They felt that the Expo 76, the name of the celebration, should either be staged in Boston or in Philadelphia. However, after 6 ½ years of work, the Bicentennial Commission recommended to host several local initiatives instead of one single event to make the 200th anniversary of the United States. You have to remember that while the preparations for the celebrations were taking place the country was still actively engaged in the Vietnam War. In 1969, there was a large peace rally in the Boston Common. (You can see a collection of pictures in the Boston Globe here: https://www.bostonglobe.com/specials/insiders/2012/10/17/bgcom-archive-peace/ bH6RFGVYJ7Dg8u1fHAOFBN/story.html) Due to the compressed nature of the class, I will not touch upon the protests against the war. However, Bostonians were particularly active in the protests.

In 1975, as the country withdrew from Vietnam, President Ford stressed the idea of renewal and rebirth based on the restoration of traditional values. For that reason, the bicentennial was somewhat nostalgic and gave a very narrow reading of the founding of the nation. On April 18, 1975, President Gerald Ford traveled to Boston where he lit a third lantern at the historic Old North Church. The lantern was to symbolize the third century of the nation. Tall ships visited New York City then Boston a week later.

Queen Elizabeth Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburgh, visited to the United States to attend the festivities. Since the Queen was to celebrate her Silver Jubilee (25 years of reign) the following year, the visit was an important to her as a monarch. They traveled on the HMY Britannia (Her Majesty’s Yacht). She received a 21 gun salute upon her arrival in the Boston Harbor. (On docking, the Britannia scraped her side, a mishap hurriedly remedied as the Queen went on to services at Old North Church). She attended ceremonies at the State House, had lunch at City Hall, and went on “walkabouts” through the crowds.

When the Queen was in Boston, security was heavier than at any other stop on the Queen's six- day tour. The Boston police, state police, Secret Service, and the Massachusetts National Guard ensured her safety in the city. Military helicopters buzzed overhead. All police leaves were canceled for the day. The security, however, did not seem to deter the crowds who came to see her. In Boston, she invited a number community people to visit a reception on the yacht. (You can see an invitation that Melnea Cass, a Black activist, received. We talked about her in the Human Renewal projects section of the class). The Queen’s invitation to Black activists stressed the importance of race relations in the city where things were still difficult.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/specials/insiders/2012/10/17/bgcom-archive-peace/bH6RFGVYJ7Dg8u1fHAOFBN/story.html
https://www.bostonglobe.com/specials/insiders/2012/10/17/bgcom-archive-peace/bH6RFGVYJ7Dg8u1fHAOFBN/story.html
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You can see the Queen, escorted by Mayor Kevin White, through Washington Mall in Boston on the way to City Hall ceremonies with 10th regiment of Foot Chelmsford Guard on July 11, 1976. The British officials had to organize an etiquette briefing for city officials involved with the Queen’s visit. The briefing reportedly included a plea to Mayor Kevin White to restrain his impulses — not to put his arm around the Queen's shoulders or pat her on the back (which he often did to dignitaries visiting the city!) for example.

Protests against the Queen’s visit in Boston While some were thrilled to see the Queen, a large number of people protested her visit of the city. Most were Irish Americans, condemning the role of Britain in Ireland at the time. Great Britain, a Protestant nation, controlled the predominantly Catholic country. Since the late 1960s Northern Ireland had seen a rise in violence between the state and Catholic nationalists. The violence led to the death of nearly 3,500 people and 50,000 casualties over the span of three decades, a period nicknamed “the Troubles.” The IRA (a paramilitary organization) conducted several bombings in public buildings. The state’s response to these acts led to the death of several civilian, the Bloody Sunday massacre (on January 30th 1972) being one of the most famous events. (U2 wrote a song about it). As you can see from the slides, a large number of Bostonians came together in the protest.

Enthusiasm With that being said, the celebrations showed the enthusiasm of Bostonians. Jim Beam created a special edition of its famous Bourbon with the image of Crispus Attucks (one of the victims of the Boston Massacre) on the label for the occasion. The US Postal Services launched a series of stamps to commemorate the 200th anniversary.

The Bicentennial Celebrations and the Busing Crisis Contrary to what the video might imply, the busing crisis did not end within the 1974-1975 academic year (right after the order to desegregate). In fact, the crisis continued well into the 1980s, with the official dates of the crisis lasting from 1974 to 1988. The movie did not mention that white parents also resented the idea that the busing only took place between poor white neighborhoods and poor Black neighborhoods. You have to remember that the busing crisis is a city issue, but that the suburbs were as much part of the problem. Since each city was responsible for their own education, the suburbs remained intact (i.e. white and rich) in the whole desegregation process. As a result, more parents moved out of Boston and established their families in the suburbs.The documentary mentioned that ⅓ of the parents removed their children from the public school system. These parents either moved out of the city or enrolled their children in parochial schools (private catholic schools). Violence continued throughout that academic year.

In January 1975, the Governor’s Commission on the Status of Women convened at the city hall. Governor Dukakis was supposed to make an appearance to sign a proclamation declaring Massachusetts International Women’s Year but never arrived. Instead, an angry mob of about 150 white anti-busing mothers showed up, so the governor cancelled his appearance. By early 1975,

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the anti-busing organization known as ROAR (Restore Our Alienated Rights) sought to expand its base of protest from strictly opposing, at times quite violently, the court-ordered desegregation of the Boston public school system. Arguing that, in their words, “the issue of forced busing is a women’s issue,” the predominately female ROAR specifically targeted the women’s liberation movement in Boston. At the same time, in anticipation of the nation’s 200th birthday in 1976, ROAR also shifted its attention to the Bicentennial during the spring of 1975. It turned the celebratory rhetoric on its head by claiming the right to fight those who, in the minds of many white Bostonians, would deny them their most basic rights as parents. For example, ROAR marched as in a funeral procession, some carrying a coffin in which a young woman lay, representing, according to the attached placard, “Miss Liberty, b. 1776 – d. 1974” (the year of the court decision). Others carried signs that read: “Have You Ever Seen the Words Forced Busing in the Constitution?,” “Boston Mourns Its Lost Freedom,” and the more ominous, “If You Think This Is a Massacre, Just Wait!” They then chanted “Garrity Killed Liberty” until reenactment sponsors asked them to stop so that the evening’s true “entertainment” could begin. Louise Day Hicks used her position as a council woman to protest forced busing. She had been elected to the position in 1976, but only remained for one term in office. Many white working-class Bostonians viewed busing as a liberal, white middle-class attack on the sanctity of their turf and their rights as parents. They claimed that they were victims and their children mere pawns.

I would like to talk for a few seconds about the photo Soiling the Old Glory which was taken in front of City Hall in 1976. You can see here a white teenager, Joseph Rakes, assaulting a black man, lawyer and civil rights activist Ted Landsmark, with a flagpole bearing the American flag (also known as Old Glory). The teen narrowly missed Landsmark as he swung the flag to empale him. I have included two angles of the photo, the angle of the photo that we know, and the original angle. Think about what the framing of the picture means in terms of the impact of photo. The photo came to represent the violence experienced in Boston during the busing crisis. It won the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for Spot photography.

Anti-Apartheid Movement in the city In the 1970s, the British treatment of Ireland and the busing crisis were not the only issues that Bostonians were fighting against. They also opposed South African Apartheid. Prior to 1931, South Africa had been a British Colony. The country gained its independence with the Statute of Westminster in 1931 (so did Canada, Australia, and other Dominions of the crown). In 1948, the National party was elected to power. The party strengthened racial segregation that already existed under the Dutch and British colonial rule. Under the Apartheid regime, the government classified people into three races, and gave rights according to the classification.

• white: all privileges • Coloured: (multiracial groups including Indian and Asian ancestry) Some privileges,

some political representation at the beginning of the regime (taken away in the 1950s).

• Blacks: no political power, restriction of marriage, relations, vote, segregate public spaces, education, etc.

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There was a lot of opposition within the country itself. For example people like Steve Biko and Nelson Mandela opposed the system. Mandela was arrested and jailed from 1962 to 1990, Steve Biko was killed while imprisoned in 1977.

So how does that come to Boston In early 1970, African Americans Carolina Hunter and Ken Williams, employees at Polaroid in Cambridge, learned that their employer had been supporting the Apartheid system in South Africa. Hunter worked as a research bench chemist, and Williams worked in the photographic department, making the marketing products for the company. According to them, the company had supported the system by helping create the passbooks that Black South Africans were forced to carry with them at all times. Those passbooks could be asked by anyone, even regular people off the street, to identify their bearers. When Hunter and Williams confronted their employer, Polaroid officials claimed that the company did not sell the ID system to the South African government. They did not have a plant in South Africa, but their distributor sold their product to government agencies. As a response, Hunter and Williams formed the Polaroid Revolutionary Workers’ Movement with some of their colleagues. They distributed flyers and held rallies, accusing Polaroid of supporting the regime. Williams resigned in protest from the company, but the Workers’ Movement, along with allies in the Boston area, continued to draw attention to Polaroid’s connections with South Africa, including financial ties involving some of the company’s funders and owners.

Polaroid, known as a progressive company for its hiring of African Americans and women in the United States, and for its strong benefits packages, faced growing hostility in Cambridge and Boston as the message of the Workers’ Movement spread. Polaroid finally acknowledged that the South African government was indeed using their product to print the passbooks. The company decided that it would stop its distributors from selling their products for that purpose (they did not cut their entire market though).

In 1971, after a fact-finding mission by black and white employees, Polaroid announced an “experiment.” It would force its South African distributor to improve salaries and benefits for non-white employees and to provide financial support for Black education in the country. The idea was met with disapproval from the Workers’ Movement, as well as the African National Congress and other South African anti-apartheid groups. They argued that any attempts at just corporate policies would be undermined by the nation’s racist laws and that the only appropriate corporate response was a complete withdrawal. The experiment still continued for 6 years.

The Boston Globe published an article about the problem in 1977. After the publication, the company finally decided to completely withdraw from South Africa, becoming the first big American company to do so. Hunter was fired and became a teacher, then a principal at Cambridge Ridge and Latin. Polaroid’s withdrawal from South Africa led to the divestment movement in the United States, and many other companies followed their withdrawal from South Africa.

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1978 blizzard Watch the little video on the Blizzard of 1978 at the bottom of the page of the weekly content.

LGBTQ Movement In the early 1980s, the city faced yet another crisis: the AIDS crisis. Recently, I realized that for most of my students (born in the 1990s), AIDS has always been there. It is a reality that has been present for most of your life and little is mentioned about the discovery of the disease, in the same way that historians do not talk about the discovery of polio or of cancer. The AIDS crisis is crucial to our understanding of the LGBTQ community (specifically gay male community), especially in the large urban centers in the 1980s. For that reason, I would like to take this space to talk about the gay community in the second half of the 20th century. (Here I chose the term gay because it is the most visible community of the LGBTQ+ umbrella. Other members will be mentioned as they join the movement in the city).

Homosexuality as a mental disorder. In the 1950s, gays were persecuted on a large scale. As I mentioned in lecture 5.1, during the McCarthy era, government officials tested employees for their “loyalty” and their “subversiveness.” Making sure that employees were not gay was one of the priorities. In 1952, homosexuality was added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel of Mental Disorders (DSM) as a disorder, pathologizing the sexual orientation. (The DSM is the manual that codifies mental disorders and allows for diagnosis in psychiatry). It was only at the time of the sixth printing of the second edition of the DSM in 1974 that it was removed. It took more than twenty years and a lot of pressure from gay activists to finally recognize homosexuality as a normal sexual orientation seen across the animal realm.

Stonewall Riots In the 1950s, organizations such as the Daughters of Bilitis (lesbian) or the Mattachine Society (gay male) fought for the rights of gay people. In 1969, however, the movement became more coherent and less underground after the Stonewall Riot. The Stonewall Inn was a gay bar in Greenwich Village (New York City). It had been since the Genovese crime family had turned the inn into a restaurant for gays and a bar in 1966. The place had no liquor license, no running water behind the bar (they just dipped the glasses in a tub of water and reused them right away), toilets overran constantly, and there were also no fire exists. However, people could not complain due to the underground nature of the inn and the persecution of the gay community. The institution served as one of the very few spaces where gays could safely meet without too much trouble. Yet police raids were frequent, and the institution developed its own code to warn patrons of an impending visit from officers. However, on June 28, 1969, 4 policemen in plainclothes, 2 patrol officers, and a few detectives arrived. Usually, the bar knew in advance that raids were going to take place, and a bribe was enough to make the officers go away. The June 1969 raid did not go as planned, and the officers arrested a large number of patrons. In response, a crowd, not all of whom had been in the bar, started to gather around the establishment in support of the gay community. This escalated into riots in the following days.

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After Stonewall, homosexuality did not suddenly become more acceptable. It was definitely more visible, but discrimination continued. Most of the gay scene remained underground, but the movement progressively became more radicalized. In the early 1980s, intolerance increased as the AIDS crisis begun.

AIDS crisis Scientists don’t know where or when the virus first appeared. There were hypotheses that the virus might have emerged in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo in 1908. The first theories on the origins of the virus were somewhat ludicrous. Scientists believed that people could have eaten contaminated bushmeat and acquired that virus in that way. They also hypothesized that some people could have had sexual relationships with monkeys, since the virus resembles simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIV). All of these theories have since been disproven. A possible first case could have been that of Sadayo Fujisawa, a 60 year old Japanese Canadian midwife who died in 1945, of pneumonia, diarrhea, and wasting (some of the markers of the disease). Another possible first case was found in 1952 in Memphis, Tennessee, in Richard Edwin Graves Jr., a WWII veteran who had been stationed in the Solomon Islands. He died, exhibiting similar symptoms. Another case was found in St. Louis, Missouri when a teenager Robert Rayford (16 y-o), admitted himself at the City Hospital, covered in warts and sores. Doctors discovered other STDs, but since he refused a rectal exam, doctors assumed that he was gay. He stabilized, but returned to the hospital in March 1969. His white blood cell count plummeted and he died in May 1969.

You have to remember that doctors have no clue as to what was happening to those people. They tried to figure it out, but the cases are rare and appear to be unrelated. In the 1980s, more cases appeared in the United States. Most of the patients developed Kaposi sarcoma (a form of skin cancer) or pneumonia which are now associated with the disease. Most cases were concentrated in New York City and San Francisco. Health care providers in these cities began to observe a pattern of cancer-like symptoms among gay men. The National Center for Disease Control names the syndrome Gay Related Immune Deficiency (GRID).

Because of the name GRID, there was a sharp rise in homophobia. The CDC coined the idea of the 4H Disease, since it affected mostly hemophiliacs, heroin users, homosexuals, and Haitian immigrants. In 1982, the disease was renamed the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), and the virus itself was recognized in 1986 as the Human Immunodeficiency Virus.

Difference between AIDS and HIV: HIV is the virus causing the infection. It is what people “catch.” AIDS is the condition derived from the virus. While some people can carry the virus for years, they might not develop the condition. The condition presents only when one’s immune system is heavily compromised and can no longer fight opportunistic infections (pneumonia, cancers, etc). This usually happens when one’s CD4 cell count (a type of white blood cells) plummets under 200.

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In 1987, the first retroviral medicine AZT was produced, however it did not help to reduce the number of people who died from the disease at first. In 1988, the first World AIDS Day took place. In 1995 a second drug Saquinavir, was invented, and from there on, deaths from the disease plummeted in the developed world. As of 2000, 15 to 20% of the new cases in the world were related to blood transfusions. How does this all apply to Boston?

Gay Boston The history of gay Boston was never not really hidden from view. Historians went far back and found traces of homosexuality fairly easily. The History Project (http://www.historyproject.org) which collected the history of gay Boston claimed that John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts, was gay. However, it difficult to claim this with entire certainty. The meaning of friendship, both masculine or feminine, changed over time, and so did the language used to talk about relationships between the different sexes, sexual or not. In the 17th century, men were able love one another openly or share a bed without being accused of being “sodomites” (homosexuals practicing sodomy). No one questioned these relationships unless they challenged social order and hierarchies.

The History Project based its assumption on a letter sent to William Springe on February 8th, 1630. The letter said "I loved you truly before I could think that you took any notice of me: but now I embrace you and rest in your love: and delight to solace my first thoughts in these sweet affections of so dear a friend. The apprehension of your love and worth together hath overcome my heart, and removed the veil of modesty, that I must needs tell you, my soul is knit to you, as the soul of Jonathan to David: were I now with you, I should bedew that sweet bosom with the tears of affection..." As you can see, you can read it as a romantic or a friendship letter.

Going back to our lecture on the Progressive era, we discussed Boston marriages, where women lived together. These relationships were acceptable and accepted again, if the social order was maintained (i.e. from the same class and the same race). As we get closer to our time, we find documentation that drag queen shows already took place in the city in the 1940s. During the War, a number of men had relationships with service men. In the slide you can see the photo of Veronica the Sailor. A resident of Boston, Preston Claridge remembered that a number of parties were organized between gay men and service men. He especially remembered a “tea party” held in Wellesley in the mid-1940s. He explained that “One Sunday, Freddie took me along to a “new faces” party given by Bernard.... Since the beginning of the war, several years before, Bernard had been giving “tea dances” for his gay friends and servicemen. Tea was never served, but the scotch flowed and dancing did follow. It was there I danced with a beautiful blonde sailor nicknamed Veronica because of his Veronica Lake style hair falling over one eye. I thought his hair terribly long and feminine at the time but it couldn't have been because he was in the service.” Provincetown, early on, was a gay town where gay men could go have fun without being persecuted. Established residents and visitors applauded newcomers on the beach to welcome them.

http://www.historyproject.org
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During the Urban renewal though, gay institutions were particularly targeted for destruction. Scollay Square, especially, was a gay hub in the city. The Crawford House was demolished in 1962 as part of the urban renewal. City officials were not quiet about their endorsement of the destruction of the city’s gay establishment. City Councillor Frederick “Freddy” Langone even said at a city council meeting on July 7, 1965, “either we lick it, we will stop it, or let them continue to exist. We are now concerned about the South Cove area. I count at least four or five places where [gay bars] exist now, and one outside the area on Carver Street.... I am wondering now if we eliminate a half dozen of those places within the South Cove area, perhaps the youth of America in this area would be served better….” “We will be better off without these incubators of homo-sexuality and indecency and a Bohemian way of life. I tell you right now, we will be better off without it and if we accomplish nothing else, at least we will uproot this cancer in one area of the city.”

First Gay Pride Parade took place in 1971 (see slide for the photo). You can see how big it had become already in 1984. In 1995, it took a nationalist turn.

Elaine Noble Elaine Noble was the first openly gay person elected in the nation, when she was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. She was born in January 22, 1944, in New Kensington, PA. She completed her BFA at Boston University, then studied at Boston University, Emerson College, and Harvard. She explained that her campaign to run for the House was “very ugly.” She faced violence against her home, her car was destroyed, and her headquarters were vandalized. She persisted and was in office from January 1975 to January 1979 as a representative for Fenway-Kenmore and the Back Bay. She later ran for Senator and city council but was unsuccessful at either.

Despite the fact that there is tolerance for the community (or at least that the community can be out in the open), there is still violence against the gay community. For example, you can see the cover of the Gay Community News in the slides. We can see that the newspaper’s own offices were burnt down by people in the city.

Combahee River Collective Another aspect of the LGBTQ movement in Boston that we rarely consider is that it was a space where radical thought could flourish. In particular, the Combahee River Collective was one of the pillars of the radical fringe of the lesbian movement. The organization was formed in 1973 in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It was a Black radical lesbian feminist collective. Most of its members lived in Boston, with a few from elsewhere Massachusetts and from out-of-state. The Combahee River Collective is especially important because of its manifesto which coined the idea of “identity politics.”

Identity politics is the idea that one’s identity (gender, race, sexual orientation, economic status, etc) are all part of a same system of privilege and oppression. In that sense, a

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poor, Black, lesbian, women lives with 4 forms of oppression (economic status, race, sexual, and gender orientation).

Barbara Smith Barbara Smith was one of the founders of the Collective. Born in Cleveland in 1946. Her family had moved to the city through the Great Migration. Her mother died when she was 9, and she was raised by her aunt and grandmother. She joined the Civil Rights movement, working with CORE, in high school. She enrolled at Mount Holyoke in 1965, but transferred to the New School in New York City during her junior year. She returned to Mount Holyoke during her senior year, and graduated in 1969.

She settled in Boston after receiving her Masters in Literature from the University of Pittsburgh. She taught English at Emerson College. In addition to founding the Combahee River Collective, she was a founding member of the Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, which will later be known for publishing fundamental texts in feminist theory written by women of color. She was instrumental in publishing This Bridge Called my Back which is a milestone in feminist literature.

Place of Boston in the AIDS crisis What I want to point out in this lecture are two parallel trends in Boston in the 1970s and 1980s. On one side, the city experienced extreme violence in terms of race. On the other side, Bostonians were extremely tolerant to the LGBTQ community even during the AIDS crisis. (Again, that radical vs conservative tension that we have seen throughout the history of the city).

Very few clinics treated HIV positive patients in the United States at the beginning of the AIDS crisis. Yet, the Fenway Community Health Center was one of them. The clinic was funded in 1971 by Northeastern University students who thought that health care should not be a privilege but a right. Already in 1973, the Health Care center housed three separate collectives: the Women’s Collective, Gay Men’s Collective, and the Elder’s collective. In 1976, the Health Care center was conducting anonymous STD testing at gay bathhouses in Boston as part of a city wide effort with the Department of Public Health to stop the spread of STDs and hepatitis.

In 1980, after the CDC name the AIDS virus the Gay Related Immune Deficiency, the health care center opened a lab on site. Dr. Ken Mayer began a research program on infectious diseases at the clinic. In 1981, the center made the first diagnoses of AIDS in New England. As a response to the diagnosis, the center created a committee charged with developing a series of AIDS forums to address the medical and psychosocial implications of AIDS. That committee became the Boston AIDS Action Committee.

The Committee aimed to create a network of care for their patients across the city. In 1983, they opened the first AIDS hotline, and launched the first outreach campaign during the City Gay pride celebration. In 1984, they offered the first anonymous HIV testing program, and

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collaborated with Harvard Medical school to culture blood and semen samples to figure how the disease worked and spread.

In 1985, the Massachusetts legislature banned gays and lesbians from becoming foster parents, but legal teams in the city fought the decision. In 1986, the Boston AIDS Action Committee, organized the first AIDS Walk Boston in the Common. They use the song “That’s What Friends Are For” as a signature anthem. In 1988, the Walk collected over 1 million dollars for research, with more than 12,000 walkers.

By 1991, the clinic performed more than 40% of all testing taking place in the city, and treated more than 500 people with AIDS, second to Boston City Hospital. In 1996, the clinic created the wall where it inscribed the names of those lost to the disease in Boston. (It is still there today)

Same-Sex marriage In 2001, the Massachusetts legislature denied several same sex couples marriage licenses. GLAD (the Gay and Lesbian Legal Advocates and Defenders) sued the Department of Public Health arguing that the state was denying citizens the privileges under the state constitution. In the decision in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, the State Supreme Court stated that the state effectively discriminated against same-sex couples by restricting marriage to opposite sex couples (the argument behind the denial of the licenses was that marriage was for procreation only). The Supreme Court gave the state legislature 180 days to take action, after which time the Supreme Court would strike down the unconstitutional law. During this period, the legislature could have chosen to enact civil unions, as Vermont did, but instead chose inaction, thereby allowing the law to be removed. Massachusetts became the first state to allow same-sex marriage on May 17, 2004. However, this only applied to Massachusetts residents because of the Law of 1913 which prevented out-of-state residents from getting married legally in the state. In 2008, this law was removed in order to extend privileges to same-sex couples from all around the nation.

2002 Sexual abuse scandal through Spotlight On a completely different note, I would like to discuss the Spotlight scandal. This piece should be later in this lecture considering the timeline of the events, but I did not want to finish the lecture with this disturbing scandal.

In 2002, the Boston Globe team covered a series of criminal prosecutions of five Roman Catholic priests. This coverage thrust the issue of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests into the spotlight. (If you are interested in the topic, the movie Spotlight does justice to the work of these journalists). The coverage of these few cases encouraged other victims to come forward with their allegations of abuse, resulting in more lawsuits and criminal cases. As more cases came to light, it became clear that priests and lay members of religious orders in Boston’s Catholic Church had sexually abused minors on a scale such that the accusations reached the thousands over several decades.

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Prior to the coverage in the Globe, some Catholic bishops had been made aware of accusations of sexual misconduct. They chose to maintain secrecy, and reassigned the accused priests to other parishes. However, these priests continued to be in positions where they had unsupervised contact with youth. If another accusation was heard, the priest was again reassigned to yet another parish. The Globe articles brought to light this practice, and opened the scandal to the public.

Settlements in the suits were estimated to be up to $100 million. In some cases insurance companies refused to meet the cost of large settlements, claiming the actions were deliberate and not covered by insurance. There was additional financial damage to the Archdiocese, which already faced the need to consolidate and close parishes due to changing attendance and tithing patterns. In June 2004, much of the land around the Archdiocese of Boston headquarters was sold to Boston College, in part to raise money for legal costs associated with scandal in Boston.

In 2003, the series of articles in the Boston Globe received a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. The newspaper was honored, according to the Pulitzer website, “for its courageous, comprehensive coverage ... an effort that pierced secrecy, stirred local, national and international reaction and produced changes in the Roman Catholic Church.”

Big Dig We will finish this lecture by talking about the Big Dig, one of the most ambitious projects in the city’s renewal. The idea emerges in 1982, but the project itself began in the 1991, and was completed in 2007. If you ask Bostonians, they might tell you that they have the impression that the Big Dig lasted “forever” or that it is still not done!

The Big Dig aimed to reroute the central artery of Interstate 93 into a tunnel, and included the construction of the Ted William Tunnel to the Airport, the memorial bridge over Charles River, and the Rose Kennedy Greenway where the I-93 previously was. It was the most expensive highway project ever launched in the United States. The budget increased due to delays, cost overruns, design flaws, poor execution, criminal arrests, and the death of one person. From the $2.8 billion budget (in 1982, $7.5 billion today) planned originally, it cost over 14.6 billion dollars (2007 money, 8.08 billion in 1982 money).

The project experienced several environmental and design obstacles. If you remember, most of Boston had been constructed on filled land. From the Shawmut peninsula, the city had expended as the population increased. Engineers long-pondered how they would handle the type of materials that they were digging through and how it would support the projected construction. Engineers used a ground freezing technique to stabilize the structures as they worked. They faced several delays due to weird discoveries. They found sunken ships, buried houses, rats (millions of them!), possible contaminants, etc. The dig became one of the largest archeological sites in the city. (On the rat issue, see this article https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2002/05/20/ focus1.html)

https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2002/05/20/focus1.html
https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2002/05/20/focus1.html
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Archeological site When we began the class, I mentioned the different archeological sites that the city had uncovered during the Big Dig. (see map) The digging allowed archeologists to recover more than 1000 boxes of materials, which allowed historians to piece the history of the city with more precision.

Through the excavation, they (re)discovered: • A large glassmaking industry: The Big Dig passed through a portion of South Boston

which was a center of glass production throughout the 19th century. • A prolific metal industry: In their research, they found a lot of colonial blacksmith

materials in the North End, and objects belonging to Puritans. • A number of Native American residential sites: Archeologists were able to learn the

ways in which Native Americans ate, how their community was settled in the area, and how they lived prior to the arrival of the Puritans.

Despite these advances, the Big Dig was somewhat of a disaster. In addition to the troubles that it caused in terms of traffic (even worse jams than before) and the deaths caused by shady construction, Massachusetts residents will continue to pay for the construction until 2038. You can read more about the Big Dig in the optional readings for this week.

The Greenway The Greenway, however, “sort of” redeems the construction. It is a linear park that is divided into different sections each with a flavor of its surroundings.

The Chinatown Park is located at the southern end of the Greenway. It is a one-acre linear park which features elements drawn from Asian traditions and art work. On the pictures in the slides, you can see the serpentine walkway with its bright red sculptural elements containing bamboo plants, and a fountain that suggests a waterfall and shallow riverbed.

The Dewey Square Park section is located around South Station and the Financial District. The park features gardens, lawn areas, and the adjacent plaza. Due to the nature of the people working in the area, it was designed to draw in commuters and residents. There are tables, chairs, and food trucks to provide an easy access to food for the area’s workers. In the summer, twice a week, the plaza becomes the Boston Public Market Association’s farmers’ market.

The Fort Point Channel Parks are located between Oliver and Congress Street, along Atlantic Avenue. They are referred to as the “New American Gardens” due to the care put into using trees and flowers typical to New England. The parks encourage “passive recreation and enjoyment,” similar to the ways in which Bostonians thought of the Boston Common in the Progressive Era (post-City Beautiful Movement). It now hosts arts and cultural programs that Bostonians can enjoy.

Lecture 4.3 !13

The Wharf District Parks connect Faneuil Hall to the Financial District with Boston Harbor. The parks feature paved area and a gathering space called the Great Room. It offers three open lawn areas where it features paintings and plantings. In the summer, the Wharf District Parks host the Greenway Open Market, food vendors, concerts and fitness classes. It also hosts the Boston Local Food Fest and the FIGMENT participatory art festival.

The Armenian Heritage Park is a park dedicated to the Armenian Genocide victims. It highlights the role of Boston as a home to immigrants. The park features two key areas surrounded by seating. According to the park’s site, “The Abstract Sculpture, a split dodecahedron, is mounted on a Reflecting Pool, represents the immigrant experience.” “The Abstract Sculpture sits atop a Reflecting Pool; its waters wash over its sides and re-emerge as a single jet of water at the Labyrinth's center.” “The Labyrinth a circular winding path paved in granite and set in lawn, celebrates life's journey.” The jet of water represents “hope and rebirth.”

Finally the North End Parks feature lawns surrounded by planted beds, reminding the patrons of the past European style gardens. The eastern edge features a pergola which covers a long “front porch” where patrons can sit and look at the historical sites beyond the parks. A canal runs the length of the park, reminding patrons of the history of the canal industry.

Challenges in the future With that all being said, we have looked at Boston’s social, economic, racial, and physical history. We have covered almost 400 years of history in 4 weeks! Now it is time to turn the tables. What do you think that Boston’s challenges will be in the future? What do you think needs to be addressed in order for Boston to become a better city?

Thank you all for your participation in the class. It was a pleasure to teach you this material. Have a great end of summer!