To get into the tale of Boston’s North End we must begin by rolling back the clock some three hundred years before this area was truly developed. At the time, the North End was actually an island separated from Boston by a canal called the Mill Stream. As Boston began to literally expand its borders via landfill in the 1600 and 1700s, the area became home to many wealthy merchants.
The area was especially popular with a group of loyalists to the King of England called Tories. After the American Revolution, though the area began to fall into disfavor as the Tories were bolting to Canada and other rich merchants were moving to new areas such as Beacon Hill. As the money left, in moving the working class during most of the 19th century, primarily those from the shipping industry due to the area’s proximity to the waterfront.
In the 1840s a new group began to make its way and settle in the North End—the Irish.
Many of these immigrants moved between the short period of 1846-1847 during the Great Potato Famine. Over 13,000 people moved in 1847 alone. This was a significant number considering that the total population of the North End was approximately 20,000 in 1850.
The Irish remained the dominant ethnicity in the North End until 1880 when another group of immigrants began to take over. The reason for the transition was twofold.
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One, was that the North End Irish population had begun to decrease as they had started to settle in greater numbers in a new area—South Boston. The 2nd reason was the increased influx of another group, the Eastern European Jews (some 6,300 between 1870 and 1920). Many of the Jews settled in the area along Salem Street. While today, many of those traces are gone, replaced by Italian bakeries and such, there is still one gentle reminder on a narrow street called Baldwin Place.
If you make your way down Baldwin and look just above the 3rd floor window on #4, there is a fading Star of David visible on the façade of this former apartment building. The final major ethnicity to settle in the North End was when the Italians first began arriving in the 1860s. These figures began to steadily increase in the 1870s and by the 1920s a new majority had officially been established. And the proud Italian neighborhood we know as the North End has never looked back since as today the North End is known throughout the city as “Boston’s Little Italy.”
- Website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_End,_Boston
- Address: Hanover Street, Boston, MA (Note: Hanover is the main thoroughfare through the North End.)
- Cost: Free.
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