The new book Urban Archipelago: An Environmental History of the Boston Harbor Islands explores how the city of Boston has transformed the islands on its doorstep time and time again, as the cityās needs shifted over the centuries.Ā From a valuable site for farming, to a dumping ground for all of Bostonās problems, to a wilderness of history and romance, to an urban park, these many transformations reflect a changing city.Ā Author Dr. Pavla Å imkovĆ” joins us this week to discuss how Boston initially embraced the islands, later turned its back on the Harbor, and more recently has embraced them both again.Ā You’ll hear us argue about the 1960s plan to hold a bicentennial expo on the harbor and the role of storyteller Edward Rowe Snow in promoting the Harbor Islands to a new generation, and you’ll hear us agree about the beauty and importance of this urban asset.
Tag: 20th Century
Combat Zone: Murder, Race, and Boston’s Struggle for Justice, with Jan Brogan (episode 236)
In the book Combat Zone, Murder, Race, and Bostonās Struggle for Justice, journalist Jan Brogan turns her impressive research and reporting skills on the case of Andy Puopolo, a 21 year old Harvard football player who was killed in a fight in the Combat Zone in 1976.Ā The case would pit the most privileged group at the most privileged school in the world against three poor Black men on the margins of society, while in the background Boston tore itself apart on racial lines.
The book plumbs the depths of white, working class Bostonās racial resentments during the busing era, a criminal justice system that stacked the deck against Black defendants, and a police department that was compromised at its core by organized crime.Ā It highlights the street violence that helped cement Bostonās reputation as the most racist city in the country, as well as the two trials that came to diametrically opposite verdicts in the same city, just a couple of years apart.Ā It also puts the reader in the mind of the younger brother of the victim, left behind to deal with his feelings of grief and guilt, while wrestling with the possibility of revenge.
Spring Gun in the Grape Vines (episode 235)
This week we’ll explore the strange case of a 1907 shooting in Jamaica Plain.Ā There was a gun, a gunshot, and a gunshot victimā¦ a child, in fact.Ā But there was no shooter, or at least no human shooter.Ā If this was today, we might be talking about a terrifying robot machine gun, but 1907 was a little early for that.Ā Instead, weāre talking about a deadly trap laid by a homeowner to protect his grape arbor.Ā For setting this deadly trap, the homeowner would face criminal trial for assault, but pay only a trivial fine.Ā As bizarre as the case sounds, it was part of a trend that was sweeping the nation at the time, with many spring gun cases arising in the Boston area, until the matter was finally settled in a state supreme court case that every first year law student still studies today.Ā Ā
Continue reading Spring Gun in the Grape Vines (episode 235)
A Disappearance in Donegal (episode 232)
Arthur Kingsley Porter was a celebrity professor, who worked in the shadow of the Harvard secret court that purged the campus of gay students and faculty.Ā He grew up in wealth and privilege, expecting to follow his brother into the family law firm, before experiencing an epiphany that drove him to become one of the worldās foremost experts on medieval European art and architecture.Ā After a midlife revelation led to an unconventional lifestyle, his family sought refuge at their Irish castle and their offshore cottage, until Porter disappeared under mysterious circumstances in the summer of 1933.Ā
Blazing Skies: Boston’s Nike Missiles (episodes 226)
For almost 20 years, Nike missile batteries formed a suburban ring around Boston that ushered the city into the 1950s and the atomic age.Ā The Ajax missile and its successor, the Hercules, were intended to defend Boston and its many military assets from Soviet bombers flying over the North Pole to rain nuclear destruction on the Hub.Ā The ring of bases stretched from the South Shore to the North Shore and far inland, always ready to fire in 15 minutes or less.Ā The Nike program was an open secret, with base gates sometimes thrown open for the public and reporters alike.Ā But there were more closely guarded secrets, as well.Ā Like the fact that the Ajax missile wasnāt really equipped to engage modern jet bombers.Ā Or the fact that a successful interception by the later Hercules would result in a nuclear detonation in our own backyards, with tens of thousands of Americans killed or injured.Ā Ā
Continue reading Blazing Skies: Boston’s Nike Missiles (episodes 226)
The Mysterious Murder (Maybe) of Starr Faithful (episode 223)
When Starr Faithfull’s body washed up on a Long Island beach 90 years ago, the case became a national obsession.Ā At the center of the story was a beautiful young flapper, with a diary full of covert sexual conquests, a sordid history with a prominent politician, and a drug and booze fueled nightlife in the speakeasies of two major cities.Ā Was her death a suicide, driven by her dark past?Ā A tragic accident after one too many?Ā Or was it something darker, a murder for hire on behalf of a former Boston mayorā¦ or his underworld adversaries?
Continue reading The Mysterious Murder (Maybe) of Starr Faithful (episode 223)
Expo 76: Future Vision or Fever Dream? (episode 219)
During the Kennedy administration, a group of Boston businessmen led by a millionaire dairy farmer hatched an audacious plan.Ā They proposed building an experimental city of the future on made land, piers, and floating platforms connecting Columbia Point in Dorchester with Thompson Island in Boston Harbor.Ā This new city would be the site of a Worldās Fair timed to celebrate Americaās Bicentennial, and the site would then be reused to solve all of Bostonās problems with housing, race relations, environmental damage, and economic decline.Ā Spoiler alert: We donāt have a futuristic city connecting Columbia Point with the Harbor Islands.Ā But the story of how a plan ripped straight out of science fiction almost came to be built in Boston reveals a lot about an optimistic city torn apart by the busing crisis.
Continue reading Expo 76: Future Vision or Fever Dream? (episode 219)
Literal Nazis (episode 215)
They stockpiled guns and ammunition.Ā They built homemade bombs.Ā They had a hit list of a dozen members of Congress who were targeted for assassination.Ā They believed themselves to be patriots, with soldiers and police officers among their ranks.Ā They rallied under the motto of America First, but they planned to overthrow our Constitutional government and install a fascist dictatorship.Ā Believe it or not, Iām not talking about the insurrection on January 6, 2021, but instead a plot that the FBI uncovered in January 1940.Ā The subsequent investigation threw a spotlight on a group called the Christian Front that made its headquarters at Bostonās Copley Plaza hotel, promoting violent attacks on Jewish Bostonians while accepting covert funding and support from a Nazi spymaster who flew the swastika proudly from his home on Beacon Hill.
Ghost Stories (episode 208)
In honor of Halloween, Iām going to be sharing eight of my favorite Boston ghost stories this week.Ā From haunted houses and inexplicable premonitions recorded by Cotton and Increase Mather in the years leading up to the Salem Witch hysteria, to Nathaniel Hawthorne encountering his friend in the reading room at the Athenaeum for weeks after the friendās death, to the apparition that only seems to appear in Bostonās most venerable gay bar when only one person is there to see it, weāll cover nearly four hundred years of paranormal claims. And if you’re wondering why parts of the recording aren’t up to our usual standards, it’s because I was recording this after midnight, and I fell asleep in the middle of recording multiple times.
Peace in Boston After the Civil War (episode 204)
Since last week’s show was about Bostonās 1851 Railroad Jubilee, which was an enormous celebration at a time when the nation was in the midst of a rush toward civil war, it seemed appropriate to discuss the Grand Peace Jubilee this week.Ā Held in Boston in 1869, when the war was still a raw wound on the American psyche, the Peace Jubilee was a musical spectacular unlike anything the world had ever seen.Ā Composer Patrick Gilmore hoped to bind the country together and help it healā¦ and if he happened to get rich in the process, that would just be icing on the cake.Ā This week’s show also revisits another peacetime memory of the Civil War in Boston.Ā In 1903, after the pain of the Civil War had dulled, Boston gathered at what is now the āGeneral Hooker Entranceā to the State House to dedicate a statue to the highest ranking general from Massachusetts during the war.
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