The flip side of the Freedom Trail
You may have passed by South End's historical landmarks without knowing the stories behind them. Below are some sites included on MYTOWN one-mile walking tour:
1. A. Philip Randolph statue, inside Back Bay station on the Orange Line.
From 1911 to 1963, Randolph helped desegregate the armed forces, organize the
march on Washington, and establish a trade union for Pullman porters, one of
the first black labor unions. One of few statues in Massachusetts
commemorating and depicting an African-American.
2. Tent City, corner of Columbus Avenue and Dartmouth Street. In 1968,
activist Mel King and nearly 100 others pitched tents on a vacant lot to
dramatize the need for affordable housing during urban renewal. The Tent City
developers completed building this affordable apartment complex in 1989.
3. Southwest Corridor Park. This area, a 19th-century railroad corridor, was
designated in the mid-1960s as the site of the multilane Inner Belt highway
and became the focal point of a decade-long protest by South End residents.
After the highway was scrapped, neighborhood residents ended up with some 50
acres of parkland, which stretch over and alongside the Orange Line some 5
miles from the Back Bay subway station through Roxbury and Jamaica Plain to
the Forest Hill Station.
4. Harriet Tubman House, 25 Holyoke St. Julia O. Henson, a friend of
Underground Railroad organizer Harriet Tubman's, founded this residential
settlement in 1906 to accommodate new women migrants from the South.
5. Charlie's Sandwich Shoppe, 429 Columbus Ave. When jazz clubs burgeoned
along this block, it was one of the few places where black musicians would not
be turned away after their shows. Owner Charlie Poulos, a Greek immigrant,
also allowed Pullman porters to convene on the second floor of the shop as
they began unionizing.
6. Union United Methodist Church, 485 Columbus Ave. This church was founded
in 1818 on Beacon Hill and moved several times before settling in the South
End. It was also a stop on the Underground Railroad.
7. Sparrow Park, off West Newton Street between Columbus Avenue and Southwest
Corridor Park. During construction of this park, during the 1970s, former
semi-pro tennis player Titus Sparrow offered to teach free tennis lessons here
once it was finished. Sparrow died of a heart attack before the park was
completed in 1976.
8. Academy of Musical Arts, 547 Columbus Ave. Anna Bobitt-Gardner founded
this studio to provide working-class families with affordable dance and piano
classes. It survived nearly 75 years before closing this year due to low
enrollment.
9. Wally's Cafe, 427 Massachusetts Ave. Joseph ``Wally'' Walcott opened this
jazz club in 1947. It is Boston's longest consecutively black-owned business
and was a stop on the ``Chitlin' Circuit,'' a gig tour frequented by Billie
Holiday and Erroll Garner.
10. Former home of Martin Luther King Jr., 397 Massachusetts Ave., two houses
away from the Mass. Ave. T stop on the Orange Line. King lived in this
row-house apartment as a theology graduate student at Boston University. King
led 10,000 people in a march from the Carter Playground to the Boston Common
in 1965, protesting the racial imbalance in the public schools.
MYTOWN is a youth-led, one-mile walking tour of Boston's South End neighborhood. For two hours, MYTOWN tour guides bring the history of this community to life by surveying the contribution blacks, latinos and other ethnic communities have made to its development. For information on tour routes, you can call (617) 536-8696.
