Lorna Condon will lead a 15 minute walk-through tour of “The Preservation Movement Then and Now ” exhibit.

Lorna Condon will lead a 15 minute walk-through tour of “The Preservation Movement Then and Now ” exhibit.

Lorna Condon will lead an archives tour specific to HNE's West End related materials limited to 20-25 participants.

Some key architectural buildings were left intact, as was the north slope of Beacon Hill which for hundreds of years was known as West Boston and later the West End.

This tour will focus on some notable remaining buildings north of Cambridge Street and their significance to the people of the West End over the last 200 - years. Support materials will be handed out. The tour will begin at the West End Museum and end at the Otis House on Cambridge Street.

First Harrison Gray Otis House, 1796

Designed by Charles Bulfinch for Harrison Gray Otis, this Federal style mansion served as a grand, single-family residence, Turkish bath, patent medicine shop, and boarding house before becoming the headquarters of Historic New England in 1916. Its interior has been restored to illustrate high style life in Federal period Boston, with a glimpse of the building’s life as a bath and boarding house in the mid-nineteenth century.

Old West Church, 1806

The history of a church at this location goes back to 1737 when a wood-framed church was constructed on this site. During the British occupation of Boston during the Revolutionary War, the church was used as a barracks until 1775 when it was razed by the British who suspected that the steeple was being used by revolutionary sympathizers to signal Continental troops in Cambridge. The current building was commissioned by Asher Benjamin and completed in 1806. After the church congregation disbanded in 1887, the building stood empty for a number of years until it was purchased by the city for use as the West End Branch of the Boston Public Library in 1894. In 1960 Old West Church ceased being used as a library and was sold by the city to the First Methodist Society of Boston in 1962 for use as a house of worship, which it still serves as today. Historic New England holds preservation restrictions on this building which prevent alteration of its exterior and interior architectural features.

St. Joseph's Church, 1823

Constructed in 1823 as a Unitarian Church, the archdiocese of Boston acquired this building in 1862. Attributed to architect Alexander Parris, St. Joseph’s is an excellent example of Greek Revival style architecture, featuring a temple front form consisting of a pediment supported by Doric Columns. The first Catholic mass held in the West End is believed to have taken place in a private home in 1758. Masses were later held in a hayloft on Bridge Street, and then in an organ factory on the corner of north Grove and Cambridge Streets. Following the dedication of St. Joseph’s in 1862, the church was enlarged and rectory constructed in 1868. The Church remains a Catholic church today.

Jim Campano was born in the West End, grew up there and has forever remained connected. As the founder of the West End Museum, as well as the publisher of the West Ender Newsletter, he has spent much of his life preserving the history and culture from first person accounts.

The walking tour will begin at the West End Museum with a short power-point presentation showing what the neighborhood which was demolished by urban renewal looked like and will conclude with a walk through today's West End up to the North Slope of Beacon Hill and conclude at the Otis House on Cambridge Street.