Leonard Nimoy Remembers Boston's West End Neighborhood 

As a tenth generation Bostonian, I am quite happy to have this history captured.

That story about the Grandma going down to the market, speaking in her own tongue is so nostalgic and beautiful. And people learning each others languages. This is real community, real family. Something I desperately long for, while I am living in these individualistic times. I think a lot has been taken away from America's soul, either taken away or covered up. But I suppose this is the lot of communities and families the world over. Communities come and go, and its not until they're gone that we realize what a beautiful treasure we had. It is wonderful to reminisce about those times, remember about the ways things were. Wonderful presentation, thank you!

From Boston, but was born in '64, so never saw the West End or Scollay Square. Think of how Boston is considered now one of the most historic cities in the US, and how cool it would be if it still had those neighborhoods, which would surely have gentrified by now.

I LIVED IN THE LAST REMAINING RESIDENTIAL BUILDING FROM THE NEIGHBORHOOD (42 LOMASNEY WAY) TILL FOUR YEARS AGO WHEN MY RENT WENT FROM $700/MONTH TO $2500. FOR 20 YEARS I WOULD WALK TO WORK. THE SUBURBS DON'T HAVE THE SAME FEELING OF BEING ALIVE; THAT THE CITY POSSESSES

Thanks for making me smile for all those years Leonard.

What a lovely person he was.

Thank you for Mr. Nimoy's interview. I am a fan of his.😢

RIP Mr Nimoy

I love listen him talking...I must do this for hours. Thank you Leonard, I miss you so much...😢😢

love the great Leonard Nimoy!

Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.

This reminds me of my own heritage only mine is from Glasgow Scotland..but it's the same as Boston. My grandparents came from central Glasgow where many Jewish families came from Russia and eastern Europe. Many continued on to the United States, many settled in Glasgow in the late 1800s and early 1900s, closely followed by Italian immigrants.. I discovered my Jewish heritage as an adult. I am so proud of my heritage.

New York did the same thing with Little Italy -- it's gone now, and has been "renewed" to the point where the only people who can afford to live there have no interest at all in the history and zero connection to it. This interview is amazing -- it's like listening to a Yiddish version of my mom's memories of South Philadelphia as a daughter of southern Italian immigrants in a neighborhood that had the exact same mix: two-thirds Italian, the rest Russian Jews with a sprinkling of Lebanese and Syrians.

Fascinating, such a wonderful man with a great story to tell.

what a great human being and marvelous story teller! God rest his soul.

I am from Brockton and love these old neighborhood stories.

Such a wise man. We could use more like him now.

My dad and my 3 uncles were born in the West End. My Grandparents lived on Parkman St.

This was so fascinating. Mr. Nimoy is truly a great storyteller. Rest in peace 🖖

I love these interviews, and Monty Hall’s are wonderful, too! I’m not even Jewish, I’m Episcopalian! Anyway, I feel for Leonard Nimoy, bc there’s very little left of my life in the city where I was born. The house I grew up in, my church, my elementary and jr. high schools (which was the Summer White House for Calvin Coolidge, lol!), the hospital where I was born....there’s just nothing left of the most important times of my life except my high school to show my children. It leaves me feeling pretty empty when I go back, and we concentrate on my husband’s “landmarks.” This is such a great program, thank you!

Leonard, such a compelling story teller.

The most precious memories you have are when you are growing up.

very sad about the west end. it's sad to see the old photo's after walking around there today

Leonard, thank you for sharing these memories, in the end, they become part of the 'West End' legacy

Leonard Nimoy's father was my Dad's barber when he was a kid living in the West End.

Wow! That's amazing: I never knew Leonard Nemoy grew-up in the West End, where I live. In fact, the very first old photo shown--where you can see Bunker Hill Monument.... That is taken exactly at the viewpoint of my balcony. And at 6:19 St. Joseph's Church--it's directly below my dining room window. Amazing to see these pics. Funny thing: the building I live in recently had a coffee table book on the West End in a sitting area in the lobby. In the book, it talks about the particular building that I live in, and how it was considered at the time of it's erection, to be known as, "A scar on the skyline of Boston".

Memories NOT to be forgotten

Thank you for capturing this history. I sense the ghosts of the past when I am in that area, which is so diminished now. May it inspire us to hold on to other neighborhoods in Boston, like the North End.

Boston lost so much by tearing down the west end, the history and culture wiped away. We could have another beacon hill or north end style neighborhood instead of the ugly boxy concrete buildings that are their now.

very touching and sad

So interesting, I grew up in nearby North End and had an uncle who lived in West End. West End should never have been torn down for urban renewal. So many people were displaced, its destruction is one of the sore spots in Boston history.

Unfortunately, nearly every major city tore down these type neighborhoods to make room for high ways or open office plaza. Granted that most had fallen into step decline by the early 1960's and the idea of turning these areas into historical districts was not important at the time. Scollary in Boston was one such neighborhood!

Yiddish Book Center I REALLY enjoy your presentations!

The West End was a wonderful neighborhood and can never be duplicated. It was my neighborhood and it was destroyed by the greed of the politicians.

So interesting how nationalities mixed well.

I lived on the north slope for three years in the late 2000s. I had no idea Mr. Nimoy was from the West End. Very interesting.

An Older High School Teacher of Mine is a Former West Ender and when he speaks of him and his Family being forced out of there homes it’s sad to listen to him. ( I sense Justifiable Anger ). He doesn’t like to speak about that part of his life. One thing that I found extremely interesting was when he told Me Leonard Nimoy’s Father was his Barber in the West End. Very Very Cool.

Thank you for sharing with us. Very interesting, to say the least. :)

I LIVED AND WAS BROUGHT UP IN THE WEST END ON 15 PITTS ST NEXT TO BOWDON SQ. IT WAS A GREAT PLACE

My Dad was from the West End, too.

My mother's side of the family lived in the west end heard so many great stories. If anyone knew the yeatons let me know.

The Urban Planning course I took at RPI used Boston with its strong neighborhoods as one of its examples. Sad that the strong neighborhoods couldn't survive the urban planners.

Very interesting! Walk through uninspiring Government Center & try to imagine the sights & sounds of Old Boston.

Wonderful

I went looking for streets on that old map 0:42 -- and couldn't find any there today. Such was the utter destruction of the old West End.

Thanks for these Yiddish chronicles of history. I now find these cultural connections in African countries via the internet. It is and was beautiful, and also of necessity.

Wow, love this.

Also,Massachusetts General Hospital expanded from the urban renewal.

#LLAP we will miss you Leonard.

RIP sir.

As a Jew, I oddly never suspected Nimoy of being Jewish. I also grew up in Chicago in an area where Jews and Italians were intimately intertwined. Besides one having terrible food and the other having great food, it was often hard to tell where one community began and the other ended. Pretty much because so many Italians and Jews intermarried.

It pains me that Leonard doesnt discuss, because I do think he knows, that there was nothing accidental or financial about destroying the West End, or any of the Black or immigrant communities around Boston - Boston has always wielded 'progress' as a weapon against everyone except the monied White people who imagine the city to be 'theirs'. Old buildings and brick work are venerated anywhere the wealthy White families sit - and everywhere else, well, it's time for progress! I miss Mr. Nimoy. I miss his balance.

The West End was also the 'antique district' in Boston and many of the street level shops were occupied by antique dealers. My late uncle, Morris, was one of them until the middle '60's when the neighborhood began to be dismantled by urban renewal. Leonard talked about the Catholic church in the neighborhood but neglected to mention that the spiritual history of the Jewish community in the West End is enshrined in what is now The Boston Synagogue on Martha Road.

So long Mr Spock!!!

I'm from Charlestown mass born and raised

Very logical.

That $10 or $12 was like taking home an extra $100 or $120 today. I trained in electronics and am lucky to have work at all, and make a bit over $40 a day here in "Silicon Valley". This guy was making huge, huge, money. Although in my case high-tech is a very low-paid sector of the economy and going into it was a very poor choice.

Live long and prosper

Around the world big cities,communities destroyed..very sad...

My parents had an icebox the first few years of their marriage. That was in 1945 to around 1952.

❤️

Leonard Nimoy and Stanley Kubrick. Simultaneous stuff.

Sounds exactly like the same tragedy that has taken place in San Francisco where older affordable buildings were torn down and replaced with expensive high-rise condominiums. It exacerbated the homeless situation in San Francisco to this day. Our new

Interesting

Leoanard, You were Star Trek.

Contrast this with Nat Hentoff’s Jewish memories of Old Boston. Anti Semitism was rife, came from the highest levels and was especially severe among the Irish. In fact, it was considered unsafe for identifiable Jews to be out at night. “As I wrote in my memoir, ‘Boston Boy’ (Paul Dry Books, 1986): ‘Senator Henry Cabot Lodge had proclaimed, without fear of political reprisal, that these immigrants and their progeny were ‘inferior.’ ‘And Henry Brooks Adams, grandson of John Quincy Adams, had written of the ‘furtive Ysaac or Jacob still reeking of the Ghetto … snarling a weird Yiddish … The Jew makes me creep.”- Nat Hentoff, Boston Boy

Sad Never been to Boston , but saw thru the years " progress" take down landmarks in my neighborhood, Was gone for 4 years, came back, confused - what are all these tall buildings here for? Oh I see ,had to find the street sign to see that what I grew up with for 50 years or more,,gone .

Mazel Tov

Poor Leonard, you can tell he's sad.

Rub around in the neighborhood and find Schell and his sistwr

Love his story! Gentrification happening again now, displacing families and communities. I wonder what happened to the blacks he said lived there when they and Italians started moving in.

Correction … Black and IRISH neighborhood prior to the Italian & Jewish arrivals

It was obviously a hard life then , but are we really any better off today ? I don’t think so , how nice he kept his grandfathers wallet he made ..

עליו השלום

Urban renewal gutted old Plymouth neighborhoods too... a stupid greedy terrible thing.... years later I discovered that most cities in Europe preserved their heritages

the beautiful multicultural life that america gave up in favor of suburbs - so bizarre.

Of course the chief science officer was a westsider