Sidewalk Stories
Sidewalk Stories is a Boston Research Center (BRC) project that hopes to promote a greater understanding of Boston’s spatial, environmental, and cultural history. Sidewalk Stories invites neighborliness and community joy by encouraging passersby to experience their neighborhoods as sites of living memory, unique histories, and diverse perspectives.
Sidewalk Stories is a Mellon Foundation grant-funded project led by the Boston Research Center. The project was developed in partnership with Hola Cultura, Zumix, Maverick Landing Community Services, and the East Boston Social Centers.
Explore East Boston’s History of Community Activism
Deepen your understanding of East Boston’s community and strengthen your sense of neighborhood belonging, by listening to firsthand accounts and memories of past and present East Boston residents.
Hola Cultura remixed existing audio and oral histories of the East Boston Greenway Council with more recent interviews — publicly available in the Northeastern University Digital Repository Service. Our three-part audio series focuses on East Boston’s long history of community activism, and truly makes the voices of Eastie residents shine!
“Everybody Wants a Piece of East Boston”
“Everybody wants a piece of East Boston,” Eva Biscegli observed in an oral history interview recorded in the late 1990s. Decades later, as developers move in, those words still ring true…
Listen now to the thoughts and recollections of Biscegli, as well as Renée Loth, Chris Marchi, Liliana Tirado Arteaga and Kannan Thiruvengadam.
“A Neighborhood Under Siege”
Did you know East Boston might have been completely wiped off the map in the 1970s to make room for a larger airport?
In this program, hear from Eva Biscegli, Renée Loth, Chris Marchi, Liliana Tirado Arteaga and Kannan Thiruvengadam.
“The Voice Above The Roar”
Longtime East Boston activist William Ferullo declared: “If something isn’t running right, fix it.” Generations of East Boston activists have faced Eastie’s ongoing challenges, from gentrification threatening its immigrant character to climate change, with that same spirit.
In this program, hear from William Ferullo, Philip Giffee, Renée Loth, Liliana Tirado Arteaga and Kannan Thiruvengadam.