The West End Highlights

Bounded by Beacon Hill on one side and the Charles River on another, Boston’s West End exists today as a faint memory of its fashionable residential and commercial beginnings. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the neighborhood transitioned from the home of wealthy Bostonians to that of newly arrived Americans. Its historic architecture and cultural richness was all but obliterated between 1958 and 1960 in Boston’s post-World War II era urban renewal efforts. Vestiges of the West End’s nineteenth and twentieth century history remain, tucked within a neighborhood now known for a bustling medical center and community of high-rises.