There used to be a neighborhood in Boston called the "West End" which was actually pretty far east in the city, bumping against the North End, Beacon Hill, and

There used to be a neighborhood in Boston called the "West End" which was actually pretty far east in the city, bumping against the North End, Beacon Hill, and the Longfellow Bridge which crosses the Charles River. Most of the buildings were brick tenements built in the 1800s. One of its most famous native sons was Leonard Nemoy, who left the West End in his late teens to start his acting career. The West End had narrow, winding streets, and the city government said this was a fire hazard because fire apparatus couldn't be driven down certain streets and alleys. That was true (I saw an old black and white picture of a fire truck that got stuck making a turn) but there was another motive in moving to have the tenements cleared and the area flattened: "Urban renewal." The city wanted other buildings built there, not to mention the elevated central artery. Over the strenuous objection of residents, almost everyone was cleared out and the buildings flattened from 1958 to 1960. The elevated highway, new hospital buildings, government buildings, and commercial structures went up in its place. The history of the West End is covered by the West End Museum (https://thewestendmuseum.org/ https://thewestendmuseum.org/) Leonard Nimoy was never able to go back home; his parents relocated to West Roxbury. The central expressway was demolished in the 1990s and the highway put underground (part of the "The Big Dig", see https://www.mass.gov/info-details/the-big-dig-project-background#the-problem- https://www.mass.gov/info-details/the-big-dig-project-backgr...).