When Michael Nazzaro Jr. returned to the North End sixty years ago to establish his vibrant insurance business here, this Italian-American neighborhood was in shock from what had just happened next door in the West End. Now all that is left of that West End neighborhood is a museum. Take a look at what it was like back then:
Because the North End was about to be “developed” next, Michael Nazzaro became a State Representative and made sure that the Boston Redevelopment Authority didn’t tear it down the way they had done in the West End. Today, ironically, the Boston Planning and Development Authority (new name for the same city department) is planning to sell off the Nazzaro Community Center building that honors his family name—the beautiful original bath house and gymnasium in the heart of the North End, between Salem and Hanover Streets.
We are presenting our campaign to get Landmark status for this building, at a public meeting on Dec. 13 at 7 p.m. to the North End Waterfront Association. Please come! The meeting is—where else?—at the Nazzaro center, 30 N Bennet St. Please join us!
We are following in Michael Nazzaro’s footsteps, preserving the culture and legacy of Boston’s “Little Italy,” starting with this elegant 1906 building, designed after the Villa Medici in Rome. We agree that the Nazzaro Center needs updating inside, and our community is overdue for more sports and cultural space than this one building can provide. So we are asking our city officials to split our community programs into two locations, the way they have in Charlestown and other Boston neighborhoods, by fixing up the Nazzaro Center and adding a new basketball court somewhere else.
Come to our public meeting and support us! We shouldn’t have to choose between our past and our future!
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