Hoping to forestall another cholera epidemic, Boston city fathers a century ago established the elegant North Bennet S
treet Bath House, to promote cleanliness and good health in the densely-populated North End. Today, we are fighting the Coronavirus pandemic, and everyone in Boston is focused again on how to stay healthy. Meanwhile, the historic North End bath house, which was converted years ago into our Nazzaro Community Center, is slated to be “surplused” after 100 years of service. This is our neighborhood’s public gathering place, where the school kids come for after-school and gym programs, our seniors play bingo, and our citizens vote.
We in the Save the Nazzaro Coalition have some terrific new designs to inspire the city’s decision-making about the Nazzaro Building’s next chapter of service to our community. These architectural drawings were created by a team of Boston Architectural College’s students, led by their teacher Killion Mokwete. 
This is not part of the city of Boston’s official planning process, but we hope these creative ideas can strengthen the Mayor’s commitment to keeping this building in community use. (The new drawings refine some original designs made last semester by a first BAC team.)
Our efforts to ensure the future of the Nazzaro building began in earnest last year, when the City of Boston, which currently runs its community programs out of this central location, announced they would move everything into a new larger community center to be built on the waterfront. While we are all enthusiastic about having a new community center with a regulation-sized indoor basketball court, we didn’t want seniors and the North End to lose the use of their beloved Nazzaro building, in the heart of the neighborhood.
Seeing how the community felt, Mayor Walsh promised that the city wouldn’t sell or tear down the Nazzaro building, and we are proceeding with a Landmarks petition which we hope he ultimately will sign. Landmark protection for the exterior Renaissance Revival architecture still allows for a complete renovation inside.
These interior BAC designs, presented last month at a public meeting, were based on interviews with the key stakeholders in our community who could make good use of the Nazzaro building in the future. During this process, we learned that one of these stakeholders–the North End Waterfront Health Clinic (NEW Health) on Hanover St.–has been approached by the Mayor to take over the building with a long-term lease. 
This could be a great solution, especially if they create a senior wellness center with a community auditorium upstairs. We think these architectural designs are terrific, and we will always be grateful to the BAC’s Gateway project for contributing their talents free of charge to our community.
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