Rep. Aaron Michlewitz officially announced last week that the city will spend $5 million to refurbish the Nazzaro Building and keep it in use for community programs after the new North End Waterfront community center is built. This is a great victory for our Save the Nazzaro coalition! Rep. Michlewitz confirmed that the city will keep the historic Nazzaro building in community use, even after it moves its current athletic programs into a much-needed new $25 million state-of-the-art facility on the waterfront.
While we celebrate Rep. Michlewitz’s appropriations, our work is not over. We must continue our five-year effort to finalize official landmark status for the iconic Nazzaro building, which was the original North End Bath House. Thanks to a massive community effort, the Boston Landmarks Commission voted unanimously in February 2019 to recommend the landmarking of the building. But we are still waiting for its official landmark status to be granted, as the Commission has been swamped and understaffed, and they haven’t completed the final report or scheduled the final hearing before it can be approved by the Boston City Council and Mayor Michelle Wu.
The Nazzaro building’s beautiful Renaissance Revival architecture is automatically protected now during the pending landmark process, while significant renovations to update the building inside and adapt it to new uses and technologies are allowed. When we met with Rep. Michlewitz in November, he told us the good news about the budget, assured us that the space inside the Nazzaro building will continue to be used by the city, and agreed that it made sense for the original Nazzaro building to be updated to serve seniors and community groups, potentially including the North End Music and Performing Arts Center and the adjacent NEW Health medical center.
We are hoping that the interior renovation will include a performance stage and auditorium, plus a basement kitchen to serve seniors and others, and other creative architectural designs that were prepared pro bono for our Save the Nazzaro coalition by a team from the Boston Architectural College https://www.savethenazzaro.org/what-the-nazzaro-could-become/. There was also talk before the Covid epidemic that NEW Health would lease part of the building, but we aren’t sure where that stands now.
Some of us are interested in dedicating part of the refurbished and landmarked Nazzaro building as a new Immigrant Museum, honoring those who have built our city and nation. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to tell the story of our nation through this iconic building, and have schoolchildren regularly add new exhibits in the lobby, recognizing their immigrant ancestors from Italy, Ireland, Central Europe, Latin America and elsewhere? With its beautiful architecture and strategic location, the Nazzaro could anchor a national Immigrant Trail, intersecting with the already popular Freedom Trail, to inspire the millions of tourists who come each year to Boston’s historic North End neighborhood.
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