This museum has brilliantly documented the rise and fall of the rich and vibrant West End neighborhood, which was destroyed by developpers in the 1950s. Urban renewal was rampant in many cities in North America, and Boston was not immune to that discriminatory and racist practice. Bravo to this small but impactful museum. A must-see!

– Isabelle A

This is a fantastic museum for anyone interested in learning about the disastrous history of urban renewal. It is small but has great interactive exhibits and when I visited I got to talk to one of the volunteers who grew up in the neighborhood in the 1950s.

– David Agonburg

As a young person, I experienced the destruction of Lowell's Little Canada in the 60's and at 73 years old it remains a traumatic memory. The West End Museum brought tears to my eyes because the stories told by former residents of Boston's West End and the historical documentation of how they were victimized by a dehumanization process to justify the cruelty of the powers that be to sweep them away like trash and justify their actions felt like they were describing my experience in Little Canada.

I lost an Aunt who died after being forcibly displaced and it haunted to hear Boston West Enders tell of similar fates of those who died of broken hearts after living their all their lives only to be swept away from the homes and community they loved.

Graduate students of graduate school programs of urban design/planning and public policy should be required to visit the museum and learn the human costs of imposing plans on people without involving them in the planning process or forcibly displacing them.

You will never find large populations of wealthy white people forcibly displaced to justify goals for the "betterment of the greater, larger community," it is only done to the poor and/or marginalized. The horror of wondering if you and your friends and family will next be forcibly displaced by a force you don't understand as a child is an experience that shaped my life.

I still feel PTSD symptoms when I see it happen to others under any circumstance, whether victims of forced displacement done by urban planning or by the greater injustices like having an ICE vehicle pull up to them on the street at any moment to yank a different friend away and wondering when that car will pull up to you or a dear family member next. Or to have a large invading force militarily destroy your home and leave your loved ones cast to the wind while hearing your tragedy minimized or even attempted to be rationalized or justified by those perpetuating their crimes against you.

Visit the West End Museum, it is the only museum I know of anywhere, at least in the U.S., that documents and sensitively and intelligently insures that the pandemic of "urban renewal" projects that destroyed the West End, my Lowell Little Canada neighborhood and the numerous, mostly Black neighborhoods throughout America were cruelly destroyed and victimized its residents to serve the economic goals of the more powerful.

– chaplinlives