Community activists in Boston’s North End are driving new efforts to document the neighborhood’s rich and diverse history.
Plans are in the works for a museum dedicated to the history of the area with a focus on Italian heritage, as well as the North End Black History Trail. A cultural center dedicated to Haitian heritage opened in May.
Since the days of colonial Boston, the harborside neighborhood has been a port for immigrants of all kinds: Irish, Jewish, and waves of Italians who gave the eclectic neighborhood its current character. And until the 1830s, the North End was the largest area of Black settlement in Boston.
“You may have heard that this is the oldest part of Boston,” said Ann Moritz, social justice consultant and North End resident. “So there’s probably quite a bit about this place that nobody knows until they start looking deeply.”
Moritz is leading a project to commemorate African American history with a North End Black History Trail. She hopes to “showcase historic places associated with a Black community that thrived and helped build the North End before, during, and after the American Civil War.”
A heritage trail would just be another way of “caring about a community,” she said.
By the end of the 1700s, dozens of free Black Bostonians had homes in the North End.
For roughly a year, Moritz has been working with North End Historical Society Executive Director Jessica Dello Russo to synthesize the history of African Americans in the neighborhood. The trail will feature more than 14 stops, known as “heritage sights,” and Moritz said she is reaching out to Black heritage groups and other community experts for feedback.
Among these sites is the marker where Zipporah Potter Atkins’ house once stood. In 1670, she became the first African American woman to buy land in Boston. Another stop on the trail is the Ann Street Boarding House, an Underground Railroad location where freedom-seeker Thomas Sims sought refuge before being forcibly taken back to his enslaver under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
Moritz said she hopes the finished trail includes both a walkable path and digital content to expand on each site’s history.
Roberto Mighty, a Boston resident and a multimedia artist, is also working to commemorate the lives of Black figures in the North End.
His project “We Were Here Too” is an online exhibit which serves as a tribute to over 1,000 mostly unidentified African Americans and African descendants that are buried at the Copp’s Hill Burial Ground. The primary focus is five people whose headstones are still intact at the cemetery, as well as three whose remains are believed to be elsewhere in the city.
“Of the estimated 1,000 Black people interred there, all but a handful are in unmarked graves,” Mighty said on his project’s website.
Alongside Moritz and Mighty’s efforts to memorialize the North End’s Black history, the North End Historical Society is planning to open its own museum in the neighborhood.
“We came to a conclusion that we should have a museum that’s going to preserve the heritage of the history of the North End,” said Tom Damigella, president of the North End Historical Society.
Colloquially known as Boston’s “Little Italy,” the North End attracts nearly four million tourists annually with its vibrant Italian culture and historical landmarks. But despite the neighborhood’s rich past, the North End has never had a museum of its own.
The North End Historical Society, founded in 2010, along with other cultural organizations, is creating a space to formally preserve and showcase the neighborhood’s complex story for visitors and locals.
Frank DePasquale, an Italian immigrant and owner of more than 12 businesses in the neighborhood, kick-started the Historical Society’s museum building plans in 2024 after attending the society’s event celebrating Italian immigrants last year.
“I saw how the community comes together,” DePasquale said.
DePasquale donated a five-year, rent-free lease on a first-floor flat at 3 Prince St. that will become the museum, as well as paying for construction and renovation costs, Damigella said.
Damigella said that the 900-square-foot condo will become the first museum solely dedicated to the North End’s past.
“I’m here to help this community,” DePasquale said. “There’s a lot of love that goes into this neighborhood.”
Giuseppe Viscomi, manager of Mare Oyster Bar, said he is excited for his country’s history in Boston to be memorialized in a museum.
“I think it’s going to be a very good thing to represent the North End,” Viscomi said. “Everyone wants to know better where we live and what we represent.”
Viscomi said when he left Calabria, Italy, for the United States three years ago, he was excited to find a neighborhood like the North End.
“I decided to move here because it feels like home,” he said while sipping on an espresso.
Less than a mile away, the stories of another culture are being told in the North End.
The Toussaint Louverture Culture Center, which opened its doors May 20, gives Boston’s Haitian community a place to gather and share its story with a wide audience.
“We have well over 30 different organizations — whether they’re dance troupes, performers, singers, artists — they all needed a place to showcase who they are,” Marvin D. Mathelier, executive director of the center, said. “We haven’t had that before, so this is huge for us.”
Organizers say the center’s position in the North End is strategic as it’s close to downtown foot traffic and international visitors.
“A lot of tourists, they’re going to be able to come in and just happen to walk into the culture center not knowing much about Haiti — and our hope is that they’re gonna have an ‘Aha!’ moment,” Mathelier said.
Damigella of the North End Historical Society said all of this cross-cultural history is what makes the neighborhood so iconic — it’s a small community holding 400 years of rich storytelling.
“They’re very emotional stories that stir the soul,” he said.
This story was produced as part of coursework with Boston University journalism professor Brooke Williams.
