Boston has many cultural districts and ethnic neighborhoods, from Chinatown going back to the 1870s, to the more recently designated Little Saigon in Dorchester. But did you know that from the 1890s to the 1950s, Boston’s first Arabic-speaking neighborhood thrived in what is now Chinatown and the South End? GBH’s Morning Edition host Mark Herz spoke with Lydia Harrington, a historian and co-leader of the public history initiative, the Boston Little Syria Project, to find out more.
Mark Herz: Give us a little history on Little Syria. Where was it exactly? How did it come to be?
Lydia Harrington: Little Syria lasted between about the 1890s and 1950s was located in what’s now Chinatown or what was known more traditionally as the South Cove and the South End. They were coming from what was known as Greater Syria, which includes Lebanon.
When we talk about the Little Syrias in different cities in the U.S., we’re talking about people who would identify as Syrian and Lebanese today. They were migrating for different reasons. There was intersectarian violence, the decline of the silk industry, seeking better economic opportunity, and then of course the arrival of World War I, which devastated the region.
Herz: Well, you’ve done walking tours in the former Little Syria. Take us back. What did it look like? What did its smell like?
Harrington: It was definitely appealing to all the senses. People were baking bread in Syrian bakeries, which we would call it pita bread today, but it was known as Syrian bread. You could take that wrapped in paper back to your family to eat, or buy olives or jams or other imports from these stores. You might hear the clop of horse’s hooves as people peddling dry goods go down the street door to door. You might hear people talking on their way to work in the garment district or people on their steps sewing lace. So, there was a lot of activity and specifically a Syrian neighborhood, but Syrians by the early mid 20th century were living next to their Chinese neighbors and we’ve talked to a lot of people who had a very cordial relationship.
Herz: What happened to Little Syria? I mean, Chinatown started in the 1870's, it’s still here. Why didn’t Little Syria last?
Harrington: They were two neighborhoods that coexisted and kind of overlapped and part of it was Syrians moving into the South End and partly after they’d been here for two or three generations, as you see with pretty much every other ethnic neighborhood, people were going to college, getting white-collar jobs, they wanted to have that suburban life. So moving out to places like West Roxbury, Dedham, and Norwood.
They also were pushed out by the construction of central artery or I-90 in the 1950s, which also pushed out a lot of Chinese and other groups of people. Then in the '60s, the Boston Redevelopment Authority also had a lot of urban renewal plans, specifically in the South Cove and the South End, and that also pushed people out as well. There are few sites left in the neighborhood, not so much in Chinatown today, but in the South End, there’s a Syrian import store, which I encourage people to visit. A lot of people walking down Shawmut Avenue see the Sahara Restaurant, which isn’t open, but it’s still a proud example of the history of the neighborhood.
I also will encourage people to go to the exhibition that’s on view now until February 13th at the Pao Arts Center in Chinatown. And it is put on by the Arab-American National Museum, and the Little Syria Project has contributed to that, and it also covers three other cities in Massachusetts, Quincy, Worcester, and Lawrence that had large Syrian communities.
