South Boston: My Home Town

SOUTH BOSTON: MY HOME TOWN The History of an Ethnic Neighborhood THOMAS H. O’CONNOR Northeastern University Press BOSTON INTRODUCTION N THE LAST HURRAH, EDWIN O’CONNOR’S CLASSIC NOVEL ABOUT Boston politics, Mayor Frank Skeffington tells his young nephew I why he brought him to see an old-fashioned Irish-Catholic wake. ‘ ‘It’s a disappearing phenomenon, like the derby hat, ’ ’ the old political chieftain explains. Yet he concedes that “ the wake will still continue in some form; after all, it takes a long time to get rid of old tribal customs. And Knocko’s was a bit like some of the old wakes; that’s why I wanted you to see it. ” It is in something of this same spirit of historical nostalgia that I have undertaken to write a comprehensive study of South Boston, one of the most distinctive, colorful and controversial of Boston’s many neighborhoods. Like the legendary wake, the old Boston neighborhoods have also begun to feel the effects of time. Some traditional communities, like the former Jewish district along Roxbury’s Blue Hill Avenue that has now become predominantly black, have already been transformed completely. Others, like North Dorchester and Jamaica Plain, are in the process of changing from what had been heavily Irish sections into substantial black and Hispanic communities. Still others are beginning to show the gradual but inevitable altering of the forms and characteristics with which they have so long been identified. In another decade or two, most of these traditional neighborhoods may well have disappeared altogether—or else have changed so dramatically that there will be lit tle left to remind future generations of what these places were really like, why they were so different from one another, or what particular role they played in the city’s history. 2 SOUTH BOSTON: MY HOME TOWN Of all Boston’s neighborhoods, South Boston has survived with perhaps the fewest changes in its ethnic, social and religious composi tion. It is one of the last surviving relics of a distinctive way of life that goes back to the early days of immigrant Irish families and old- time political bosses. Despite its distinctive characteristics, however, South Boston has never been studied or analyzed with the same seriousness of purpose as other Boston neighborhoods. In his Urban Villagers, Herbert Gans explored the varieties of the immigrant ex perience in Boston’s West End, a neighborhood whose socioeconomic life was investigated even more intensely by Marc Fried in The World o f the Urban Working Class. William Whyte’s Street Comer Society gained national attention for its perceptive insights into the structure of life among Italian immigrants in Boston’s North End, a subject that has been updated in more recent years by William De Marco’s in-depth analysis of the same neighborhood in his Ethnics and Enclaves. South Boston, by contrast, has never received this same kind of serious attention. The only historical studies of the district are rather antiquarian narratives written nearly a century ago. Thomas C. Simonds produced his History o f South Boston as early as 1857; C. B. Gillespie published an Illustrated History o f South Boston in 1900; and John J. Toomey collaborated with Edward P. Rankin to bring out their History o f South Boston in 1901. These works are valuable for what they tell us about the colonial origins of South Boston, and about developments in the first part of the nineteenth century, but they barely touch upon the later immigrant experience in the peninsula district. More recent publica tions dealing with the neighborhood are either too subjective to be of interest to the concerned citizen, or too superficial to be of service to the serious researcher. All too often, friendly local writers have told the story of South Boston by indulging in amusing anecdotes and nostalgic reminiscences without sufficient documentary evidence to in dicate whether the reader is being presented with fact or fiction, reality or legend. In the hands of such writers, South Boston has come across as a warm, friendly and generous community, populated by poor but honest, hard-working Irish-Catholic people, much in the Horatio Alger tradition, outwardly tough but inwardly gentle. Devoted to their religion, loyal to their country and committed to the sanctity of the family, such people took great pride in the traditional virtues of their neighborhood— especially in the large numbers of young men and women who went into the religious life and the many young men who served their coun try in the various branches of the armed services. It was a picture of INTRODUCTION 3 an American home town that could easily rival that of any small, rural, Midwestern community of the same period. In the hands of less friendly writers, however, South Boston has come across as a much less wholesome neighborhood, with residents far less friendly than its supporters would have us believe. Indeed, through the eyes of a fictional character like J. P. Marquand’s Beacon Hill Brahmin, George Apley, as well as through the news reports of out-of-town jour nalists, the term “ South Boston Irish” soon became the classic synonym for almost any kind of unwelcome Irish immigrant. During the nine teenth century most critics emphasized the personal weaknesses and defi ciencies of these “ foreign paupers,” labeling them as “ idle bums” and “ drunken hooligans.” In the early part of the twentieth century, these same people were characterized as “ crooked politicians,” responsible for undermining the whole democratic system and indulging in all sorts of political corruption. The district of South Boston itself was often described as an impoverished slum, overrun with barrooms and pool halls, where working-class families eked out a meager existence in ram shackle double- and triple-decker houses. For a considerable period, however, these rather unflattering descrip tions were somewhat offset by an element of tolerance and a touch of good humor. Indeed, in the homes of well-to-do Yankee families in Boston and Cambridge, young sons and daughters often shared a warm intimacy with Irish men and women who served as their stablemen, gardeners, nurses and cooks—while at the same time picking up from their parents what Barbara Miller Solomon called “ an inward remoteness” from those people who had come “ from a mysterious green island far across the sea.. .bringing many of their strange customs with them.” The eminent Yankee historian Samuel Eliot Morison recalled fondly his own household at 44 Brimmer Street at the foot of Beacon Hill, where the cook, the waitress and the chambermaid were “ always Irish Catholics.” They were “ girls of character whom we loved and they us,” he wrote nostalgically, “ although they generally stayed only long enough to find a Boston-Irish husband.” It was generally agreed that the so-called “ South Boston Irishman,” despite his thriftless ways, was a jolly, good-natured, well-meaning fellow at heart, a teller of tall tales, full of inoffensive blarney, who was a loyal husband, a good father and a devoted member of his church. “ Poor Paddy,” in the early days, was much more apt to be a subject for laughter than an object of scorn. 4 SOUTH BOSTON: MY HOME TOWN In more recent years, however, especially since the advent of televi sion, the descriptions of South Boston have become much more critical, if not downright ugly. During the 1950s and 1960s, it was not unusual to find South Boston men likened to the comic television personality Archie Bunker—a beer-swilling, cigar-chewing, insensitive chauvinist and outright bigot. Perhaps one of the most insulting and stereotypical descriptions of the people of South Boston appeared in a 1967 issue of Newsweek magazine telling about a local political gathering of Louise Day Hicks supporters. “ They looked like characters out of Moon Mullins,” laughed the New York writer, “ and she [Mrs. Hicks] was their homegrown Mamie-made-good.” Sitting at long tables at the South Boston Social and Athletic Club, the people were described as a ‘ ‘comic- strip gallery of tipplers and brawlers, ’ ’ and after Mrs. Hicks had given her speech, the men ‘ ‘unscrewed cigar butts from their chins” and lined up to kiss her noisily on the cheek or pump her arm “ as if it were a jack handle under a trailer truck. ’ ’ By the 1970s, with the nationwide controversy over school desegrega tion, the South Boston Irishman was no longer regarded with humor or even amused tolerance. Because of his opposition to forced busing, he was singled out as a lawless and violent racist, an ignorant and reac tionary redneck who blocked the path of progress and opposed the equali ty of the races. With the news media concentrating almost exclusively on the busing controversy, the breach created between upper-class whites in the suburbs and lower-class whites in the neighborhoods was substan tial. Given this attitude, the residents of South Boston felt under assault not only from the black population of the city, but also from members of their own Irish-Catholic population in the surrounding suburbs. A clearly bitter and defensive mentality intensified a neighborhood disposi tion that was already definitely parochial, and often xenophobic. Was this last state of mind merely a temporary condition brought on by outside forces beyond the control of residents? Or was it the natural and inevitable result of a long chain of events set in motion by the com plicated and confusing structure of the neighborhood system itself? Just how does one understand a neighborhood like South Boston? Is it real ly a warm and hospitable community, as its residents insist, or is it a narrow and parochial district jealously guarding its turf from outside influences? How is it possible to reconcile the happy and nostalgic memories of former residents with the charges of lawlessness and racism raised in the wake of the recent busing turmoil? How can someone understand a neighborhood that can turn out lawbreakers and criminals INTRODUCTION 5 and at the same time produce a major church leader like Cardinal Cushing, a recognized political spokesman like Speaker John McCor mack and a highly respected university president like Rev.

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