Dr. Gerald Hass, a beloved local pediatrician and force for social justice, will be at the South End library on Tuesday March 17 at 6:30 PM to talk about his memoir, The Story of the South End Community Health Center: The Early Days. Hass, who was born in the UK, came to the South End on a medical fellowship in the 1960s when the neighborhood was considered the poorest in Boston, suffering from high rates of maternal and infant mortality. He returned here to practice pediatrics at what was then Boston City Hospital and now Boston Medical Center.

In 1969 he co-founded a children’s health clinic on Shawmut Avenue with a local businessman, Mel Scovell, which since became the non-profit comprehensive South End Community Health Center (SECHC). The now 86-year-old South End icon has written a memoir about his 45-year illustrious medical career, marked by a passion for the South End community and its residents, who returned his kindness with love and admiration. He retired in 2014.

The Dr. Gerald Hass Center is now a satellite health clinic focused on the students of the Blackstone School, and operated out of the same location as the original pediatric clinic at 400 Shawmut Avenue. The current SECHC became a comprehensive health clinic for people of all ages, and settled at 1601 Washington Street.

At the March 17 event, Hass will be introduced by his longtime friends, co-founder Mel Scovell and WBUR radio host of Con Salsa, Jose Masso.

Books will be available for purchase, signing and borrowing. Seating is limited.

Does the image above remind you of the design of the South End library? No surprise if it does, as it was the product of the same architectural firm of Mitchell/Giurgola, then based in Philadelphia, now in New York. Dan Kelley, the principal architect of MGA Partners, which began as Mitchell/Giurgola, will be at the South End branch to talk about the library’s architectural history on Tuesday, March 12, at 6:30 PM.

In a talk titled, Beyond City Hall, Kelley will describe how Romaldo Giurgola, one of the key figures of The Philadelphia School of the 1960’s, challenged doctrinaire modernism with designs and buildings that conceptually recognized their context.  Giurgola completed the BPL’s South End library branch in 1971 as he and the Mitchell/Giurgola Architects firm attracted national and international attention for their work.  Giurgola was awarded the AIA Gold Medal in 1983. In his presentation, Kelley will track the ideas in Giurgola’s work and survey the design history of the firm’s South End library project.

Romaldo Giurgola left Philadelphia when he became the chair of the Columbia University School of Architecture and Planning, around the time the South End branch was designed. He opened a second office of Mitchell/Giurgola in New York City, and later moved to Canberra, Australia, when the firm won the competition to design the Australian Parliament building. He passed away in 2016. His partner in the firm, Ehrman Mitchell, died in 2005. The Philadelphia office is now called MGA Partners.

By Kim Clark, FOSEL board member

On Tuesday February 27 at 6:30 PM, the South End Writes will host Lauren Prescott, executive director of the South End Historical Society, who will introduce her first book, Boston’s South End, published in January.  It illustrates the story of the South End neighborhood through vintage postcards that depict a series of local scenes and landmarks that define the feel and flavor of the neighborhood. She will be introduced by District 3 City Councilor Frank Baker who, with district councilors 2 and 7, Ed Flynn and Kim Janey, respectively, represent different parts of the South End on the Boston City Council. 

Drawing from the approximately 200 postcards that she discovered in the SEHS collection archive, augmented by photos that were also in the collection, Prescott presents an intimate and charming view of South End history, illustrated by pictures of private residences, schools and churches, theaters and nightclubs, businesses, industries and more. Many of the buildings shown are, sadly, no longer in existence but a number of them remain and, thankfully, continue to house families and businesses.

Many postcards date from what is known as the "golden age of postcards," a period from about 1898 to 1915. Postcards were so popular during that era that demographic records show that in 1905, some seven billion postcards were mailed around the world. The number of postcards in circulation, which did not calculate those created by businesses for advertising purposes or the collections of individuals, is truly astounding when we consider that the world population during first decade of the 1900s is estimated to have been 'only' 1.7 billion.

Prescott was born and raised in New Bedford, MA. She is a public historian, who received a B.A. in History at UMass Amherst and M.A. in Public History at UMass Boston. She has previously served as a Collections Management Intern at the Arlington Historical Society. In 2015, she became temporary administrator at SEHS but advanced to executive director in May 2016. The postcard collection, which was donated in 2012 and contains a number of unique examples, inspired her to choose this art form as the innovative theme for her book.

Prescott hopes that the postcard history will raise the profile of SEHS, which was founded in 1966. Her primary goal is to make the collection more accessible to researchers and neighborhood residents. She also plans to explore and catalogue SEHS documents, photographs, maps and related historical records, and create “finding aids" that will make it possible for researchers to determine through an online search whether certain items are available at SEHS, and deserve a visit for further research. Her long-term vision is to establish SEHS as a true archive and research library, one that offers valuable information through its collections.

Located in a classic and totally funky Victorian town house at 532 Massachusetts Avenue, Prescott invites all to visit the SEHS and join neighbors and friends in the Drawing Room to hear an enlightening lecture on local history or meet there to start a neighborhood walking tour. For a schedule of events and more information,  please visit http://www.southendhistoricalsociety.org.