Reclaiming Lost Histories: Exhibit Tells Story of Three Old Neighborhoods

As Jared Katsiane was listening to his 95-year-old great uncle talk about his childhood in Boston’s old Little Syria, Katsiane suddenly realized he was hearing a piece of living history.

He took out his cell phone and began recording as his aging relative, Paul Katsigianis, spoke about the good old days on Curve Street, which was located near Hudson, Tyler and Albany Streets, in what is today part of Chinatown. Katsigianis told his great nephew of a tightknit community, attending the Quincy School, hanging out.

“He spoke very fondly of it,” said Katsiane, before telling of how that neighborhood was suddenly upended.

“In 1954 he got a letter that he had to move,” Katsiane told the Sampan.

Highway construction would not only claim his great uncle’s family home on Albany Street, but also all of Curve Street, which was where he was born. The infamous project would also rip apart Chinatown and what was known as Little Syria and the New York Streets. Many were forced to move, including the Katsigianis family, who had to relocate.

That conversation was four years ago, and Katsiane’s decision to record it would prove fateful. Weeks later his great uncle died.

But Katsiane, who grew up in Castle Square, was determined not to let the piece of oral history go untold.

Paul Katsigianis is seen with his new car on Albany Street in the early 1950s

He began hunting for ways to tell his uncle’s story to a larger group. Not long after, he met Lydia Harrington and Chloe Bordewich of the Boston Little Syria project, during a walking tour, and was inspired by their work mapping out the history of the lost neighborhood that overlapped with parts of Chinatown from the late 1800s to the mid-1900s. The entire group dined at Anoushella restaurant, and after he reached out to them to about his project ideas.

Soon after they teamed with members of the Chinese Historical Society of New England. Eventually, the networking paid off. Katsiane secured funding from the City of Boston and Mass Cultural Council to help turn the history project into a reality. The administration of the Quincy Upper School was won over with their proposal, too, and agreed to host it. Now, the permanent exhibit, “Reclaiming History — A Journey Through Three Neighborhoods,” will officially open at the Josiah Quincy Upper School on April 27.

The exhibit, now on display, focuses on how urban renewal — specifically highway and hospital construction decades ago — harmed and reshaped life in three Boston areas: Chinatown, the New York Streets, and Little Syria, sometimes referred to as Syriatown. But it also, according to the organizers, celebrates “the stories and resilience” of the Chinese, Syrian, Lebanese, Greek, Jewish, Irish, West Indian, and other immigrant groups who lived in the area. The Upper School exhibit includes historic photographs, objects and written information about the neighborhoods, their residents and community life, said Alice Kane, managing director of the Chinese Historical Society of New England.

So far, the project has collected the oral histories of several area residents and former residents, including of Joyce and Mel King and Gloria Ganno, who lived in the New York Streets; Katsigianis and Nick Haddad, who lived in Little Syria; and Russell Eng and Suzanne Lee of Chinatown.

“This is a combination of objects, historical information, and then a website that connects them all and connects to oral history interviews,” Kane told the Sampan. “Many people in Boston are not aware that Boston had these really diverse neighborhoods in the same geographic area.”

Kane and Katsiane said the project would grow to much more than a permanent display in Chinatown’s high school. It will also become part of the social studies program at Quincy Upper, include walking tours and more.

“This is not a static project,” said Kane.

Jared Katsiane

The groups have already obtained about 50 books about the neighborhoods and urban renewal for the school library and Quincy Upper School seniors will be able to write on the topic for their graduation year thesis.

When describing the project, Katsiane reflected on how his chat with his great uncle was a pivotal moment for him.

“If I hadn't spoken to him (just weeks before he died),” he said, “I doubt this project would have happened.”

And he said that the race is now on to find other former neighborhood residents to interview, who might be able to shed light on the history of the area.

“Displacement erased more than streets and buildings—it erased entire histories. This exhibit reclaims them,” said Anita Yip, who collaborated on the project, and who occasionally writes for the Sampan.

“Jared Katsiane had both the vision and the trust of multiple people, communities, organizations and institutions to bring the exhibit to life,” said Yip.

Edits were made after publication in part to correct the story to tell that the Katsigianis family moved out of Albany Street in the 1950 because of the highway construction.