Emile Bernat, the founder of Emile Bernat & Sons, came to Boston from his native Hungary about 1902. In the 1930s he ran a company called “Bernat Superior Looms.” The address was 99 Bickford Street (they were in the old Thomas Plant Shoe Factory). The looms were to complement the work done with their “superior” yarns.
Read MoreJamaica Plain Spoken was a video/interview project that JP musician Rick Berlin started with his friend Todd Drogy in 2004. It consists of nearly sixty interviews with people of all genders, beliefs, ages and ethnicities. Just a bunch of local characters describing their lives and offering their opinions about Jamaica Plain. The project was stopped due to a lack of funding, so the YouTube clips are all that remain. Those links are gathered here.
Read MoreThe intersection of Prince Street and Pond Street (where it is contiguous with the Arborway) is designated as Matthew O’Gorman Square. This hero square was dedicated on October 12, 1921.
Read MoreIn 1918 a US Coast Guard Cutter was torpedoed in the Irish Sea. One of its victims was from Jamaica Plain. One hundred years later his next-of-kin is being sought to receive the Purple Heart awarded to Lt. John Thomas Carr.
Read MoreJamaica Plain old-timers will remember that only two clocks really mattered in our youth. One was outside of the Boston Five Cents Savings Bank at 696 Centre St. and the other important clock was in the lobby of the Jamaica Theatre at Hyde Square.
Read MoreThe International Chinese Business Business Directory of 1913 included four entries for Chinese-owned businesses in Jamaica Plain.
Read MoreJimmy Durante and his entourage paid a visit to Hanlon’s Shoe Store in Jamaica Plain in 1958. During a visit to Boston to perform in a downtown club Durante asked where the best place was to buy shoes in Boston and was directed to Hanlon’s Shoes on Centre St. Mr. Durante purchased five pairs of shoes on that first visit to Hanlon’s and returned on a number of occasions to make additional purchases.
Read MoreThe iconic 90s grunge band Nirvana first played Boston in Jamaica Plain. The band’s first Hub gig was at Green Street Station on July 15, 1989, a show notable in its own right: Cobain, who broke his guitar the night before, performed the entire nine-song set without one.
Read MoreRememberances of the Tracy family who were caretakers of the Loring-Greenough House.
Read MoreThis 28 minute video consists of footage photographed by Samuel Minot on a 16mm home movie camera between 1939 and 1963.
Read MoreWhat does a 1940’s type shoe repair shop, a fleet of World War Two B-17 Bombers, the Building 19 discount store in Norwood, Arthur Fiedler of Boston Pops fame and Jazz Maffie, the late Brinks bandit, have in common? And the answer is: 90 year-old cobbler Guy Perito, formerly of Sedgwick Street, Jamaica Plain!
Read MoreThe coincidence of the house at 257 Lamartine playing a part in two family’s lives 80 years ago and then their stories coming to light almost simultaneously is, we think, very interesting, to say the least.
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