Current Projects
The BRC team is currently working on various projects in partnership with local organizations based in four Boston neighborhoods: Chinatown, Roxbury, East Boston, and the South End. With these ongoing collaborative projects, we aim to provide the technological infrastructure to help our community partners collect and preserve the histories and memories of their community members.
Harriet Tubman House Memory Project
The Harriet Tubman House Memory Project is a Boston Research Center effort from 2020 to 2022 to preserve the legacy of the Harriet Tubman House, which stood at 566 Columbus Avenue in Boston’s South End from 1975 until its demolition in 2020. This project invites visitors to explore the history of the building and the people who worked, learned, and found joy and community within its walls. Here you will find digitized photographs, newsletters, ephemera, oral histories, and other historical records. These materials tell the story of a beloved community hub that served a racially and ethnically diverse neighborhood; the building’s sale sparked a wave of grassroots organizing, and its painful loss reverberates today.
Chinatown History Directory
The Chinatown History Directory is an inventory of archival collections and historical projects pertaining to Boston's Chinatown. In collaboration with Chinatown community partners, this website aims to document archival collections drawn from a diverse range of sources, including area repositories, neighborhood residents, and community-oriented cultural and activist organizations. A launching point for neighborhood research, this bilingual website aims to help Chinatown residents learn more about their neighborhood history as well as engage a wider audience to enrich their understanding of Chinatown’s history.
East Boston History Portal
Our Home: An East Boston History Portal is an effort by the Boston Research Center from 2019 to 2022 to preserve and celebrate East Boston’s rich and diverse history. This project invites visitors to explore the history of East Boston through the stories and memories of the East Boston community. Here you will find hundreds of digitized photographs, newspapers, oral histories, and other primary source materials that can be used as a resource for neighborhood residents, area researchers, and K-12 audiences.
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Neighborhood Public Art Project
The Neighborhood Public Art Project collects information on public artwork in Boston’s neighborhoods. This project invites users to explore Boston’s artwork using an interactive map, data visualizations of the artwork, and the WikiProject where this data is stored. This website serves as an entry point for the project’s various components.