For Greater Boston, a different kind of freedom trail

Boston Globe

15-05-2025

Now the 'People's Guide' is being refigured into a series of maps so everyday explorers might tread a history that's often devalued by the established culture. The first, a
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'One of our goals in bringing maps like this into our collection is to encourage people to see maps not just as something done
to
them and their communities,' said Garrett Dash Nelson, cq president and head curator of the Leventhal Center. Rather, he sees the Lawrence map as a visual argument, intimately linked to the changing ways ordinary people think about their place in the world.
Maps have long been considered documents of power, often commissioned and funded by history's winners. But technology has democratized cartography and put its tools in the hands of nearly everybody. 'You don't have to be a British naval officer or computer scientist to map your own community,' Nelson said.
In fact, the idea of '
'We started thinking about whose history is commemorated in our public places and whose story is lost,' said Catherine D'Ignazio, cq a professor of urban studies and planning at MIT, who helped create the Cambridge map. Participants named streets in memory of beloved pets, changed the Colonial-era Charles River to the indigenous name Mishaum, cq and suggested 'Scarlet's End' as a more poetic choice for Cambridgepark cq Drive, near the Alewife station — the last Red Line stop.
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Far from mere utilitarian diagrams to get from point A to point B, D'Ignazio said, maps can be powerful narrative tools. 'If we only accept the Google way of mapping we'll have a very impoverished way of seeing our spaces,' she said.
Leafing through 'A People's Guide to Greater Boston' brings home another truth: So many of the original places highlighted have been razed or gentrified beyond recognition. Maybe a small sign or bronze plaque marks the place where immigrant workers or antiwar protesters once agitated for their rights. Nevins is OK with this, since cities are naturally dynamic, and he doesn't want to fetishize the past. Still, we save what we value, Nevins said. 'In highlighting what is lost we are trying to offer a cautionary tale and a challenge,' he said. We need to ask, 'Who shapes these decisions? How does change unfold and for whom?'
At a time when a revisionist administration in Washington is
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Renée Loth's column appears regularly in the Globe.