North End historical museum finds location along Freedom Trail after lengthy search

Boston Globe

26-04-2025

Tom Damigella, the society's president, said bringing a museum to the North End is a core part of the society's mission to preserve the neighborhood's heritage 'in perpetuity.'
'This is an iconic neighborhood,' Damigella said. 'It's got 400 years of history. It's the cradle of liberty. It's got a great immigration story, everybody from the Old World came here. It was a colonial settlement. I mean, the stories are just phenomenal.'
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The location could hardly be better for a historical destination. When it opens on the ground floor of a building at 3 Prince Street, the museum will be directly on the Freedom Trail, which winds from the Paul Revere House just around the corner to Old North Church and Copp's Hill Burying Ground.
Residents of the neighborhood 'have been waiting for something like this,' Damigella said.
Founded in 2010, the historical society has been looking for a permanent space for years. A recent proposal that would have secured a location on Lovejoy Wharf near TD Garden
But that disappointment turned out to be a blessing in disguise, he said.
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'I'm glad it worked out that way, because this is better than that location was,' he said. 'So bad things happen for good reasons.'
The new location, tucked between Hanover Street and North Square on a stretch known to locals as 'Little Prince,' came to the society's attention somewhat serendipitously.
When Damigella saw a ground floor Prince Street condo on the market, he knew it would be the perfect place for a museum.
He approached local restauranteur Frank DePasquale, who was familiar with the society's struggle to find a location. The owner of Bricco, Trattoria, and nearly a dozen other restaurants in the neighborhood said he offered to buy the property for $500,000, remodel it, and lease it to the historical society essentially for free.
The society's board jumped at the prospect, and the purchase closed last month.
'I started them off with a five-year lease, but I hope that they're there for a lifetime,' DePasquale said. 'My whole mission is to make this the greatest inner-city Italian community in the country. And little by little, we're doing that.'
The location for the North End Historical Society on Prince Street. The space is under construction and will open next year.
Danielle Parhizkaran/Globe Staff
DePasquale said he would also pay for the renovation
and install a new glass facade. The museum exhibits are still being designed, he said.
'Frank's great in construction — he can do things in 10 seconds, it's amazing,' Damigella said. 'His generosity, to take that on, is wonderful. But we still have 400 years of content to make a theme out of, to put into some chronological order so we can tell the stories.'
To create the museum displays, Damigella said the society has tapped Trivium Interactive, a Boston-based visual design firm whose past clients include the Museum of Science and the Museum of African American History.
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There are plenty of well-known stories from the neighborhood to focus on, Damigella said, including
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Other exhibits will feature
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'These are the stories that we will be telling, and they're very colorful and interesting and surprising to a lot of people,' Damigella said.
The North End Museum would be one of the first new attractions along the Freedom Trail
Suzanne Segura Taylor, executive director of the Freedom Trail Foundation, said she had not worked with the historical society directly, but welcomed the addition of a new museum along the trail, which is visited by millions of people every year.
'Projects like the society's are commendable as they amplify the history of Boston's neighborhoods and inform and educate both residents and visitors alike,' Taylor said in a statement.
Once it opens, the museum will likely be added to the foundation's maps and other materials as an unofficial, 'off-the-trail' attraction, Taylor said.
Damigella said the museum would honor not only the neighborhood's modern Italian-American culture, but the waves of Jewish and Irish immigrants that preceded them. As he pointed out, both Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, mother of John F. Kennedy, and her father,
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'The different societies, the customs, the traditions — all the things that today are still going on, that [give] this neighborhood the wonderful character it's known for,' Damigella said. 'We're going to do it all.'
Camilo Fonseca can be reached at