When Neighborhood Re-Branding Celebrates What's Disappearing

[thelakelander]

"Branding" revamped neighborhoods for a barely past history can feel like a backhanded homage.

The Boston Herald was enemy territory back when I was a reporter at The Boston Globe. But I had friends there, and occasionally enjoyed a Guiness at J. J. Foley's on East Berkeley Street, steps from the newsroom. The tabloid would literally be hot off the presses while the yellow delivery trucks mustered in the parking lot. The smell of fresh bread from Quinzani's Bakery mingled with the smoke of cigarettes—those things people used to light on fire, indoors and out.

The printing presses are gone now, the Herald's and others that distinguished the eastern edge of Boston's South End, alongside an elevated portion of the Southeast Expressway. Herald reporters and editors—what's left of them—decamped for the Seaport. And the newspaper itself, in a spasm of journalistic dissonance, is printed at the Globe, about a mile away in Dorchester. Where the Herald once stood, now rising is the Ink Block, a giant, up-market, mixed-use complex.

Full article: http://www.citylab.com/design/2014/09/when-neighborhood-re-branding-celebrates-whats-disappearing/379788/