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Boston, MA
Boston Urban Archive started as a hobby but turned into a way to unearth history – The Boston Globe
When I travel and visit people in other cities and states, I’ve realized that many people still don’t grasp the diversity that exists within Boston. Sometimes, I hear questions like “There are Black people in Boston?”
I actually grew up outside of Boston itself, but I would come into the city on weekends and during the summer to see my dad, who was based in Dorchester. He is from Barbados originally — and Dorchester is home to all of these Caribbean communities, which was so exciting and a culture shock to be introduced to when I visited. I loved coming here. I moved to Boston full-time when I was 12 years old and eventually enrolled as an English major with a focus on journalism at UMass Boston.
One semester, I took a music history class on hip-hop with UMass Boston professors Jeffrey Melnick and Akrobatik, who is also a well-known rapper from Boston. They brought in lots of cool artists and speakers. They also told us about this archive that existed in the campus library: the Massachusetts Hip-Hop Archive. So, I made an appointment, walked in, and there were all of these boxes and folders all around the main table. I just went to town in there for an hour and a half.
When you learn about the history of a city, you start to realize that a lot of stories eventually come full circle. They echo across generations. And as I dug through the Massachusetts Hip-Hop Archive, I was reminded that stories of Boston as this multicultural place are often untold. I couldn’t find a place online where you could even access that community history. As I kept finding all of these photos and videos — not just in the hip-hop archive but also in the Boston Public Library and Northeastern University Library, state archival databases, and television archives — I decided to create that resource online: the Boston Urban Archive.
When I launched the Boston Urban Archive’s account on Instagram in 2023, I was strategic with my approach. I wanted it to be a space that was aesthetically pleasing — very neat and organized. And I wanted to captivate people.
One of my earliest posts — which ended up getting something like a million hits — was this old video from the 1980s that featured Mark Wahlberg [a Boston-born actor and rapper] as a child. That video was a way of bringing people in and gaining traction before sharing a wider range of photos, videos, and stories from the archives. I also try to choose stories that have some connection to what is going on in the present. Recently, I posted this mid-1970s clip from a supermarket in Dorchester in which a reporter talks about rising food costs and customers are complaining about $2 steaks.
On Oct. 25, I wanted to publish something about youth in Boston. I had a video clip from 1990 of a reporter speaking with little boys at the Franklin Field housing project on the north side of Franklin Park. The reporter asks them about crime and a curfew that the city had been considering putting into place back then. I really liked the boys’ energy. They said, “Yeah, this is our neighborhood and if there’s a curfew, we’re probably not gonna abide by it, but we’re gonna be playing basketball and minding our own business.” When I heard that, I chuckled a little bit, and I decided to use that bit as the intro to another clip that showed the boys playing basketball. Within hours of posting the video on the Instagram account, all of these comments came rolling in, many of them saying the same thing: “RIP EMOE.” There were dozens of them.
So I’m like, “Who’s EMOE?” None of the video descriptions from the archive had information identifying the boys, because they were minors. But then another person commented on the post claiming to be EMoe’s cousin. So I messaged them, and I soon learned that EMoe was the nickname of the boy in the video who made the comment about staying out past curfew playing basketball. His name was Eric Paulding. And in 1997, Paulding was shot while leaving his girlfriend’s house around Franklin Park. I learned that his killing was notable because it came after a two-and-a-half-year period of no juveniles being killed in Boston. He was killed in the same neighborhood where that clip with the reporter took place seven years earlier.
Not long after Paulding’s cousin and I exchanged DMs, his aunt messaged me and said, “Thank you so much for sharing this. It was great for his grandmother to see.” That really hit a soft spot for me. The video clip was over 30 years old. When I imagined Paulding’s grandmother hearing his voice, seeing him, all these years later — I can only imagine how it made her feel.
In the beginning, I had some idea that sharing these archival videos and photos might inspire people from the community to contribute their own memories and information. But I didn’t realize how big this platform would become and that it could be a way of bringing a community together or how it would be this place where we all learn from each other. I’ve learned a lot from the comments. I posted a video of an early 1990s rap group called Joint Ventures, thinking, “Wow, this sounds like something that could’ve come out of New York.” And then the daughter of the group’s lead rapper, MC Fly Ty, commented and said, “That’s my dad! He ended up passing in ’94. Thanks for posting this.” I’ve even seen some folks reconnect with each other in the comments on certain posts! They’ll spot a familiar face, tag their friends, and say, “Oh my gosh, isn’t that Miss So-and-so from when we were kids?”
The Boston Urban Archive began as a hobby, but now it’s opened doors. People watch these videos, study these photos, and ask about the people in them: “Where are they now? What happened to them?”
As a journalist and a writer, I want to be able to answer those questions, to give voice to stories and experiences from the community that haven’t received the recognition that I think they should.
Ebony Gill is the creator of the Boston Urban Archive, which curates archived film, newspapers, documents, and photography from Boston, with a focus on underrepresented communities in the city. Miles Howard is a freelance writer in Boston and the founder of the Walking City Trail. He publishes the weekly hiking newsletter Mind the Moss.
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Boston, MA
Jaylen Brown says Celtics showed ‘lack of respect’ after trade to 76ers – The Boston Globe
Amid several reports that said Brown didn’t request a trade and that Boston actually thought Derrick White was the best player on the 2025-26 roster, an already motivated Brown now has an even larger chip on his shoulder after the Celtics dealt him away.
“The message was received,” Brown said. “I wasn’t thrilled with the amount of respect that was shown throughout this process. I think there was a bit of a lack of respect. I think it was fine at one point, then out of nowhere, things just went left. I think Brad [Stevens] is getting a lot of the criticism. I wasn’t thrilled with the way he facilitated some of the conversations.”
After the Celtics fell short in their pursuit of Giannis Antetokounmpo — Brown was the centerpiece of Boston’s trade package — Stevens was noncommittal when asked about Brown’s future in Boston.
“Jaylen Brown is a big part of us,” Stevens said. “I’m never going to predict the future, but every indication, everything that I think about over the past few years has been building around those guys, right? So obviously, you never know. But at the same time, the one thing I want to make very clear is how valued he’s always been.”
“He’s been amazing. He’s been an amazing teammate, a great person to be around. And whether that run ends 10 years from now when he retires, or before, there’s a lot to celebrate. We have a great relationship, an open relationship where we talk about everything. But I don’t want to predict the future. I look at it as, this is our team.”
Stevens traded Brown to the 76ers on Wednesday in exchange for Paul George, two first-round picks, and two second-round picks. The deal was widely criticized.
For Brown, the most puzzling aspect was the lack of an explanation.
“I definitely think there’s more to it,” Brown said. “I just wish that more to it could’ve been explained to me. Because I think if more to it was explained, I would’ve understood. I thought I earned the respect to get that explanation. But hey, obviously, I was wrong. That’s life. You move on.”
Brown will now join a 76ers team that, with Tyrese Maxey, Joel Embiid, and V. J. Edgecombe already in place, could be poised to leapfrog Boston in the Eastern Conference.
“I don’t want [any] special treatment, I don’t need no handouts … I plan on earning my respect one day at a time by putting in the work,” Brown said of playing for Philadelphia. “I’m looking forward to getting in the gym, the whole process.”
“The hard part is, the last 10 years, I’ve been programmed to hate Philadelphia. The history of the rivalry, the playoff battles … I’ve been programmed to think like, ‘[Expletive] The Process’. It’s funny, now I’ve got to reverse-engineer it. But I’ll be ready to go by the time the season starts.”
Conor Ryan can be reached at conor.ryan@globe.com.
A broken elevator has left some residents of a Boston apartment building unable to leave, but a new stairlift has brought temporary relief.
When 80-year-old Silke Evans, who lives at the Villa Michelangelo Apartments in the North End, spoke with NBC10 Boston last Wednesday, she had been stuck inside for weeks.
“I feel imprisoned. That’s it,” she said at the time. “I feel like I’m in prison.”
Silke Evans, an 80-year-old woman living at the Villa Michelangelo Apartments in the North End, has been unable to use the elevator at her building for three weeks.
“She was stuck up on the third floor for a total of three-and-a-half weeks,” her daughter, Katharine Clark, said Thursday.
Thursday, Metro Management, which runs the building, installed the stairlift as a temporary solution while waiting for elevator repairs.
It allowed Evans to leave for the first time in nearly a month.
“They had food, and got to eat out, and just feel like a normal person,” Clark said. “She’s been looking kind of sad for weeks, so it’s the first time I saw some pictures where she was genuinely smiling.”
The fix brought major joy to Evans, with hopes of a long-term solution in the future.
“We’re not out of the woods. We still have a broken elevator. Hopefully, it’s not too many months with just a chairlift,” Clark said.
Jeff Buono, director of property management, told NBC10 Boston last week that the process to repair the elevator has been difficult.
“They’re estimating four to five weeks to get the parts and then four to five weeks for the install,” Buono said in a phone interview. “It’s tough to get parts in general. It takes longer to get them than it ever has before. So the systems now just need to be modernized. I mean, it does take a toll on our elderly population — it really does. And we do feel for them. They’re likely family to us.”
NBC10 Boston reached out to the management company for further comment Thursday, but staff had already left for the holiday weekend.
Concert Reviews
The Connecticut jam band delivered an incendiary show at Leader Bank Pavilion Wednesday night.
Goose at Leader Bank Pavilion, Boston, July 1, 2026.
I discovered the fan spritzing water at 7:07 p.m., as the “feels like” temp hit 102. It stood near a semicircle of coed porta-potties at the back of Boston’s Leader Bank Pavilion, and we gathered round it like wallowing water buffalo at a flooded rice paddy.
Still, despite the temperature, the weather was not the hottest thing in Boston last night. Goose was on fire.
Night 2 of their “Big Modern!” Boston run saw mostly old favorites. All fat funky jams and spectacle, it veered into the frantic — primal guitar and crowd whoops. You could’ve charged for the light-show alone. They made a case for frontman/Berklee alum Rick Mitarotonda as one of the great lead jam guitarists working today.
Now, sometimes the most selfless gift a band can give fans on a new album tour is to not play much off the new album. I’m thinking of how heartbroken my dad was when Neil Young indulgently played 2003’s “Greendale” in full. With costumed actors. Before most fans had the album (if they bought it).
As for Goose, I’m not a big fan of their slick, heavily produced (overproduced?) “Big Modern!,” released last month. The record gives big “I said we’re not a jam band, Mom!” vibes. Whether it’s a new direction, a lark, something to get out of their system, or a Bob Dylan-esque random venture into new territory, a la “Saved,” only time will tell.
But unlike Neil Young, Goose selflessly delivered the hits. They played just one song off the new album — the title track. For the record, they played only one “Big Modern!” song on night 1 in Boston: “Torero.”
Live, the artists’ DNA remains. Those funky, meaty jams, Mitarotonda’s smooth vocals and raw guitar that feels at all times begging to be let off the leash to run wild, howling — until it inevitably does.
Sorry, Goose. You’re a jam band. You cannot fight animal-nature.
When the powers of lead guitarist/vocalist Mitarotonda, multi-instrumentalist Peter Anspach — both natives of Wilton, Conn. — combine with bassist Trevor Weekz and Bedford, Mass. native drummer Cotter Ellis, jams get electric.
When that electricity combines with the Jedi-level mastery of their brilliant lighting production team, including lighting designer Andrew Goedde — it feels otherworldly. By the end of the night, my camera roll looked like a kaleidoscope.
The Connecticut quartet took stage at 7:39 p.m. Anspach, typically the one to address the crowd, walked on stage with: “Alright, Boston let’s do this. Drink your water tonight, man. It’s f—ing hot.”
They launched into a fiery “Iguana Song” with red and green lights which turned to green and blue, then epic white and red strobes as Mitarotonda’s guitar let out primal screams, and Cotter thwacked. The crowd got on their feet and never sat down.
“Iguana” reached two peaks and ended with all of us cattle-lowing “Goooooooooose” in the way that Springsteen’s fans shout “Bruuuuuuuuuuce.” (We’re not booing.)
The smell of weed poured over me by 7:42. Yes, by God, in the age of ubiquitous vapes and pre-packaged candy edibles, a few old-souls brought skunky old-school pot. The smell immediately took me back to childhood days at Great Woods. (Single tear in eye.)
Next: fan favorite “Royal” as a blue balloon was tossed in the crowd. Things slowed down a bit with “It Burns Within,” before launching into “Wisteria Lane” with Anspach playing both guitar and keys simultaneously, and lights shooting like UFO beams before breaking into greens and purples.
The highlight of the night, though, was an incendiary version of “Electric Avenue” — a 1982 Eddy Grant song that’s become a repertoire staple — that had the whole crowd singing, then shouting as Mitarotonda’s lightning-fast fingerpicking became frantic.
Then Ellis took lead vocals on a funky “Draconian Meter Maid,” a Swimmer song Ellis apparently brought to the band when he joined in ’24. It ended in a cacophony of electric sound, warped beats building into a frenzy before slowing to almost a full halt as bands of orange and green light waved like seaweed in water. As it built back up to the frenzy, the crowd lost it, whooping and screaming, dancing in aisles.
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‘Goosemas’ concert in Providence was festive as ever, but the Brown attack hung over the proceedings
Next came a bluegrassy hoedown “Flodown” to end set 1 around 9:06 p.m., with the “feels-like” temp a balmy 93 degrees.
Intermission saw guys sticking heads under outdoor bathroom sink faucets, wiping faces down with paper towels, holding sweating beer cans to foreheads.
Set 2 kicked off at 9:35 p.m. with the only song they’d play off “Big Modern!” all night: the title track. The set started off spacier, adding to a slow trippy feel. It was now fully dark, and the lights popped even more, hazy light beams illuminating mist and smoke in the air.
“Creatures,” had a sway-in-the-aisle feel, ending with some goosebumps-inducing vocals from Mitarotonda, as lights turned aqua blue. “Jive II” was pure funk that proved they’re a jam-beast at heart. Set 2 ended with “Jive Lee,” but they quickly returned for an encore with “Doobie Song,” a pure reggae tune played for the first time in a year, which Anspach said was dedicated to their crew.
The mellow song was a beautiful way to bring everyone down off the mind-melting jams. It reminded me of how the Grateful Dead capped nights with a lullaby, “We Bid You Goodnight” as a chamomile tea for the mind.
They capped with “Give It Time,” under a hushed aqua light, ending around 11 p.m. Mitarotonda sang, “Go ahead, give it hell.”
They did.
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After 13 songs in more than three hours, they delivered something for every type of Goose fan in Boston last night — and every type of Goose fan was there.
There were the “Big Modern!” fans— one dude in a bright yellow and pink jumpsuit, to match the album colors. Young couples in Dead & Co shirts, gray-haired dads with polo shirts, khaki shorts and Keens drinking next to classic wooks. A white-haired grandmother-type in a long floral dress swayed next to a pack of teens with glitter on their faces.
I spotted half a dozen Celtics jerseys with “Walton” on the back, an homage to Boston Biggest Deadhead. Grateful Dead-themed Red Sox jerseys — some with Garcia on the backs — peppered the crowd. A man in Lululemon. A young girl with hand-made patchwork overalls. Bearded hippies with decades-old Neil Young tees.
All of us here to happily dance in the 100-degree heat for hours of fiery jams.
Like it or not Goose, you’re a jam band. It’s coiled in your DNA. Your cells ring with it. You can put out as many bubblegum-slick albums as you want. Blood always tells.
Full setlist for Goose at Leader Bank Pavilion, Boston, July 1, 2026:
Set 1:
- Iguana Song
- Royal
- It Burns Within
- Wysteria Lane
- Electric Avenue
- Draconian Meter Maid
- Flodown
Set 2:
- Big Modern!
- Creatures
- Jive II
- Jive Lee
Encore:
Lauren Daley is a freelance culture writer. She can be reached at [email protected]. She tweets @laurendaley1, and Instagrams at @laurendaley1. Read more stories on Facebook here.
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