The Official Blog of the Urban History Association
This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, “Connections.” by Jeremy Lee Wolin During the era of formal segregation, Black communities across the United States created thousands of schools to provide the education that white schools would not allow their students to receive. From the 1950s to the 1970s, the same […]
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This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, “Connections.” by Andrew Allio The camera pans along the street, highlighting the abandoned buildings. Midway down the block, a bulldozed lot is littered with broken concrete, plywood, and other construction debris. It is May 9, 1967, and Ben Williams of KPIX News […]
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This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, “Connections.” by Matthew McKeown Third places are spaces people go to get away from work and home life. These spaces are vital for connecting community members and essential for urban renewal. Recently, there have been arguments about the decline of third places.[1] […]
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This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, “Connections.” by Genna Kane Bostonians grumbled and complained when the Sumner Tunnel closed again in the Summer of 2024, demonstrating the significance of underwater connections to East Boston. The City of Boston annexed East Boston in 1836, but the harbor strained East […]
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It is September, and here at The Metropole that means it is time to publish entries to the Graduate Student Blogging Contest. Now in its eighth year, the contest is intended to encourage students to write pieces for a public-facing, online platform and share their research with a broad audience. Beginning Thursday and extending into […]
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On August 4, 2020, a massive explosion ripped through the heart of Beirut, Lebanon. While the devastation left by the blast was followed by a series of reconstruction efforts, it has remained difficult to document, map, and support the living heritage of the city, especially regarding its small creative businesses. The Living Heritage Atlas | […]
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During the summer of 2016, architectural historians Anne E. Bruder, Susan Hellman, and Catherine W. Zipf came together over their shared interest in documenting the history of The Negro Travelers’ Green Book, more commonly referred to as simply “the Green Book.” As noted in their interview below, a series of conference engagements led to the […]
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If you’ve been to Los Angeles recently and had the opportunity to visit the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), perhaps you were able to drop in on its new exhibit, “Ed Ruscha/Now Then“. Ruscha has long been an observer of the city, especially with regard to its vernacular and commercial architecture. While the […]
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Hey all, it’s our final reminder that the submission window for the Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest is still open—through July 12, 2024. We look forward to your submissions about connections, whether literal of figurative, in the historic urban landscape. We are pleased to announce this year’s contest judges: Dr. Andrew Sandoval-Strausz of Pennsylvania […]
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By J. Mark Souther Few things embody the freedom of American life more than mobility, and perhaps no other form of transportation, for better and worse, has defined mobility in the United States like cars. Yet in the era of Jim Crow, mobility for Black families could be dangerous, even deadly; hence the need for […]
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