LHC Symposium 2016 - Reclaiming Urban Renewal in Lawrence, Massachusetts and Other Industrial Cities

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This program is funded in part by Mass Humanities​, UMass Lowell, NECC, the Catherine McCarthy Memorial Trust Fund, the ECCF—Rosman Family Fund, and the Lawrence Cultural Council, a local agency supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.

The Lawrence History Center will host a one-day symposium on the history of Urban Renewal in Lawrence, Massachusetts and Other Industrial Cities on Saturday, May 7, 2016 at the Everett Mill, 15 Union Street, Lawrence.

Please PRE-REGISTER for a full day of speakers, panel presentations, and other attractions!

Our morning Keynote Speaker:

lizabeth-cohen_photo-by-kathleen-dooher_1.jpgLizabeth Cohen
Dean, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study; Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American Studies, Department of History, Harvard University

"The Planners and the People: Boston's Urban Renewal Revisited"
An expert on 20th-century American social and political history, Lizabeth Cohen’s current book project, Saving America’s Cities: Ed Logue and the Struggle to Renew Urban America in the Suburban Age, considers the benefits and costs of rebuilding American cities through the life and career of urban planner Edward J. Logue, who contributed to major redevelopment projects across the Northeast, including the “New Boston” that emerged in the 1960s.

Presentations held throughout the day will address topics such as:

  • Preservation and Place-Making: Lawrence Heritage State Park and the New Urban Renewal
  • From Demolition to Preservation to Celebration: Renewing Lowell, Mass. (1965-2015)
  • Paternalism Inscribed on the Industrial City: The Case of Lawrence, Massachusetts
  • Addressing the Legacy of Urban Renewal: UMass Amherst Design Center in Springfield
  • Rocky’s Folly: Modernism, Urban Renewal, and Albany’s Empire State Plaza
  • Provenance, Preservation and Discovery: Urban Renewal Archival Resources in Lawrence, Massachusetts
  • Building Up, Spreading Out: Analyzing the Legacy of Buffalo’s Public Housing Projects During the Urban Renewal Era and Beyond
  • Lunchtime presentation: Urban Renewal in Lawrence through the “Rising” Voices of Bread Loaf
  • City Life/Vida Urbana: Just Cause Eviction & the Struggle for Community Control of Housing and Land (in Boston)
  • The Lawrence Redevelopment Authority (LRA): A New Urban Renewal Plan for a New Century
  • From Urban Renewal to Affordable Housing Production System: Boston Mayors and the Evolution of Community Development Corporations in Boston
  • Neighbors No More: Urban Renewal Comparisons and Research Methods in Lawrence and Lowell
  • Resurrecting a Vanished Neighborhood: Interpreting Urban Renewal at Boston’s West End Museum
  • And more!

      Registration Fee: $35.00 per person by 5:00 pm on April 29, 2016 / $40 per person after that time and at the door. The fee covers your full day of attendance, including a continental breakfast and lunch. Space is limited!

      Questions? Please contact:

      Susan Grabski, Executive Director
      Lawrence History Center
      6 Essex Street
      Lawrence, Massachusetts 01840
      tel. 978.686.9230
      email: director@lawrencehistory.org
      Professor Robert Forrant
      Department of History
      University of Massachusetts Lowell
      Lowell, Massachusetts 01854
      tel. 978.934.2904
      email: robert_forrant@uml.edu