The Somerville Man Behind One of Boston's Most Important Newsletters

In February and March, the West End Museum in Boston put on an exhibit called "25 Years of the West Ender Newsletter."

It may seem strange to dedicate an entire exhibit to a newsletter, but The West Ender is something special.

It's been written about in the Boston Globe and mentioned in the Wall Street Journal, and it's credited with holding together a community of people whose homes were bulldozed to the ground during the now infamous "slum clearance" of the West End in the late 1950s.

In that episode of Boston's history, the city tore down a diverse immigrant neighborhood of mostly Irish, Italian, Polish, Russian and Jewish working class people and replaced it with apartment developments and offices.

A Somerville resident whose heart belongs to the West End

The people who lived in the West End neighborhood were dispersed far and wide, but the West End community lives on in large part due to the newsletter, which four times a year publishes a hodgepodge collection of remembrances, announcements, letters, obituaries, old photographs, updates about family and friends, articles, stories and media tidbits—it is, in fact, closer to a community newspaper, printed on newsprint and adorned with a scattering of advertisements for businesses with West End connections.

It exists thanks to Davis Square resident James Campano, 71, who edits and publishes it.

Campano is famous, or infamous, depending on whom you ask, in his own right. The Boston Globe, the Boston Herald and the Boston Phoenix have all written about him, and he jokes about having a famous Wall Street Journal "headcut" pointillist portrait in his likeness; that newspaper wrote a profile about him as well. (A Neighborhood Died, But One Bostonian Refuses to Let It Go," Aug. 23, 2000.)

Campano has lived in Somerville for about four decades. He spent years selling newspapers in the Davis Square T station, recognized by hordes of Somerville commuters. He ran for Board of Aldermen in 2009 (and got "crushed," he said) and hosts a program on called "Somerville Pundit," which airs Wednesdays.

Yet, he said, "[The] West End will always be my home because that's where I grew up."

The newsletter

Campano recalls how the newsletter got started. He was at reunion at , a summer camp in Sharon run by the , which, like Campano, moved from the West End to Somerville when the Boston neighborhood was bulldozed. Lots of people who grew up in the West End have memories of the Elizabeth Peabody House, Campano said.

After the camp reunion, he wrote a short newsletter for those who couldn't make it. "I started out with 150 names, then 450," he said.

The thirst for a connection to the old neighborhood was stronger than he expected, and at its height he was mailing the newsletter to 4500 families from the West End, he said. 

"I thought it was [going to be], 'What are your kids doing now,'" he said. Instead, "Everybody wanted to remember when."

He ultimately turned the newsletter into a printed newspaper, and reporters and politicians started subscribing to it, in addition to those who were from the old neighborhood.

With submissions from old West Enders, who wrote about their memories, it was a tangible and poignant reminder of a demolished neighborhood and of the people whose lives were thrown into turmoil when the neighborhood was destroyed.

Now, "everybody's dying," Campano said of the people who come from the West End. As a result, circulation is down to 800.

A legacy

Campano joked that "in Boston they think I'm a liberal activist. In Somerville they think I'm a conservative crazy."

He's a soft-spoken man who, as a teenager in the West End, threw a Molotov cocktail at a crane, according to the Wall Street Journal profile, and who spent much of his life clashing with developers and Boston planning authorities. He's also a man who's lived much of his life in Davis Square and campaigned for Board of Aldermen on the idea there are too many liquor licenses in the area.

At the end of the day, "I'm more comfortable being an activist and yelling at politicians," he said.

His efforts to keep the memory of the West End alive helped establish the West End Museum, where he sits on the board of directors.

The Elizabeth Peabody House has named an award after him, dedicated to a "champion" who has done outstanding work among children and immigrant families in Somerville and Sharon.

Because of his life experience, he's campaigned against the use of eminent domain around the country. "Eminent domain is not a problem for someone who decides your house is the problem," he said.

When asked, he said that, yes, he hopes he's left a legacy with the newsletter, the museum and his efforts to bring attention to displaced people.

Much of his work is rooted in the past, but Campano said, "I'm interested in what I'm doing tomorrow."