Hey, there! Log in / Register

Downtown restaurant to celebrate sectarian violence

The Boston Licensing Board this week hears a request from restaurateur Brian O'Donnell to rename Jason Santos's old Blue, Inc. at 131 Broad St. to Broad Street Riot.

The name harkens back to the Broad Street Riot of 1837, when drunken Protestant firefighters got into it with Irish Catholic men about to form a funeral procession, sparking a riot that left nearby businesses and homes in ruins.

The restaurant is just down Broad Street from Nix's Mate, which is named for an island in Boston Harbor where colonial authorities would hang the bodies of executed pirates as a warning to other ne'er-do-wells. Perhaps the next Broad Street restaurant could be a barbecue place called Fire.

The board's hearings begin at 10 a.m. on Wednesday in its eighth-floor hearing room in City Hall.

Neighborhoods: 
Topics: 


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

Seems a bit tasteless to me.

up
Voting closed 0

It's been 177 years.

up
Voting closed 0

This is Boston. The riot happened, like, yesterday.

up
Voting closed 0

Burned a few years earlier:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursuline_Convent_Riots

Funny how things pretty much stay the same. Robert Gould Shaw, of Glory fame, was a vehement abolitionist, along with his family. And just as virulently anti-Irish. And if you don't believe that, read the personal letters he wrote at the time. Had no problem leading the first black regiment in the country, but worked like hell to keep the Irish out of it.

One hundred years later, I was going to the the Robert Gould Shaw junior high school in West Roxbury. We, the Irish, had taken over that school and virtually all of the Boston Public School system from Shaw and his descendants. And our political "leaders" were working like hell to keep blacks and hispanics out of it.

Fifty years later, it's a majority minority school system.

up
Voting closed 0

This is great news, can I start complaining about being oppressed now?

up
Voting closed 0

can I start complaining about being oppressed now?

If you are oppressed, then by all means complain about it.

But some people seem to be somewhat confused as to what constitutes oppression. For example, (off topic to be sure) having a store clerk wish you "Merry Christmas" if you are not a Christmas celebrator, or "Happy Holidays" if you are, does not constitute "oppression."

up
Voting closed 0

Was simply offering some on-topic local social history, with the hope that it may enlighten or entertain.

Of course, I assumed a level of intelligence and engagement that was greater than three left shoes. My bad on that one, in some cases.

up
Voting closed 0

... who can (and probably) will complain about anything posted here.

I find it amazing that an ethnic group (to which I belong, in part) can still nourish a sense of buring grievance (and even ourright anger) after having been in e control of Boston for well over 100 years (viz dd's post).

up
Voting closed 0

Just down the street is Barney Fanning's, which is named after ... a participant in the Broad Street Riot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broad_Street_Riot

up
Voting closed 0

My father once told this to me
Boston's gritty history
Another ruthless battle
in a useless holy war
Handed down discrepancies
and tensions that'll never ease
One early afternoon on Broad street
It blew up down there for sure

Mighty mighty bosstones.

up
Voting closed 0

No comment on the quality of the name, but really, shouldn't that pretty much only be the business of the owner and his marketing department?

up
Voting closed 0

Any change in a liquor license holder's dba, corporate structure, ownership, financing or manager needs approval of the Boston Licensing Board (and, I think, the state ABCC). It's not just a good idea - it's the law.

Bonus fun fact: Only Massachusetts residents who are also US citizens can legally manage an establishment with a liquor license in Boston (they are, however, allowed to live in Brookline).

up
Voting closed 0