Summary

Challenge

• • Use mobile technology to tell a particularly jarring episode in Boston’s landmaking history: the forced displacement of 12,000 citizens in order to develop luxury high rises.

• • Tie stories from former West End residents to a particular path through their old neighborhood that explains what urban planners were trying to do and why it failed.

• • Design the media so as to encourage face-to-face interactions with former West End residents and city planners.

Solution
Untravel Media worked with local filmmaker Kate Majzoub to create "The Greatest Neighborhood This Side of Heaven," a 90-minute walking tour starting in Boston’s Redevelopment Authority offices, leading through a neighborhood of similar design to the former West End, and finally through the West End itself, pointing out the failed suburb in the sky where developers unsuccessfully tried to make Bostonians feel at “home now.”

Result
Old West End residents worked closely with Untravel producers to develop our most compelling “issues-based” documentary to date. Full of humor, insider politics, and astute readings of the built environment by architects, activists, planners, and locals.

About the Client

Creeping Through Boston "The Greatest Neighborhood This Side of Heaven" was part of a series of tours Untravel produced in 2007 called the "Creeping Through Boston" series. Untravel sent out a request for proposals for stories that were not only "creepy," but also raised serious (and scary!) issues surrounding Boston's history. We were lucky to work with Boston filmmaker Kate Majzoub on this particular project.

Our Process

Technology The tour was produced using Flash Lite technology with a built-in navigable map menu system for both orientation and to jump to different points in the tour. The tour was also produced for iPods (audio and video) and for DVD distribution.

Our Research

Research
Untravel worked closely with West End Museum founders to iteratively design a walking path that would be accessible to locals and visitors, but also lead people through the story chronologically, arriving at the West End at the climax of this nightmare of Urban planning. Empty pathways, lonely remains, and drap towards punctuate this story of the downfall of the “Urban Villagers.” ,. Interviews with David Kruh, who has written extensively on the subject, and Alex Kreiger, whose firm designed many of the buildings in the neighborhood, were foundational in developing the pathways and storyline for the tour.

After finishing production, Untravel ran a testing period to ensure proper orientation and content integrity. Overall, the project remains and exemplary production in how mobile media can uniquely involve both locals and visitors in the civic issues of locales.