“You could classify Oak Street back then as a slum, but it was a thriving slum…”
Robert Silverman on the Hebrew Free Burial and Loan Association
Robert Silverman was born in the Hill neighborhood, but moved to Oak Street after the Great New England hurricane of 1938 destroyed his house. He remembers Oak Street as a place with filled storefronts and thriving businesses, even if the neighborhood appeared to be dilapidated. Silverman describes his frustration with the process by which the Redevelopment Agency used eminent domain to assume ownership of the Hebrew Free Burial and Loan Association, a community organization of which he was an officer.
To find out more, visit The Life in the Model City Online Exhibit.
Interviewed by Andy Horowitz on May 6, 2004.