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Joe Portaleki PDF

The owner of the Ace Hardware store in Roslindale, Josef (Joe) Porteleki was born in 1947 in Hungary, son of Gertrude Gerersdorfer, an Austrian national, and Joszef Porteleki, a Hungarian. Joe and his family were among the more than 900,000 war…

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A postcard that depicts "Chelsea Square. Chelsea. Mass." A parkway with streetcars, horse drawn carriages, and pedestrians walking about. The road is in a U-shape and there are large three and four story buildings that mark the sides of the streets.

Chelsea

Chelsea Square, ca. 1905, just prior to the massive fire of 1908 that would destroy the dowtown but also bring thousands of Jewish and other immigrants to this industrial city north of Boston.

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A look down a street in the West End. The road is littered with papers. On one side of the street is a pharmacy. Pedestrians walk along the sidewalk on either side of the street.

The West End

Corner of Spring and Chambers Streets in Boston's West End, 1910. Courtesy of the Trustees of Boston Public Library.

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Cholera Report

In the summer of 1849, Boston was engulfed in a cholera epidemic that spread from England to the US via emigrant ships. Irish immigrants were particularly hard hit by the disease, accounting for more than 500 of the 611 recorded deaths…

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