Meet the author Jim Vrabel for a discussion about the community organizing that halted the construction of the proposed Southwest Expressway through Jamaica Plain, and advocated for the creation of the Southwest Corridor bike path.

In this first Neighborhood Matters event of 2015 we welcome author and local activist Jim Vrabel. Vrabel’s new book, A People’s History of the New Boston, draws from more than a hundred interviews with community leaders, politicians, businesspeople, and others. He profiles activists who worked for school desegregation, tenants’ rights, and better employment opportunities, a diverse group of citizens “who engaged in a period of activism that was unlike anything seen in this city for possibly 200 years.”

Read More at Boston.com

Jim Vrabel is a longtime Boston community activist and historian. He is author of When in Boston: A Time Line & Almanac and Homage to Henry: A Dramatization of John Berryman’s “The Dream Songs.” Mr. Vrabel is joined by community organizers Tom Corrigan and Ron Hafer and Ann Hershfang, a long-time South End activist, former assistant state secretary of transportation and Mass. Port Authority board member, and founder of WalkBoston.

Neighborhood Matters is a lunchtime series that celebrates the ways in which community groups have shaped the neighborhoods surrounding the Northeastern campus. This series is co-curated by the Northeastern Center for the Arts and the Archives and Special Collections at the Northeastern University Library.

Lunch will be served.

Partners: Northeastern Center for the Arts and Archives and Special Collections, Northeastern Libraries. Special thanks to the Northeastern Department of City and Community Affairs.