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Downloaded from
YTS.BZ

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(birds chirping)

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Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.BZ

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(boat motor)

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(distant city ambiance)

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(airplane taking off)

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(electronic music)

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A few years ago I started boxing by accident.

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I was exploring the edges of Boston,

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scouting locations for a fashion video.

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I was looking for places a little out of time,

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outside of the corporate landscape
enveloping our cities and towns...

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Where everything is a chain store

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and you could be anywhere everywhere.

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I found myself in East Boston,

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and the neighborhoods surrounding Logan Airport...

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A mix of small businesses,

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long-time residents, and new immigration.

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I was struck by the views out onto Boston Harbor:

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the sky, the ocean, the islands.

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In contrast was the relentless sound of airplanes...

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Up to 120 takeoffs and landings per hour.

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This juxtaposition somehow made
the natural beauty of the landscape

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all the more poignant.

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I wandered over to Winthrop, a town on a peninsula

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jutting out into Massachusetts Bay
on the northern edge of East Boston.

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(airplane engine roars)

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I realized that for years,
flying in and out of Boston,

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I had seen these neighborhoods from above.

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I had marveled at how we barely
skimmed over the houses and backyards.

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(airplane engine roars)

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You enter Winthrop by crossing a
bridge over the Belle Isle Reservation.

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It is the last salt marsh in Boston city limits.

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All the others were filled in and built on long ago.

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Old houses hug the water,

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there are dramatic views
of Logan across the harbor.

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Downtown Boston is off in
the distance — and the planes...

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Constantly, the planes…

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I learned that the poet Sylvia Plath
had spent her early childhood in Winthrop

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in the late 1930’s.

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She once wrote:

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“I lived on the bay side of town, on Johnson Avenue,

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opposite the Logan Airport,

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and before I went to bed each night,

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I used to kneel by the west window of my room

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and look over to the lights of Boston

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that blazed and blinked far
off across the darkening water.

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The sunset flaunted its
pink flag above the airport,

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and the sound of waves was lost in
the perpetual droning of the planes.

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I marveled at the moving beacons on the runway

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and watched, until it grew completely dark,

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the flashing red and green lights that rose
and set in the sky like shooting stars.

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The airport was my Mecca, my Jerusalem.

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All night I dreamed of flying.”

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(ambient music)

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Driving through Winthrop
a storefront caught my eye:

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“Bartolo’s Boxing Club.”

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From the street, I could see inside.

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The walls were covered in old,
framed photographs of boxers.

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I hesitated before going inside —
But the old photographs intrigued me.

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And so I went in.

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There I met Sal Bartolo Jr.

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He was gruff, but cordial.

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He became less cordial though,
when I asked if I might film

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a fashion video at his gym.

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No, no, no he said. No filming, no photo shoots.

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He had a bad experience once
before with a fashion shoot,

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where models in bikinis and high
heels went parading around his gym

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and ruined the floors in the boxing ring.

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No, this was a serious place, only for boxing.

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No, no, no. Never again.

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But I was still interested in
the photographs so I asked him:

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well, even if he wouldn’t let me
shoot a video in his boxing club,

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could I take a walk around the gym right now

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and get a closer look at those photos?

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That was fine, he said...

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And then he started showing me the photographs.

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A photograph of his father, Sal
Bartolo Sr., was centered over the ring.

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Well, my father was a fighter, he was a world champion,

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my uncles did some fighting and
I just kept on doing it, I liked it.

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Sal Sr. had been the National Boxing
Association Featherweight Champion

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from 1944 to 1946.

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Gillette presents Willy Pep and Sal
Bartolo in a 15-round featherweight match

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for the Championship of the World.

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He was known as “The Pride of East Boston.”

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To his left was a portrait of Phil Terranova...

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Whom Sal Sr. had beaten to win the title in 1944...

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And to his right was Willy Pep, who
had taken the title away from Sal Sr.

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In 1946.

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…And Bartolo’s down from two rights to the jaw.

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4, 5, Bartolo on his back, 6, 7, 8

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Pep won that fight in a twelfth-round knockout

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that landed Sal Sr. in the hospital with a broken jaw.

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There was a photograph of that, too.

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And now they’re... Ray Arcel
and Bobby Brown are carrying

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Bartolo back to his corner. He’s back on his feet.

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It was in dead mid-range, sensational knock out.

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Make your opponent do what you want him to do.

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No! Slap it down...

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I asked Sal about boxing training.

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What was it like,

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were there any women training at his gym?

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He said yes there were — his gym had women, men, kids...

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People of all ages and abilities.

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...his right hand is going to come
out, now step back. No, pay attention...

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Anyone could box, it was just
a matter of putting in the work:

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the cardio, the strength
training — things like push-ups.

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I said I had been trying to do a push-up for years

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and still couldn’t do a single one.

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Hit, hit, hit, hit. Bang!

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It’s so easy. Damn!

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He said of course you can,

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and before I knew it he had
ordered me down on the floor

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to show him my push-up.

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I was amused, so I obeyed.

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Then he started barking instructions at me

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like an Army Sergeant, which,
as I found out later, he was.

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Breathe through your nose, not your mouth.

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Even with Sal’s instructions,

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I still couldn’t manage a decent push-up,

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but Sal offered me a free boxing class

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and said if I worked at it,
eventually I would be able to do one.

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But it’s all mental. It’s a mental game.

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Relax your mind, there isn’t anything you can’t do.

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Hit, bang bang.

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Throw the uppercut. I love that shit...

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Right hand comes up, block, parry, hit, hit!

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It’s so easy. Go!

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I thought, no way — even if it is free,

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I can’t even bear to watch violence in films.

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I had my eyes covered for half of “Raging Bull”...

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There is no way I would ever do boxing.

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I thanked him and left.

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But I couldn’t stop thinking about the gym.

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Sal’s description of the
rigors of boxing training,

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and his stories about the
photographs had intrigued me.

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So I decided to take that free class...

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Even though I couldn’t imagine punching someone,

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and I certainly knew that I
did not want to be punched.

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And, in the back of my mind,

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I hoped that maybe if I attended one of his classes,

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Sal might trust me a little more,

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and change his mind about letting me use the gym

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as a location.

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I asked Laura, who was going to be the model

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in the video, to join me for the class.

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I thought it would be a good idea if Sal met her

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and saw she wasn’t going to prance around his gym

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in a bikini and heels.

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Sal showed us no mercy,

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and at the end of class, after a brutal two hours,

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Laura and I were dripping with sweat.

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We’d each lost three pounds.

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It’s an exhale every time the arms come out.

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I asked Sal again whether he
would let me film at the gym.

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Sad.

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Slide the balls out. I’m depressed. Get up,

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get some water, even though we didn’t earn it.

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You’re killing me here.

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This time, he said yes.

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(ambient music)

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(punching sounds)

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Sal was helpful during the video shoot,

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even appearing in it,

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and he seemed pleased with the result.

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But what surprised me is that by the time

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we finished making the video,
I was fascinated with boxing.

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See how the hand is down here,

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you stopped at the object, where’s the bag?

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He’s still standing there. You want to go through it.

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I kept returning to the gym to take Sal’s classes.

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First once a week, then twice a week,

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until I was going five nights a week.

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You can hear the difference.

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See how it is going all different ways,

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you’re not controlling it.

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Again, what are you seeing here?

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You got the right hand,
you’re in an orthodox position.

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Right hand is coming out,

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but what about the rest of your body?

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Cause I’m not... it’s square You’re square, exactly.

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Now, what have you got your legs doing?

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Absolutely nothing.

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(music)

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I would head down towards the gym

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an hour or two before class, and poke around

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the neighborhood with my camera.

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I liked exploring the edges,

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where the city met the ocean;

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where the domestic met the industrial.

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See you’re fighting like you’re afraid of it.

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Wait can you do that again?

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You’re here, hit...

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People would come out of their houses

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and ask me what I was doing.

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And then they would start talking to me…

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Hi, my name is Larry Venezia.

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I’ve been living in this house for sixty-five years.

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…telling me stories about the neighborhood...

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And, about the airport.

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So there was actually hangars we used to play in.

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We used to go in — and we used to drive our bikes...

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Like Sal, many of them had lived

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in East Boston or Winthrop their entire lives.

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...go underneath the plane wings. Drive around...

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The only thing that you could grab at
a hangar those days was salt tablets

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and so we’d grab a salt tablet from the dispenser...

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East Boston was originally a group of islands.

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Since the 1830’s, the water between them

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had gradually been filled in.

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Jeffrey Field, the predecessor of Logan Airport,

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opened in 1923 on the tidal flats.

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In the early years, the airport was a novelty...

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And a point of pride for the neighborhood.

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(music)

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During WWII, any inconveniences
from living next to an airport

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were set aside for patriotic reasons.

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But after the war, in the late 1940’s,

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tension between Logan and the
surrounding communities started to grow.

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Politicians and the business community

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saw Logan’s expansion as necessary
for Boston’s economic growth.

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But the only direction it could grow

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was into East Boston.

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(airplane engine roars)

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Noise from the airport had
been steadily increasing,

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but in 1959, with the introduction of jet engines,

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the noise levels suddenly became extreme.

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The new jets were more than twice as loud

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as the older, piston-engine planes.

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They also needed longer runways.

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So in the 1960s, Massport — the Logan Authority...

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Started exploring further expansion.

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In particular, they needed a
way to extend Runway 15/33.

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About those mysterious runway numbers:

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have you ever stared out the window of a plane,

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while stuck waiting for takeoff,

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and wondered what all those numbers mean?

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They seem so arbitrary, but of course they aren’t.

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Each runway has two numbers,

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indicating the runway’s
orientation on the compass.

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One is used when the plane
is traveling in one direction,

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and one is used when it is
traveling the opposite way.

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The numbers go from 10 degrees to 360...

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But, for efficiency, the final 0 of the
number on the compass is dropped:

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so runways are numbered 1 to 36.

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Runway 15/33 pointed straight towards

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an East Boston street called Neptune Road.

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If you think of the older industrial city...

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The city of railroads and ports and factories

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and low-rise workers housing, that city...

251
00:19:12,881 --> 00:19:15,466
The boxing gym was one of the institutions that

252
00:19:15,508 --> 00:19:17,301
formed the backbone of the neighborhood.

253
00:19:17,343 --> 00:19:19,887
So the union hall and the saloon and the church

254
00:19:19,929 --> 00:19:22,640
and the synagogue… and the boxing
gym was one of those institutions.

255
00:19:22,682 --> 00:19:25,143
Every neighborhood had at least one.

256
00:19:25,185 --> 00:19:28,730
It was woven into the fabric of everyday life.

257
00:19:32,066 --> 00:19:36,613
Carlo Rotella is a professor of English
and Urban Studies at Boston College.

258
00:19:38,156 --> 00:19:40,783
But he also has spent a lot of time at ringside

259
00:19:41,326 --> 00:19:43,912
and has written extensively on boxing.

260
00:19:44,954 --> 00:19:47,748
If you think about the boxing
gym in the post-industrial city,

261
00:19:47,790 --> 00:19:50,710
that is the city organized
around handling information.

262
00:19:50,752 --> 00:19:53,171
That’s the city of, you know,

263
00:19:53,213 --> 00:19:57,967
airport, high-rise buildings,
big suburban surround,

264
00:19:58,468 --> 00:20:00,845
expressways so people can drive in and out.

265
00:20:00,887 --> 00:20:04,307
That city, the boxing gym was
a kind of esoteric leftover...

266
00:20:04,807 --> 00:20:08,269
A way that the neighborhood was
that doesn’t really exist anymore.

267
00:20:08,311 --> 00:20:09,646
But the gym’s still left.

268
00:20:14,734 --> 00:20:17,403
I was reading Katherine Dunn’s writing on boxing

269
00:20:17,528 --> 00:20:19,697
and this passage resonated with me:

270
00:20:20,949 --> 00:20:23,492
“If home and streets are fraught with chaos,

271
00:20:23,534 --> 00:20:26,287
order still prevails in the gym.

272
00:20:26,663 --> 00:20:30,249
The violence is ritualized
and contained in the ring

273
00:20:30,291 --> 00:20:32,377
where there are rules and bells,

274
00:20:32,543 --> 00:20:36,464
protective helmets and a coach
in the corner watching carefully.”

275
00:20:37,465 --> 00:20:42,387
Her observation helped explain
my surprising comfort with boxing.

276
00:20:42,762 --> 00:20:45,723
In the boxing gym, there are rules to the violence.

277
00:20:46,266 --> 00:20:50,144
You choose to enter the fight,
it doesn’t just happen to you.

278
00:20:50,603 --> 00:20:54,274
I also came to appreciate that
boxing is not just about offense,

279
00:20:54,482 --> 00:20:58,486
about hitting — but just as
much, if not more, about defense.

280
00:21:00,154 --> 00:21:01,781
So there are different
kinds of defensive fighters.

281
00:21:01,823 --> 00:21:07,078
There are defensive fighters who
build a fortress out of their arms

282
00:21:07,120 --> 00:21:08,746
and it’s just hard to get through.

283
00:21:08,788 --> 00:21:10,831
But then there’s, to me, there’s an even higher art

284
00:21:10,873 --> 00:21:13,834
of someone like Bernard
Hopkins whose defensive genius

285
00:21:13,876 --> 00:21:18,756
lies more in arranging so it’s
never a good time to hit him.

286
00:21:19,882 --> 00:21:24,721
Or, as Sal often tells us, “Never
be a punching bag for nobody.”

287
00:21:25,555 --> 00:21:27,640
This is all inside fighting.

288
00:21:30,852 --> 00:21:34,522
You see I am using the ropes,
bouncing off the ropes every time he hits.

289
00:21:39,986 --> 00:21:43,614
Now look how fast his hands are
and he still can’t get any punches in.

290
00:21:47,035 --> 00:21:49,037
See what I mean, watch my hands.

291
00:21:50,663 --> 00:21:51,998
Nothing’s getting in.

292
00:21:54,167 --> 00:21:57,420
A large part of being in the
gym is listening to Sal’s stories.

293
00:21:59,422 --> 00:22:02,300
Sal makes no mystery of the fact
that he comes from a background

294
00:22:02,342 --> 00:22:04,844
populated by “wise guys.”

295
00:22:05,219 --> 00:22:08,056
All these guys I was getting ready for the Gloves.

296
00:22:09,515 --> 00:22:11,893
That’s Anthony

297
00:22:13,269 --> 00:22:14,520
and that’s Gary,

298
00:22:14,729 --> 00:22:17,065
both of them I got ready for the Marines.

299
00:22:17,982 --> 00:22:19,650
He’s in jail now.

300
00:22:23,488 --> 00:22:25,865
He’s in jail for attempted murder.

301
00:22:25,907 --> 00:22:27,408
He used to be a wise guy.

302
00:22:27,658 --> 00:22:29,744
And he went to make a collection,

303
00:22:30,203 --> 00:22:35,208
and the guy screwed with him so he shot him in the ass.

304
00:22:36,250 --> 00:22:38,085
Then he went to court

305
00:22:38,127 --> 00:22:41,505
and the judge gave him like 90 million years,

306
00:22:41,547 --> 00:22:44,258
so he picked up the chair and
threw the chair at the judge.

307
00:22:44,300 --> 00:22:46,386
And he gave him another zillion years.

308
00:22:49,305 --> 00:22:50,723
Two tough kids.

309
00:22:54,060 --> 00:22:55,853
I love these stories.

310
00:22:55,895 --> 00:22:58,064
I know the wise guys are no laughing matter,

311
00:22:58,564 --> 00:23:01,526
but they’re intertwined with
boxing and with East Boston.

312
00:23:03,027 --> 00:23:05,196
Sal will point to a photo of a boxer on the wall,

313
00:23:05,947 --> 00:23:07,865
say something about his technique...

314
00:23:07,907 --> 00:23:10,410
And, inevitably, which wise guy owned him,

315
00:23:10,827 --> 00:23:11,786
or his bleak end…

316
00:23:15,331 --> 00:23:19,419
Sal comes from a time when
being a bookie was just another job.

317
00:23:23,506 --> 00:23:27,427
In 1959 there was a widely reported FBI raid

318
00:23:27,677 --> 00:23:31,097
of The Ringside Café, the bar that Sal Sr. owned

319
00:23:31,139 --> 00:23:33,724
after he retired from boxing.

320
00:23:33,933 --> 00:23:36,018
Sal Jr. was just a child at the time,

321
00:23:36,060 --> 00:23:37,895
and doesn’t really remember it,

322
00:23:38,438 --> 00:23:40,648
but he does have all the newspaper clippings.

323
00:23:41,399 --> 00:23:43,150
I was a soda jerk,

324
00:23:43,192 --> 00:23:47,238
and Bartolo’s cafe was right next to the drugstore...

325
00:23:47,738 --> 00:23:49,740
As a teenager, Mary Ellen Welch

326
00:23:49,782 --> 00:23:52,785
worked in the drugstore next to the Ringside Café.

327
00:23:53,870 --> 00:23:57,915
…but they had, a big, let’s
call it a “booking industry” there.

328
00:23:57,957 --> 00:24:01,502
And they would come in the drugstore

329
00:24:01,544 --> 00:24:04,714
and they’d use our telephone
— we had a telephone booth...

330
00:24:05,173 --> 00:24:09,135
They would use our phones to place their bets

331
00:24:09,177 --> 00:24:12,555
because it couldn’t be traced on a public phone.

332
00:24:12,597 --> 00:24:15,558
Or at least they thought it wouldn’t.

333
00:24:15,641 --> 00:24:19,395
Along with boxing, Sal passes
on other wisdom such as:

334
00:24:19,437 --> 00:24:23,191
Hang your pants with the
betting money in them on the wall.

335
00:24:23,357 --> 00:24:25,484
That way, when you are raided,

336
00:24:25,526 --> 00:24:28,488
the money is not on you, and can’t be used as evidence.

337
00:24:29,113 --> 00:24:32,366
This is why bookies often
worked in their underwear.

338
00:24:39,334 --> 00:24:42,004
(clapping sounds)

339
00:24:42,960 --> 00:24:46,797
One wall of the gym is covered
with photographs from Sal Sr.’s life,

340
00:24:47,423 --> 00:24:50,634
including photos of Sal Sr. with John F. Kennedy,

341
00:24:50,676 --> 00:24:52,303
who was a family friend.

342
00:24:53,971 --> 00:24:56,807
Family lore is that Sal’s uncle in East Boston

343
00:24:57,183 --> 00:25:00,436
had been a bootlegger with JFK’s father Joseph.

344
00:25:00,478 --> 00:25:03,731
And that when JFK and Jackie
Kennedy would come to Boston,

345
00:25:04,357 --> 00:25:07,234
JFK would ask that Sal Sr. be his personal driver

346
00:25:07,276 --> 00:25:10,363
rather than his usual Secret Service chauffeur.

347
00:25:15,493 --> 00:25:18,913
On the opposite wall of
the gym is Sal Jr.’s life story.

348
00:25:19,372 --> 00:25:22,041
His amateur and professional boxing career.

349
00:25:22,583 --> 00:25:25,961
His medals and souvenirs
from his years in the US Army

350
00:25:26,003 --> 00:25:28,839
and with NATO peacekeeping troops in Bosnia...

351
00:25:28,881 --> 00:25:31,467
Where he opened a boxing gym for fellow soldiers,

352
00:25:32,093 --> 00:25:34,845
“Sal’s House of Pain.”

353
00:25:42,937 --> 00:25:46,023
This gym here, that was in Bosnia.

354
00:25:58,452 --> 00:26:01,372
So I’d play army in the daytime, do missions

355
00:26:01,414 --> 00:26:04,375
and then nighttime, I trained fighters.

356
00:26:12,925 --> 00:26:15,344
The last and longest wall in the gym

357
00:26:15,386 --> 00:26:19,307
is covered with snapshots of
Sal’s students over the years,

358
00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:23,311
each dated, with their first names
written in marker on their image.

359
00:26:23,603 --> 00:26:26,438
And if you look over there, it’s all past students,

360
00:26:26,480 --> 00:26:29,692
I got over 40 years worth of students on that wall.

361
00:26:31,193 --> 00:26:34,614
Since I’ve been at the gym
Sal’s students have included

362
00:26:35,239 --> 00:26:39,493
an army officer on leave,
an events planner at a hotel,

363
00:26:40,036 --> 00:26:42,246
an airline pilot, a welder,

364
00:26:42,288 --> 00:26:45,541
a tattoo artist, a grave digger,

365
00:26:46,083 --> 00:26:49,337
a Secret Service agent, a guy just out of prison,

366
00:26:50,171 --> 00:26:53,090
a 7-year old boy that had to stand on a box

367
00:26:53,132 --> 00:26:55,175
to reach up to the speed bag,

368
00:26:55,217 --> 00:26:57,928
and a middle-school girl
who had wanted to be a fighter

369
00:26:57,970 --> 00:26:59,597
ever since she was three.

370
00:27:03,851 --> 00:27:05,936
Widen your stance, come down to his height.

371
00:27:06,145 --> 00:27:08,314
Now put your stuff together — just body, no head.

372
00:27:10,900 --> 00:27:14,654
In the gym, everyone had to spar with everyone else.

373
00:27:15,488 --> 00:27:17,364
When there was a huge mismatch,

374
00:27:17,406 --> 00:27:20,200
Sal would insist that the stronger, bigger person

375
00:27:20,242 --> 00:27:24,330
had to adjust their fighting
style so no one would get hurt.

376
00:27:29,085 --> 00:27:31,170
Step over, step over!

377
00:27:32,004 --> 00:27:33,005
Nice, pretty!

378
00:27:33,047 --> 00:27:34,715
That meant I had to crouch

379
00:27:34,757 --> 00:27:37,885
way down to gently tap the 7-year-old,

380
00:27:38,469 --> 00:27:43,015
and so did the Secret Service
agent when he sparred with me.

381
00:27:45,226 --> 00:27:51,482
Throw that jab, go under it.
Step, crack, crack, overhand.

382
00:27:53,359 --> 00:27:55,819
Inside the gym, we formed a community...

383
00:27:55,861 --> 00:27:58,447
Like a team, or members of a band.

384
00:27:58,989 --> 00:28:01,826
Or sometimes, I thought, like members of a cult.

385
00:28:03,994 --> 00:28:07,206
Many of the institutions that have shaped my life...

386
00:28:07,248 --> 00:28:11,585
Libraries, schools, honky-tonks, blues clubs...

387
00:28:12,086 --> 00:28:14,338
Are all like that, where you come in and you say:

388
00:28:14,672 --> 00:28:16,715
this is a very specific and unique place,

389
00:28:16,757 --> 00:28:19,593
it’s like all the other places in its category

390
00:28:19,635 --> 00:28:21,011
that are distributed throughout the world

391
00:28:21,053 --> 00:28:23,639
but each one is sort of like
the mystical body of honky-tonks.

392
00:28:23,681 --> 00:28:25,307
And anywhere you’re in a honky-tonk, you’re like hey,

393
00:28:25,349 --> 00:28:27,142
it’s a honky-tonk, I know how this works. Right?

394
00:28:27,184 --> 00:28:29,186
And boxing gyms are really like that.

395
00:28:29,478 --> 00:28:30,854
And they have that real feel,

396
00:28:30,896 --> 00:28:32,731
and as soon as you’re in one you feel at home.

397
00:28:32,773 --> 00:28:35,067
If you feel at home in any boxing gym,

398
00:28:35,109 --> 00:28:37,570
you feel at home in them all to some extent.

399
00:28:38,358 --> 00:28:40,358
(bag punching)

400
00:28:45,536 --> 00:28:49,206
Sometimes, after class,
some of us would go for a drink

401
00:28:49,248 --> 00:28:53,669
at Kelley Square Pub, John
Mastrangelo’s bar in East Boston.

402
00:28:54,837 --> 00:29:00,092
John is a former boxer himself.
His career was in the 1960’s.

403
00:29:00,843 --> 00:29:03,554
There are photos of boxers and local celebrities

404
00:29:03,596 --> 00:29:05,181
covering the walls of his pub,

405
00:29:05,765 --> 00:29:09,769
and a large signed photo of Sal Sr. right over the bar.

406
00:29:13,397 --> 00:29:16,150
One night, Sal Jr. joined us at Kelley’s,

407
00:29:16,192 --> 00:29:18,736
and at the end of the evening we discovered he had

408
00:29:18,778 --> 00:29:21,030
secretly picked up the tab.

409
00:29:22,298 --> 00:29:26,099
(music)
(background chatter)

410
00:29:42,593 --> 00:29:44,386
Driving to the gym each night,

411
00:29:44,428 --> 00:29:47,181
I passed the Wood Island Park train station.

412
00:29:47,890 --> 00:29:49,725
But where was Wood Island Park?

413
00:29:50,768 --> 00:29:53,729
I didn’t see anything like a park anywhere around…

414
00:29:56,232 --> 00:30:01,153
just the T station, the highway
overpass and the edges of the airport.

415
00:30:09,078 --> 00:30:12,039
It turned out that the park was long gone.

416
00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:22,842
Wood Island Park opened in 1898…

417
00:30:23,050 --> 00:30:26,303
Wood Island Park was what I would consider

418
00:30:26,345 --> 00:30:29,306
a smaller version of Central Park.

419
00:30:29,557 --> 00:30:32,852
…an ocean-side park overlooking Boston Harbor

420
00:30:33,185 --> 00:30:35,813
and adjacent to the tidal flats that would become

421
00:30:35,855 --> 00:30:38,816
Jeffrey Field and later Logan Airport.

422
00:30:41,527 --> 00:30:45,197
It had, when I say rolling hills, I mean rolling hills,

423
00:30:45,823 --> 00:30:47,825
surrounded by beach.

424
00:30:48,742 --> 00:30:53,205
We used to sled, brave
people would actually try to ski

425
00:30:53,664 --> 00:30:56,917
with the old leather bindings and wooden skis.

426
00:30:58,419 --> 00:31:01,672
It was 70 acres, as large as the Boston Common

427
00:31:01,714 --> 00:31:04,049
and Public Garden downtown,

428
00:31:04,091 --> 00:31:07,887
and was designed by landscape
architect Frederick Law Olmsted,

429
00:31:08,679 --> 00:31:11,015
the same designer of Central Park in New York,

430
00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:13,976
and Boston’s “Emerald Necklace.”

431
00:31:14,268 --> 00:31:18,606
It had ball fields, all kinds:
baseball field, football field.

432
00:31:19,440 --> 00:31:22,276
Wood Island Park had paths for strolling…

433
00:31:22,526 --> 00:31:25,696
Every single day after school,
we would get together…

434
00:31:26,780 --> 00:31:31,201
…beaches, running tracks, a
tennis court, and picnic areas.

435
00:31:32,161 --> 00:31:35,331
...and you know, take a blanket
or whatever and get a space.

436
00:31:36,123 --> 00:31:40,210
So it was very well populated all the time.

437
00:31:51,847 --> 00:31:57,227
In 1963 Massport announced
plans to expand Runway 15/33

438
00:31:57,728 --> 00:32:00,647
by demolishing Wood Island Park.

439
00:32:00,689 --> 00:32:04,234
They went like after midnight
one night in the state legislature

440
00:32:04,276 --> 00:32:08,864
and under the guise of a bill
to address mental health issues,

441
00:32:09,156 --> 00:32:14,411
they snuck in the taking of Wood
Island Park with eminent domain.

442
00:32:15,537 --> 00:32:19,124
The neighborhood responded
with protests and lawsuits.

443
00:32:19,416 --> 00:32:23,295
Yet in April 1967, despite the public protest,

444
00:32:23,754 --> 00:32:26,632
Massport took Wood Island Park.

445
00:32:26,674 --> 00:32:30,636
And according to one historian,
“In one day Wood Island Park

446
00:32:30,678 --> 00:32:34,264
was graded to the level of the existing runway.”

447
00:32:36,976 --> 00:32:39,853
Olmsted also designed Neptune Road,

448
00:32:40,062 --> 00:32:43,649
a wide residential avenue lined with elm trees,

449
00:32:43,691 --> 00:32:46,652
as a grand entrance to Wood Island Park.

450
00:32:47,653 --> 00:32:51,198
After the park was leveled,
the houses on Neptune Road

451
00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:55,911
were less than 2000 feet from the new Runway 15/33.

452
00:32:57,287 --> 00:33:01,041
Residents were subject to
even more noise and vibration,

453
00:33:01,250 --> 00:33:04,837
as the planes took off and
landed directly over their houses.

454
00:33:07,965 --> 00:33:10,926
One day I was filming the
airport from Coleridge Street,

455
00:33:11,218 --> 00:33:13,178
a small dead-end street,

456
00:33:13,220 --> 00:33:16,932
where there is a row of houses
with backyards overlooking Logan.

457
00:33:19,685 --> 00:33:23,105
I was peering into one of these
backyards, holding my camera,

458
00:33:23,272 --> 00:33:25,983
when Donny, who lives in that house, came up

459
00:33:26,025 --> 00:33:27,818
and asked what I was doing.

460
00:33:28,235 --> 00:33:31,989
I told him about my interest in
Wood Island Park and Neptune Road.

461
00:33:32,698 --> 00:33:35,325
Donny told me that these five houses

462
00:33:35,367 --> 00:33:38,286
were originally located on Neptune Road.

463
00:33:38,328 --> 00:33:45,961
And it was moved back in ’78, 1979 to make room for...

464
00:33:46,003 --> 00:33:48,463
Larry Venezia, Donny’s next door neighbor,

465
00:33:48,505 --> 00:33:51,508
still lives in the same house he grew up in.

466
00:33:52,926 --> 00:33:56,847
And, the planes that came in a little too low

467
00:33:56,889 --> 00:33:59,892
used to knock our TV antenna down.

468
00:34:01,727 --> 00:34:04,813
You can actually still see a broken TV antenna

469
00:34:04,855 --> 00:34:06,523
up on this house.

470
00:34:06,732 --> 00:34:08,066
Really, from one of the planes?

471
00:34:08,108 --> 00:34:11,278
Yeah, it’s been there forever.

472
00:34:15,699 --> 00:34:18,827
I can remember my dad, especially on a Sunday,

473
00:34:18,869 --> 00:34:22,790
we’re having a spaghetti and
meatballs, big Sunday dinner

474
00:34:23,707 --> 00:34:25,667
and the planes would come.

475
00:34:25,709 --> 00:34:29,254
So every four minutes, a plane
would either takeoff or land

476
00:34:30,005 --> 00:34:31,673
depending on the wind.

477
00:34:32,091 --> 00:34:38,263
And he’d call up the airport tower and tell them

478
00:34:38,931 --> 00:34:41,516
that he’s going to go up on the roof

479
00:34:41,558 --> 00:34:43,810
and he’s gonna punch a time card

480
00:34:43,852 --> 00:34:47,981
and sweep the bottoms of the planes with a broom.

481
00:34:49,900 --> 00:34:52,361
That’s how low they were.

482
00:34:52,569 --> 00:34:55,531
And everybody would laugh, but it was serious.

483
00:34:56,532 --> 00:34:59,076
I swear, I’m half deaf because of the planes

484
00:34:59,118 --> 00:35:01,411
going over so close.

485
00:35:01,537 --> 00:35:03,539
I always slept on this side.

486
00:35:04,373 --> 00:35:06,542
And that’s my only good ear now.

487
00:35:09,231 --> 00:35:13,194
(gentle music)

488
00:35:16,762 --> 00:35:19,661
(airplane engine roars)

489
00:35:31,859 --> 00:35:36,697
In 1969, two years after
they leveled Wood Island Park,

490
00:35:37,364 --> 00:35:41,618
35 workmen with 35 chainsaws
appeared on Neptune Road

491
00:35:41,660 --> 00:35:45,372
and cut down 35 elm trees.

492
00:35:45,956 --> 00:35:49,668
They also seized 720 feet of the road,

493
00:35:49,710 --> 00:35:54,006
and four houses by eminent
domain, evicting eight families.

494
00:35:55,465 --> 00:35:59,344
Over the next few years, the
remaining residents tried to hold out

495
00:35:59,386 --> 00:36:01,555
and fight back against Massport.

496
00:36:03,140 --> 00:36:06,977
Massport gave us a couple of choices.

497
00:36:08,395 --> 00:36:09,896
Pay us market value

498
00:36:09,938 --> 00:36:12,566
and knock down the house. And then you’re on your own.

499
00:36:13,150 --> 00:36:16,111
Massport gave residents on Neptune Road a choice…

500
00:36:16,695 --> 00:36:18,697
Or, this option...

501
00:36:18,906 --> 00:36:22,409
…sell their homes to Massport,
or have their houses moved.

502
00:36:22,576 --> 00:36:25,745
And so they gave us — they
didn’t give us — they gave us a deal

503
00:36:25,787 --> 00:36:28,832
on this property, on the land,

504
00:36:28,874 --> 00:36:31,460
and we had the house moved.

505
00:37:03,967 --> 00:37:07,432
(ambient music)

506
00:37:54,501 --> 00:37:57,754
Looks like a funeral march.

507
00:38:04,011 --> 00:38:07,639
Of the original elm trees, a
few survivors can still be found

508
00:38:07,681 --> 00:38:11,434
at the outer edge of Logan,
on the remnant of Neptune Road

509
00:38:11,476 --> 00:38:14,980
which dead-ends into the
wall surrounding the airport.

510
00:38:16,565 --> 00:38:19,484
The people part of it was not even considered.

511
00:38:19,526 --> 00:38:22,029
They said, oh, these people we’ll give them

512
00:38:23,196 --> 00:38:26,408
money for their homes. But it was a minuscule amount,

513
00:38:26,450 --> 00:38:29,494
and they didn’t value all of the things

514
00:38:29,536 --> 00:38:32,998
that a truly diverse neighborhood can offer you...

515
00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:36,835
How close families were, how
you brought up each other’s kids.

516
00:38:36,877 --> 00:38:41,340
If somebody was working,
they watched the kids next door.

517
00:38:48,513 --> 00:38:52,600
One day I met Nelson, a little
boy who lives in one of these houses

518
00:38:52,642 --> 00:38:55,478
that had been moved from Neptune Road.

519
00:38:55,520 --> 00:38:59,399
He shyly watched me filming,
circling around me with his bike.

520
00:39:00,692 --> 00:39:03,236
I know a great idea for a movie, he said.

521
00:39:03,695 --> 00:39:05,405
What is it, I asked.

522
00:39:05,655 --> 00:39:08,116
“Me on my bike chasing you!”

523
00:39:09,409 --> 00:39:12,371
So we filmed this great movie.

524
00:39:49,533 --> 00:39:52,327
My thoughts after sparring for the first time:

525
00:39:52,661 --> 00:39:55,664
I need to stay calmer, not be frantic.

526
00:39:56,790 --> 00:39:59,751
Sparring, I had felt completely overwhelmed.

527
00:40:00,419 --> 00:40:03,171
Half-frozen and unable to move,

528
00:40:03,296 --> 00:40:07,008
and half wildly pawing at the air trying to box.

529
00:40:10,804 --> 00:40:14,015
That night, after class, I thought about all the time

530
00:40:14,057 --> 00:40:17,644
that I spent as a child unable to defend myself.

531
00:40:18,854 --> 00:40:23,358
My father, who I adored,
frequently would fly into rages...

532
00:40:23,692 --> 00:40:26,862
Screaming and repeatedly
hitting me and my brother.

533
00:40:27,487 --> 00:40:30,907
It always happened after he
and my mother had been fighting.

534
00:40:31,408 --> 00:40:35,412
He never hit her. But in the
aftermath of their arguments,

535
00:40:35,454 --> 00:40:37,664
he would come to the back of the house,

536
00:40:37,706 --> 00:40:40,375
where we were hiding, and hit us.

537
00:40:41,293 --> 00:40:44,546
Then he would abruptly stop, and go away.

538
00:40:45,464 --> 00:40:48,884
Later, we would all pretend nothing had happened.

539
00:40:50,635 --> 00:40:53,138
I also thought about my mother.

540
00:40:53,889 --> 00:40:57,642
Either I was the perfect daughter, or I was the enemy...

541
00:40:58,059 --> 00:41:00,645
It depended on her shifting reality.

542
00:41:02,522 --> 00:41:06,276
Often she wandered around the
house at night, unable to sleep.

543
00:41:07,027 --> 00:41:10,321
If I angered her, she would complain to my father,

544
00:41:10,363 --> 00:41:12,532
and that would set him off.

545
00:41:16,745 --> 00:41:20,248
I clung to my father’s affection
for those other times with him,

546
00:41:20,665 --> 00:41:22,750
the times when he was in a good mood

547
00:41:22,792 --> 00:41:26,171
and would let me sit in the
darkroom while he printed his pictures.

548
00:41:26,838 --> 00:41:30,258
If I upset her, that would be lost to me.

549
00:41:32,260 --> 00:41:34,596
It wasn’t until well into my adulthood

550
00:41:34,638 --> 00:41:38,141
that she was diagnosed with
borderline personality disorder.

551
00:41:38,850 --> 00:41:44,022
She was hospitalized during episodes
of psychotic depression later in life.

552
00:41:44,856 --> 00:41:47,775
I was afraid of the dark for so many years.

553
00:41:47,817 --> 00:41:50,070
Only after I learned to say to myself,

554
00:41:50,445 --> 00:41:53,364
“It is not the dark you are
afraid of, it’s your mother”

555
00:41:53,406 --> 00:41:56,910
could I walk down the hall at
night without turning on the light.

556
00:42:00,247 --> 00:42:04,209
As a child I had learned to be inert — to be stone cold,

557
00:42:04,626 --> 00:42:07,963
to be non-reactive, to be as if I were dead,

558
00:42:08,296 --> 00:42:10,965
to be as if I had no feelings,

559
00:42:11,007 --> 00:42:15,512
to be as if I did not notice the
craziness or the cruelty of it all.

560
00:42:16,972 --> 00:42:21,184
“I tried to disappear, the only
way I thought I could be with you”

561
00:42:21,226 --> 00:42:24,187
went a lyric I wrote years later.

562
00:42:26,439 --> 00:42:28,775
It was a survival technique.

563
00:42:29,359 --> 00:42:33,780
I hoped that if I didn’t respond,
didn’t exacerbate the situation,

564
00:42:34,364 --> 00:42:36,866
my father’s mood might pass more quickly...

565
00:42:37,367 --> 00:42:39,953
That he would finish hitting us sooner.

566
00:42:40,412 --> 00:42:43,373
I hoped that if I didn’t
react to her erratic behavior,

567
00:42:43,873 --> 00:42:46,793
that my mother would not become angry or hurt.

568
00:42:47,210 --> 00:42:50,004
The only thing that diffused
the situation with her

569
00:42:50,046 --> 00:42:52,048
was complete compliance.

570
00:42:55,343 --> 00:42:58,305
That night, after my first sparring session,

571
00:42:59,097 --> 00:43:03,351
I realized that I had been trained not to fight back.

572
00:43:09,065 --> 00:43:13,945
I think about the first time Sal
did pad work, a boxing drill, with me.

573
00:43:13,987 --> 00:43:18,033
It was early on, maybe the second class I took.

574
00:43:18,617 --> 00:43:20,535
He was holding out the pads,

575
00:43:20,577 --> 00:43:23,663
telling me to punch them with my gloved hands.

576
00:43:23,872 --> 00:43:25,290
I couldn’t.

577
00:43:25,332 --> 00:43:29,210
I could only give his outstretched
hands a half-hearted tap.

578
00:43:29,794 --> 00:43:32,171
Come on, he said, punch it like you mean it,

579
00:43:32,213 --> 00:43:34,382
like you are really angry.

580
00:43:34,549 --> 00:43:39,012
I could only giggle and laugh
nervously and barely punch the pads.

581
00:43:39,512 --> 00:43:42,307
I wanted so desperately to punch them hard,

582
00:43:42,349 --> 00:43:44,851
but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

583
00:43:46,227 --> 00:43:50,565
I felt like I was outside my own
body, looking down from the ceiling.

584
00:43:51,107 --> 00:43:55,862
I watched myself unable to control
my uncomfortable stupid giggling,

585
00:43:56,112 --> 00:43:58,198
unable to punch his hands.

586
00:43:58,573 --> 00:44:00,992
As I watched myself I was thinking,

587
00:44:01,242 --> 00:44:03,786
“If I can’t even pretend to conjure up anger

588
00:44:03,828 --> 00:44:05,872
without embarrassment or shame,

589
00:44:05,914 --> 00:44:08,750
if I can’t hit back even when I want to,

590
00:44:09,125 --> 00:44:11,419
even when I am being told to do so,

591
00:44:11,461 --> 00:44:14,381
I really need to learn this…”

592
00:44:14,890 --> 00:44:16,890
(ambient music)

593
00:44:20,136 --> 00:44:22,597
Boxing training is repetitive,

594
00:44:22,639 --> 00:44:25,558
muscle memory as well as conditioning.

595
00:44:26,101 --> 00:44:28,395
What else is held in muscle memory?

596
00:44:29,062 --> 00:44:32,690
The flinch as the hand comes
towards you when, as a child,

597
00:44:32,732 --> 00:44:35,652
you cower in the furthermost corner of the closet,

598
00:44:35,694 --> 00:44:37,779
or in the back seat of the car?

599
00:44:37,946 --> 00:44:41,700
Can you learn not to flinch
as a hand comes towards you?

600
00:44:43,493 --> 00:44:45,495
Catch and counter says Sal,

601
00:44:45,662 --> 00:44:48,623
you catch the hand coming
out, stop it from hitting you,

602
00:44:49,332 --> 00:44:51,626
and then, with split-second timing,

603
00:44:51,668 --> 00:44:55,255
almost at the very same moment as
you block that hand coming towards you,

604
00:44:55,755 --> 00:44:57,966
you hit back.

605
00:45:13,314 --> 00:45:16,859
I was introduced to Mary
Ellen Welch by Regina Marchi,

606
00:45:16,901 --> 00:45:19,821
a fourth-generation East Bostonian

607
00:45:19,863 --> 00:45:22,699
and author of a book about East Boston history.

608
00:45:23,533 --> 00:45:26,285
Regina told me that if I
wanted to speak with someone

609
00:45:26,327 --> 00:45:28,371
who had been a defender of East Boston,

610
00:45:28,788 --> 00:45:30,623
I should meet her godmother.

611
00:45:31,124 --> 00:45:33,960
She’s the most dynamic, strong...

612
00:45:34,002 --> 00:45:36,212
She was a feminist before people were feminist,

613
00:45:36,254 --> 00:45:38,172
before my own mother was on board with that.

614
00:45:38,214 --> 00:45:40,174
But long story short, I said to her yesterday,

615
00:45:40,216 --> 00:45:42,009
told her about you and said,

616
00:45:42,051 --> 00:45:44,971
would you ever feel up to doing an interview?

617
00:45:47,640 --> 00:45:50,602
When I met Mary Ellen, she was in the hospital...

618
00:45:50,935 --> 00:45:53,772
Frail, but her passion undiminished.

619
00:45:55,440 --> 00:45:58,526
I’ve been involved in East Boston

620
00:45:58,568 --> 00:46:06,117
politics and community action since about 1965.

621
00:46:10,163 --> 00:46:14,542
Mary Ellen Welch was a school
teacher and lifelong activist.

622
00:46:15,043 --> 00:46:18,171
In her second-grade classroom,
she wrote the number to call

623
00:46:18,213 --> 00:46:22,133
with airport noise complaints
on one corner of the blackboard.

624
00:46:23,218 --> 00:46:26,179
One of her students wrote to the head of Massport:

625
00:46:26,763 --> 00:46:30,141
Dear Mr Davis, The planes hurt my ears.

626
00:46:30,183 --> 00:46:32,643
When I do my work I get disturbed.

627
00:46:32,685 --> 00:46:34,687
Miss Welch is getting mad.

628
00:46:34,729 --> 00:46:37,774
Can you make the planes quieter? I hope so.

629
00:46:37,816 --> 00:46:41,903
Thank you. Please make the planes stop. The end.

630
00:46:45,573 --> 00:46:48,868
In 1968, Mary Ellen Welch was part of

631
00:46:48,910 --> 00:46:51,079
the “Maverick Street Mothers” protest.

632
00:46:51,746 --> 00:46:54,666
Dump trucks carrying
landfill for Logan expansion...

633
00:46:55,083 --> 00:46:57,418
Up to 600 trucks per day...

634
00:46:57,794 --> 00:46:59,879
Had been speeding down Maverick Street,

635
00:47:00,004 --> 00:47:01,214
a residential street

636
00:47:01,256 --> 00:47:04,425
on the other side of the airport from Neptune Road.

637
00:47:04,676 --> 00:47:07,595
The airport at the time was leveling

638
00:47:07,637 --> 00:47:09,639
what was then called Bird Island Flats,

639
00:47:09,681 --> 00:47:12,642
it had a hill and they were leveling the dirt

640
00:47:12,684 --> 00:47:15,353
and taking the dirt away in
these great big dump trucks.

641
00:47:15,520 --> 00:47:17,730
And they were using Maverick Street as their way

642
00:47:17,772 --> 00:47:20,691
to get back and forth, to take the dirt away.

643
00:47:20,733 --> 00:47:22,902
And those trucks were massive.

644
00:47:23,611 --> 00:47:28,032
The protest was organized around
the kitchen table of Anna DeFronzo.

645
00:47:28,491 --> 00:47:31,035
Anna DeFronzo was very much

646
00:47:31,077 --> 00:47:32,995
a respected matriarch in the community.

647
00:47:33,037 --> 00:47:34,956
She was a woman of the neighborhood

648
00:47:34,998 --> 00:47:37,208
that everyone looked up to. And so her kitchen,

649
00:47:37,250 --> 00:47:42,213
it was a natural place for
organizing around this issue.

650
00:47:42,589 --> 00:47:45,132
She was joined there by Mary Ellen Welch

651
00:47:45,174 --> 00:47:47,093
and other neighborhood women.

652
00:47:47,385 --> 00:47:53,724
People saw what was going on in
the South on civil rights issues...

653
00:47:53,766 --> 00:47:57,395
They saw people, young and old, going into the street...

654
00:47:57,437 --> 00:48:00,440
And subconsciously, in my opinion,

655
00:48:01,524 --> 00:48:04,694
people formed ideas that said,

656
00:48:05,028 --> 00:48:08,531
Hey, if that’s a way to fight, we’re getting nowhere

657
00:48:08,781 --> 00:48:11,743
writing letters and going to one meeting a year.

658
00:48:12,201 --> 00:48:15,455
Maybe we should take matters into our own hands.

659
00:48:17,290 --> 00:48:20,835
They decided it should be a
women-only demonstration.

660
00:48:20,877 --> 00:48:25,464
We didn’t want the men to, you know, be macho

661
00:48:25,506 --> 00:48:29,093
and go against the truck
drivers or the police or whatever.

662
00:48:29,427 --> 00:48:33,056
So, mothers — with baby carriages, if you had kids...

663
00:48:34,849 --> 00:48:36,851
We went into the street.

664
00:48:39,771 --> 00:48:41,981
The Maverick Street Mothers
showed up on the morning

665
00:48:42,023 --> 00:48:46,027
of September 28, 1968 and blocked the street.

666
00:48:49,864 --> 00:48:53,326
And so, when the first truck came,

667
00:48:53,993 --> 00:48:56,829
they threatened, they were
screaming and hollering at us.

668
00:48:57,413 --> 00:48:59,332
Get out of the way, we’ll run you over.

669
00:48:59,374 --> 00:49:03,002
They were tooting the horns, it was scary.

670
00:49:03,962 --> 00:49:07,340
But the women didn’t move. We just stayed there.

671
00:49:07,382 --> 00:49:11,135
And so they called the cops.

672
00:49:11,511 --> 00:49:15,473
When they came, they got very rough with the women.

673
00:49:15,515 --> 00:49:18,476
And they would like take her
by the shoulders and shove you

674
00:49:18,935 --> 00:49:23,856
from the street into like the steps
of somebody’s house or the fence.

675
00:49:24,148 --> 00:49:26,525
Very rough, because the women wouldn’t leave.

676
00:49:26,567 --> 00:49:29,529
And so when they saw — the TV films

677
00:49:29,862 --> 00:49:32,532
went right on the evening news at suppertime...

678
00:49:32,657 --> 00:49:36,619
So a lot of people saw it, and got all up in arms.

679
00:49:36,661 --> 00:49:39,580
As a matter of fact they use this alternate route

680
00:49:39,622 --> 00:49:41,624
in the wee hours of the morning,

681
00:49:42,000 --> 00:49:44,502
so if they can do it then they
certainly can do it during the daytime.

682
00:49:44,877 --> 00:49:47,588
And the politicians and the business people,

683
00:49:47,630 --> 00:49:49,423
they said we can’t have that going on...

684
00:49:49,465 --> 00:49:52,885
Women and children getting on the street?

685
00:49:53,219 --> 00:49:55,638
And they went crazy when they heard it.

686
00:49:59,851 --> 00:50:02,687
The protests continued over the next few days,

687
00:50:03,021 --> 00:50:06,232
prompting Mayor Kevin White
to come down to East Boston

688
00:50:06,274 --> 00:50:08,401
and speak directly with the protestors.

689
00:50:08,443 --> 00:50:11,112
...with Freddy Langone, with John Saltonstall

690
00:50:12,280 --> 00:50:13,740
to try and provide

691
00:50:16,284 --> 00:50:17,785
for the people of this area

692
00:50:19,120 --> 00:50:24,083
free access on this street without
worry of getting hit by trucks.

693
00:50:24,125 --> 00:50:26,502
We’ve waited five years for this...

694
00:50:26,544 --> 00:50:28,171
It’s all these promises…

695
00:50:31,507 --> 00:50:34,010
The trucks won’t roll tomorrow!

696
00:50:34,365 --> 00:50:36,365
(loud cheering)

697
00:50:40,767 --> 00:50:42,226
And by the end of the week,

698
00:50:42,268 --> 00:50:45,688
Massport had found an
alternate route for the trucks.

699
00:50:46,522 --> 00:50:51,110
When that happened, and the trucks went home,

700
00:50:51,569 --> 00:50:54,530
we counted that as a significant victory.

701
00:50:59,869 --> 00:51:01,829
When I first screened this footage,

702
00:51:01,871 --> 00:51:04,498
I caught a glimpse of a familiar face

703
00:51:04,540 --> 00:51:06,709
at the right edge of the frame.

704
00:51:07,085 --> 00:51:10,046
I realized it was Mary Ellen Welch.

705
00:51:15,301 --> 00:51:18,054
There she was in 1968

706
00:51:19,180 --> 00:51:21,265
watching with satisfaction,

707
00:51:21,557 --> 00:51:24,519
as the trucks backed down Maverick Street.

708
00:51:25,061 --> 00:51:29,899
And so it spread from that small group of mothers

709
00:51:30,108 --> 00:51:31,943
on Maverick Street,

710
00:51:32,568 --> 00:51:37,573
from that emanated a lot of community action

711
00:51:38,074 --> 00:51:41,119
to right the wrongs that were going on.

712
00:51:47,375 --> 00:51:51,796
In the subsequent decades, Mary
Ellen Welch and other activists

713
00:51:51,838 --> 00:51:54,674
have lobbied tirelessly to bring more green space

714
00:51:54,882 --> 00:51:56,467
back to the community.

715
00:51:57,802 --> 00:52:00,805
They worked to establish the East Boston Greenway,

716
00:52:01,097 --> 00:52:05,351
a linear park along the path
of abandoned railroad tracks.

717
00:52:06,102 --> 00:52:08,729
And they were able to turn
East Boston from a neighborhood

718
00:52:08,771 --> 00:52:12,108
that had the second lowest level of green space

719
00:52:12,150 --> 00:52:14,527
in the city in the 1970s...

720
00:52:15,153 --> 00:52:18,322
Aside from Chinatown, East Boston
was the neighborhood of Boston

721
00:52:18,364 --> 00:52:20,491
with the least amount of green space...

722
00:52:20,533 --> 00:52:22,827
And today it is one of the neighborhoods

723
00:52:22,869 --> 00:52:24,871
with the most amount of green space.

724
00:52:27,456 --> 00:52:29,500
One of those green spaces,

725
00:52:29,542 --> 00:52:32,461
named “Neptune Road Edge Buffer Park,”

726
00:52:32,503 --> 00:52:34,964
is a sliver wedged between the highway,

727
00:52:35,006 --> 00:52:38,092
the Wood Island T station, and the airport.

728
00:52:40,553 --> 00:52:43,931
In homage to the Neptune
Road homes that were destroyed,

729
00:52:43,973 --> 00:52:45,933
there is a ghostly footprint in stone,

730
00:52:45,975 --> 00:52:49,478
outlining the floorplan of one of the houses.

731
00:53:03,159 --> 00:53:06,078
For many years, having an airport in their backyard

732
00:53:06,120 --> 00:53:08,706
kept housing prices down in East Boston

733
00:53:08,748 --> 00:53:10,583
and the neighboring towns.

734
00:53:18,007 --> 00:53:20,259
Recently this has begun to change,

735
00:53:20,301 --> 00:53:23,179
and now these communities face a new challenge

736
00:53:23,596 --> 00:53:27,433
of how to remain affordable
amidst a real estate boom.

737
00:53:33,648 --> 00:53:35,482
And that’s what residents here...

738
00:53:35,524 --> 00:53:38,944
Who had their grandparents
living here, their parents,

739
00:53:38,986 --> 00:53:41,363
they lived here, they want their kids to live here...

740
00:53:41,405 --> 00:53:44,200
These types of long-term community residents

741
00:53:44,242 --> 00:53:47,536
made all the difference in
getting East Boston to become

742
00:53:47,578 --> 00:53:50,581
this desirable place that now
so many people want to move to.

743
00:53:50,998 --> 00:53:55,628
And there are still a lot of
long-term activists still here

744
00:53:55,670 --> 00:53:58,631
who are hoping that some
of the newcomer populations

745
00:53:59,548 --> 00:54:02,510
will want to join some of these organizations.

746
00:54:02,677 --> 00:54:06,222
They need some new blood to keep the fight going.

747
00:54:07,150 --> 00:54:10,344
(gentle music)

748
00:54:14,563 --> 00:54:16,148
But I guess…

749
00:54:17,191 --> 00:54:20,152
I just have one more question
for today, which is just…

750
00:54:22,363 --> 00:54:24,990
the thing that struck me when I...

751
00:54:25,032 --> 00:54:27,994
Cause I didn’t intend to start boxing...

752
00:54:28,327 --> 00:54:30,704
I went there to use it as a video location.

753
00:54:30,746 --> 00:54:32,122
Right. You said that.

754
00:54:32,164 --> 00:54:35,001
And then I was really struck by this

755
00:54:35,334 --> 00:54:39,380
idea of having to defend myself.

756
00:54:39,714 --> 00:54:42,675
Having to hit back and how hard it was to do.

757
00:54:42,800 --> 00:54:43,801
Right.

758
00:54:44,176 --> 00:54:46,220
I was like, no...

759
00:54:46,721 --> 00:54:49,473
Well, because you were brought up not to do that.

760
00:54:50,182 --> 00:54:52,559
But that action, it felt to me at that moment

761
00:54:52,601 --> 00:54:54,979
like that’s really an important
thing to be able to do.

762
00:54:55,021 --> 00:54:57,857
Yeah. You were hesitant to strike back.

763
00:54:58,441 --> 00:55:01,819
As some people in the neighborhoods

764
00:55:01,861 --> 00:55:05,114
might be afraid to go on the
street, or confront the police,

765
00:55:05,156 --> 00:55:10,536
or speak up on a so-called “controversial” idea.

766
00:55:11,120 --> 00:55:14,081
They might be derided by their neighbors, or

767
00:55:14,123 --> 00:55:16,125
their family, or you know whatever.

768
00:55:16,167 --> 00:55:18,711
That’s all part of life.

769
00:55:20,004 --> 00:55:24,800
And that’s why some people hesitate to speak out

770
00:55:24,842 --> 00:55:28,846
or participate openly in something.

771
00:55:28,888 --> 00:55:31,349
But it gets easier.

772
00:55:56,290 --> 00:55:59,710
One night another gym came to our gym to spar with us.

773
00:56:01,212 --> 00:56:03,381
It was a massacre.

774
00:56:06,384 --> 00:56:09,553
Our guys didn’t crumble or
collapse, they fought back,

775
00:56:10,638 --> 00:56:13,182
but they were overwhelmed
with the brawling techniques

776
00:56:13,224 --> 00:56:15,934
of the other gym and they didn’t manage

777
00:56:15,976 --> 00:56:19,146
to muster up all they knew
about defending themselves,

778
00:56:19,188 --> 00:56:21,190
about parrying the punches,

779
00:56:21,232 --> 00:56:23,359
stepping around, moving their heads.

780
00:56:24,735 --> 00:56:25,861
Since there were no women

781
00:56:25,903 --> 00:56:29,573
from the other gym to spar with, I was spared.

782
00:56:32,284 --> 00:56:35,413
Sal was dispirited in the days that followed.

783
00:56:36,414 --> 00:56:39,792
Alternately blaming himself
for not teaching us well enough,

784
00:56:40,543 --> 00:56:43,712
and blaming the guys for not
listening to his instructions.

785
00:56:52,304 --> 00:56:55,182
Sal is teaching us to defend ourselves...

786
00:56:55,224 --> 00:56:57,893
But that doesn’t mean it always works.

787
00:57:01,063 --> 00:57:03,982
We’re boxers, they’re brawlers...

788
00:57:04,024 --> 00:57:06,276
It’s a total different animal altogether.

789
00:57:06,318 --> 00:57:07,903
Don’t get them confused.

790
00:57:09,447 --> 00:57:12,366
A brawler, all you’re doing is
standing and throwing punches.

791
00:57:12,408 --> 00:57:16,245
Still, we should have beaten
every one of those fighters.

792
00:57:17,455 --> 00:57:20,207
It is easier to get

793
00:57:20,833 --> 00:57:24,211
to a level of minimum effectiveness as a brawler,

794
00:57:24,253 --> 00:57:27,339
and so a brawler with rudimentary skills

795
00:57:27,381 --> 00:57:30,676
will almost certainly overwhelm
a boxer with rudimentary skills.

796
00:57:30,718 --> 00:57:31,760
Right?

797
00:57:31,802 --> 00:57:33,971
Even if they’re at the same stage of development,

798
00:57:34,013 --> 00:57:36,140
because the boxer is going to have to take longer

799
00:57:36,182 --> 00:57:38,434
to develop into what they’re going to become.

800
00:57:39,351 --> 00:57:41,353
Don’t be a punching bag for anybody.

801
00:57:42,104 --> 00:57:43,689
Why should you be a punching bag?

802
00:57:43,731 --> 00:57:45,566
What are you getting out of being a punching bag?

803
00:57:46,192 --> 00:57:48,444
Here — go back to this fight.

804
00:57:50,321 --> 00:57:51,780
It’s so hard in the moment, though.

805
00:57:51,822 --> 00:57:52,990
It doesn’t make any difference.

806
00:57:53,032 --> 00:57:55,326
You’ve got to get your head out
of your ass when you’re fighting.

807
00:57:56,160 --> 00:57:57,828
Either fight or go home.

808
00:57:58,621 --> 00:57:59,872
What do you see?

809
00:58:00,414 --> 00:58:03,500
Brawling... Left right, left right, left right,

810
00:58:03,542 --> 00:58:05,377
not one is coming from the shoulder.

811
00:58:06,170 --> 00:58:08,255
I’ve been boxing for two years now.

812
00:58:08,881 --> 00:58:12,510
It all started with me feeling
I had to learn to punch back.

813
00:58:13,052 --> 00:58:16,763
But though Sal tells me many of
the same things time and again,

814
00:58:16,805 --> 00:58:20,559
they’re still not instinctive
– not in my muscle memory.

815
00:58:23,854 --> 00:58:26,023
But they are more than they were –

816
00:58:26,065 --> 00:58:29,944
more than when I didn’t even
know I needed to do these things.

817
00:58:31,820 --> 00:58:34,031
I know now to keep my hands up...

818
00:58:34,073 --> 00:58:37,243
But sometimes they aren’t
even when I think that they are –

819
00:58:37,409 --> 00:58:40,078
and I am surprised when Sal reminds me by tapping me

820
00:58:40,120 --> 00:58:42,414
on the side of the head with his mitted hand.

821
00:58:43,040 --> 00:58:43,999
There you go.

822
00:58:46,210 --> 00:58:48,337
Now that’s all you got to do.

823
00:58:48,379 --> 00:58:50,047
Take it down you pick up the point, he lost.

824
00:58:50,881 --> 00:58:52,549
Take your time.

825
00:58:52,591 --> 00:58:54,843
Think before you execute,

826
00:58:55,052 --> 00:58:59,098
one step, one punch, combinations, one round.

827
00:59:01,725 --> 00:59:04,687
Most boxing films end the same way:

828
00:59:06,564 --> 00:59:10,818
against all odds, the underdog wins the big fight.

829
00:59:12,444 --> 00:59:15,781
A neighbor, who is a boxing fan, advised me

830
00:59:16,240 --> 00:59:18,700
“You need to enter a boxing competition...

831
00:59:18,742 --> 00:59:21,787
And when you walk up those three steps to the ring

832
00:59:21,829 --> 00:59:24,582
you will understand why you took up boxing.”

833
00:59:26,370 --> 00:59:28,370
(airplane engine roars)

834
00:59:37,886 --> 00:59:42,474
Cus D’Amato was a famous trainer
known for his words of boxing wisdom.

835
00:59:42,850 --> 00:59:45,811
I like this quote of his about boxing and fear:

836
00:59:47,229 --> 00:59:50,065
“The hero and the coward both feel the same thing,

837
00:59:50,441 --> 00:59:54,862
but the hero uses his fear,
projects it onto his opponent,

838
00:59:55,112 --> 00:59:56,947
while the coward runs.

839
00:59:57,156 --> 01:00:01,243
It’s the same thing, fear, but it’s
what you do with it that matters.”

840
01:00:04,955 --> 01:00:08,083
I’ll tell you right now, that this film doesn’t end

841
01:00:08,292 --> 01:00:10,419
with me winning the big fight.

842
01:00:11,629 --> 01:00:14,131
If you think about the
contrast between hurting people

843
01:00:14,173 --> 01:00:16,091
and all the tenderness that you find in the gym,

844
01:00:16,508 --> 01:00:17,843
it doesn’t strike me as weird.

845
01:00:18,052 --> 01:00:20,971
You raise your kids with great tenderness and love,

846
01:00:21,013 --> 01:00:23,432
but you also think it’s a
big, terrible world out there

847
01:00:23,474 --> 01:00:27,102
and you want them ready to do what they gotta do.

848
01:00:28,771 --> 01:00:32,775
And of course it doesn’t end
with the airport disappearing.

849
01:00:33,692 --> 01:00:37,988
Because even if you can’t win
all the fights in the present,

850
01:00:38,405 --> 01:00:42,785
and even if you can’t go back
and win the fights of the past,

851
01:00:43,327 --> 01:00:47,331
you can find a way to use your fear.

852
01:00:48,332 --> 01:00:52,002
In my opinion, all of those ways of protest,

853
01:00:52,544 --> 01:00:56,548
they were used as vehicles
to give people more integrity,

854
01:00:56,590 --> 01:01:00,052
and more power to control their own destiny.

855
01:01:01,354 --> 01:01:03,354
(gentle music)

856
01:01:19,697 --> 01:01:23,075
Very soon after I first started
going to the gym regularly,

857
01:01:23,659 --> 01:01:25,911
I asked Sal if I could photograph him

858
01:01:25,953 --> 01:01:29,039
in the style of the large
portraits of boxers on the wall.

859
01:01:30,040 --> 01:01:31,667
He was up for it.

860
01:01:37,423 --> 01:01:42,094
My friend Allie, a cinematographer,
wanted to come with me that day...

861
01:01:42,302 --> 01:01:45,180
She wanted to document me taking this photograph.

862
01:01:47,975 --> 01:01:52,855
Look in the lens... the way
you would look at the opponent.

863
01:02:03,282 --> 01:02:05,492
I need you to step half a foot that way.

864
01:02:09,163 --> 01:02:11,039
Make sure that when you do the uppercut

865
01:02:11,081 --> 01:02:13,250
you are still looking at the lens with both eyes.

866
01:02:18,338 --> 01:02:19,423
Yeah, good.

867
01:02:20,549 --> 01:02:21,550
How about a right uppercut?

868
01:02:23,635 --> 01:02:26,138
But I need you to step back
a little so you’re in the light.

869
01:02:29,141 --> 01:02:30,017
Great.

870
01:02:32,436 --> 01:02:34,980
Ok, great I think we’ve got it.
We’ve got lots of great ones.

871
01:02:35,022 --> 01:02:36,106
Sweet.

872
01:02:42,571 --> 01:02:43,739
Scary?

873
01:02:49,328 --> 01:02:55,501
It now hangs on the wall of the gym
with the photographs of the other fighters.

874
01:02:59,087 --> 01:03:01,006
All right, that’s it, time’s up.

875
01:03:03,034 --> 01:03:07,743
(soft ambient music)