BOSTON (WHDH) –
Courtesy Boston Athenaeum
It’s Sunday afternoon in Franklin Park, 1974. The soothing sounds of a man playing the saxophone fill the air. A group of young Black men sit in calm communion, while the photographer stays hidden, just behind the lens.
“He’s able to enter the world of a person on the street, or a child on a window, but enter it without imposing himself,” Boston Athenaeum curator Lauren Graves said.
But Graves says the photograph reveals something even more. Photographer Constantine Manos also provides a snapshot into Boston’s segregated shared spaces in the 1970s.
“I think he’s questioning access to shared city spaces and that’s prevalent in a lot of the public spaces that he’s photographing,” Graves said.
Frame by frame, Manos’ 1975 series “Where’s Boston?” captures a complicated city. The black and white photographs were first displayed as part of Boston’s bicentennial celebration, reflecting the city’s diversity, while also shedding light on its racial and economic tensions. Manos photographed the images in the midst of Boston’s bussing crisis, a period of intense racial conflict stemming from the court ordered desegregation of Boston’s schools.
“His commitment to photographing Boston in all its complications at that time is why the photographs continue to strike me every time I look at them,” Graves said.
The images will be part of a new exhibit at the Athenaeum in 2026. Curators are working to identify the people in the photographs, and record an oral history to understand more about how these images were captured, and dive deeper into Boston’s identity then and immediately.
Staff from the Athenaeum have been setting up shop at different Boston Public Library branches, asking people if they recognize anyone in the photos. Curators have also been working with local historical societies to track down Manos’ muses.
Courtesy Boston Athenaeum
Graves says the conversations she’s had paint a clearer picture of city life in the 1970s and how much has changed. She spoke to the Moran family, who Manos photographed before their daughter’s baptism in South Boston. Despite the joyful and intimate celebration, the family describes a violent and unsafe neighborhood, forcing them to leave a community they once called home.
Courtesy Boston Athenaeum
Another photograph in the series of distinct cultural spaces shows a father looking lovingly at his son at the Beth Pinchas Chassidic Center in Brookline. Graves interviewed the young boy pictured decades later, who is immediately a Rabbi and the director of Hillel at Tufts University.
“To connect with people who have such visceral memories that are evoked by the photographs, it’s heartening to see how much these images are able to connect with people,” Graves said.
Courtesy Boston Athenaeum
Recording the oral histories provided additional context to correspond with the powerful photographs. For example, Graves says Manos’ seemingly innocuous photo of a firefighter resting against a fire truck after battling a blaze on Symphony Road in Fenway is also rooted in activism.
“Upon further research, I realized there was a lot of arson for profit happening in the Fenway neighborhood and there was a lot of tenant organization to stop this from happening,” Graves said.
During the 1970s, landlords in Boston would often set their own properties on fire to collect insurance money. A group of residents on Symphony Road brought their own evidence to the State Attorney General, leading to an investigation and ultimately arrests.
“So when you really look at his images and dig into them, there’s many layers that also show Boston as a place of activism,” Graves said. “As a place where people and communities were coming together to support one another.”
As Boston celebrates 250 years, curators want to use this time to look back at the city’s history to shape its future.
“We feel like it’s a nice time to think back 50 years and reminisce,” Graves said. “It’s also a time to think about what has changed, what hasn’t changed over the last 50 years and what do we want for the city’s future.”
Athenaeum staff will be at The Salvation Army Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center in Dorchester on Thursday at 11:30 a.m. showing the photographs. The oral histories will be archived on the Boston Athenaeum’s website and the exhibit will open in June of 2026 for six months.
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