A collection of old photographs including Betsaida Gutierrez, a resident of Jamaica Plain, Boston. (NewBostonPost, Photo by Beth Treffeisen)
By learning the rudiments of penning a memoir, older Boston residents are creating a sort of eye-witness history of the city, its neighborhoods and nearby suburbs, through the Memoir Project.
The joint venture between City Hall and Grub Street Writers, a Boston company that teaches writing skills, aims to capture each participant’s unique story by helping them turn their memories into logical, meaningful narratives. The documents they create are being collected to help produce a collected work to further understanding of the city’s past and present for those who live in its neighborhoods.
To date, the project has published four volumes of books that capture these written memories and a blog that showcases some of those collected stories, along with black and white photographs of each writer. This video features four participants recounting their experiences living in Boston and how they got to the city in the first place.
A collection of old photographs including Betsaida Gutierrez, a resident of Jamaica Plain, Boston. (NewBostonPost, Photo by Beth Treffeisen) 
