What it was like to live in Boston in the 1970s

When a triple-decker in Roxbury cost $28,000 and police escorts became routine for school buses, Boston in the 1970s was a city caught between home and upheaval. Judge Garrity's 1974 desegregation ruling turned neighborhoods into battlegrounds. Buses rolled from Roxbury to South Boston before dawn, rocks and eggs flew outside South Boston High, and more than 30,000 students fled to private schools in the first year alone.

Yet beyond the turmoil, life found its rhythm. The Celtics won championships in '74 and '76 with Havlicek and Cowens, while Bobby Orr's flying goal became legend. Route 128's tech boom at DEC, Raytheon, and Wang Labs offered engineers $15,000 salaries—escape velocity from the city's 7% unemployment. Faneuil Hall Marketplace transformed from boarded-up sheds to bustling cobblestones by '76. The T carried nurses and clerks through graffiti-covered cars, gas lines snaked around corners during the crisis, and college students flooded Allston each September for $200/month apartments.

Boston's old boundaries still echo in housing prices and school lines today. What are your memories of 1970s Boston? Share them in the comments below.

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