The Chinatown Blogger was near City Hall and inside the State Street orange line T-stop and noticed this commemorative board. I guess gentrification was a “hot topic” back then.

The text of the board read:

“Above this State
The Old South Meeting House, 1729

One hundred years after the Boston Tea Party, downtown Boston had changed dramatically. When news spread that Old South was slated for destruction to make way for urban redevelopment, Wendell Phillips, Julia Ward Howe, Ralph Waldo Emerson and countless others joined a community effort to save the structure. Their success in 1877 marked the advent of the American urban historic preservation movement.

The Old South Meeting House, a link on the Freedom Trail, was saved for you. Come explore its sights and sounds on your journey into America’s past.
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Engraving of the mass meeting held to save the Old South Meeting House, 1876.“