This article appeared in the March 4, 2004 Jewish Advocate.

Digitally mapping the past

By Susie Davidson

Advocate Correspondent

In a remarkable application of digitized technology, Brookline resident Peter Kastner not only restored a set of town maps dating from earlier this century, but has made them accessible to web surfers. His Community Heritage Maps, begun a little over a year ago to further a long interest in urban history, now includes ten additional towns, with 60 more cities and towns set to go online this year. A complete set of 24 maps of Brookline in 1919, based upon a Brookline atlas of that year, can be viewed and purchased at The Picture Place at 320A Harvard St.

Kastner, whose 30-year career in health care management included four years as the Assistant Director of the Jewish Home of New Haven, took advantage of the state’s early retirement program to pursue the project. “For our lives to having meaning it is important that we know how about the history of our homes and immediate neighborhood,” he says. He selected Brookline as one of the first communities because of its significant number of remarkable pre-1919 homes.

For many years, Kastner had been aware of old city atlas maps. “I felt I could satisfy people’s desire to connect with their communities by providing faithful replicas of these beautiful maps,” he said. The 1919 Brookline maps were produced at the high point of map art, which merged both industrial printing and handcraft painting. Many such transitional industrial/handcrafted art pieces gave way to offset printing following World War II, and have now moved into digital formatting. Kastner has carefully maintained the 80- to 100-year old unique character of the hand strokes of the original craftsman, and removed stray marks and stains. Originally meant for insurance and real estate purposes and mainly available at rare bookstores, de-acquisition sales at libraries, insurance or engineering firms, the maps include detailed land use and ownership information which can provide modern homeowners, architects, preservationists and city planners with complex community resources, difficult to assemble from ordinary sources. Ideal for gifts for real estate closings or special events, the digitized versions can be individually sized.

“Community Heritage Maps combines cutting-edge e-commerce technology with brick-and-mortar local frame shops, historical societies and local gathering spots,” says Kastner, who aims to provide local retail outlets with an online catalogue of prints showing neighborhood history, which will include individual building footprints, structural information, ownership, urban landscaping, historical names and ecological aspects. He is seeking additional viewing spots in community gathering places like coffee shops and local restaurants.

Kastner, who is married to Clare Kastner, a nurse at the Hebrew Rehabilitation Day Care Program, has two sons, Jonathan of New York and William of Xian, China. He graduated in 1968 from Boston University with a degree in history, where he also earned a master’s degree in business administration in 1972. While teaching in 1969, he developed a course outline on "History as Therapy.” “It integrated history with family biography and helped students explore their physical world,” he recalled. “My own perspective on life was shaped by my father’s memories as an immigrant from Hungry and my mother’s life in the Jewish Community in the West End and Roxbury and Dorchester,” he added. Kastner and his mother lived at her sister’s family in Grove Hall until his father returned from the war, and following a time in a basement apartment on Warren Street, they moved to Newton in 1948.

“Now, while restoring the maps of the West End, Roxbury and Dorchester, I am often reminded of streets that my mother and aunt would reminisce about, adding names of friends and long-lost local institutions including temples, function halls and stores,” said Kastner, who is active in open space conservation, was a past president of the Newton Conservators and a past president of the Friends of Nahanton Park. He is now an alternate member of Newton’s Park and Recreation Commission and the Mayor’s Advisory Comprehensive Planning Committee. Kastner’s work was on exhibit at the Hebrew Rehabilitation Center over the month of February.

For more info, call 617-943-8795, email cpkastner@rcn.com, or visit communityheritagemaps.com.