10/22/2026
Did you snag a spot on next week’s dig? We’re heading back into the field to investigate the location of the c.1851 Dwight Primary School privy! Check out the site’s 20th-century history. It's a long one, so grab a cup of tea and read on! 🫖
In 1912, Dwight Primary was renamed the Frances E. Willard School & a new curriculum adopted to exclusively accommodate children with special needs. It retained this function until 1945, when the City decommissioned it as a school & sold the property to Boston Disabled Veterans, Inc., a group formed to serve military vets returning from World War II.
In 1948, Boston Disabled Veterans sold the building to Kalil “Charlie” Shibley. Charlie & his brother Fred (father of the last owners), established a distribution center in the school building for their publication, The Mid-Town Journal. The Shibley brothers & their sister, Gladys, were the children of Lebanese immigrants, Moses & Emma (née Abraham), who came to the U.S. in the 1880s. The family first moved to Hudson Street in the Chinatown neighborhood, then known as “Syriatown”, before moving to Union Park in the South End where Fred began publication of The Mid-Town Journal in 1938 from his parents’ home until moving to Rutland.
Born in 1905, Fred Shibley was a colorful figure, having performed as an acrobatic dancer in vaudeville shows as Fred Hayes. He named his publication after the Midtown section of New York City where he had spent time during his life as an entertainer, working with the likes of Eddy Cantor & the Ziegfeld company after dropping out of school at 15. Eventually, Fred decided to put his sense of humor to use & started writing about everyday goings-on in the neighborhood, including a police blotter. The paper gained popularity as a “scandal sheet,” growing to a maximum circulation around 60,000 in stores as far as Providence in the 1950s.
As Urban Renewal efforts took off in Boston, the loss of small newsstands & corner stores began to impact Shibley’s ability to distribute his paper & he was ultimately forced to close down in 1966. In 1967, he began renting out the distribution operation at the school to the publisher of a well-known counterculture magazine called The Avatar. Even more risqué than The Mid-Town Journal, The Avatar’s offices were raided by the FBI that same year, who confiscated copies of the publication, which had been flagged as obscene (The Harvard Crimson 1967).
After Fred Shibley’s death in 1970, printing operations at the school building ceased. Charlie Shibley transferred ownership of the building & property to Fred’s wife & children. The first floor was briefly occupied by the new non-profit, The Project Place, which operated a shelter for runaways & the first emergency drug abuse hotline in the U.S. before moving across the street, according to the Shibleys. The building’s newest owner as of fall 2026, Peter Georgantas, plans to continue using the building for residential purposes following the construction of the rear addition.
