By Record Staff
Former Chelsea Mayor Joel M. Pressman, who served four terms as the city’s mayor from 1976-83, passed away on September 6. Pressman’s tenure as mayor occurred during a tumultuous time in city politics as Chelsea was transitioning from a city comprised primarily of Jewish, Irish, Italian, Polish, and Russian immigrants who had arrived in the city in the early 1900s, to a new wave of immigrants in the 1980s, primarily from Central and South America. In addition, by the time Pressman entered politics as an Alderman-at-Large in the late 1960s, the once-great city, which had been an industrial powerhouse from the end of the Civil War through World War II, was just a shell of its former self. The completion of the Mystic River Bridge (now the Tobin Bridge) and the Northeast Expressway by the early 1950s bisected the city and resulted in many homes being taken and residents being displaced.
The Great Chelsea Fire in October, 1973, destroyed many residential neighborhoods, further reducing the city’s population from a peak of about 50,000 in the 1930s to less than 25,000 by 1975. However, the 1975 mayoral election heralded a new start for the city, as the youthful Pressman campaigned against incumbent Philip Spelman and Alderman at Large Tom Mace, both of whom were significantly older than Pressman and who represented what remained of the city’s old guard. Pressman and Mace defeated Spelman in the primary election and then Pressman edged Mace by just eight votes in the final.
Two years later, the duo engaged in a rematch, but this time Pressman won by more than 2000 votes, affirming his status as the mayor of the future for the city. Pressman was a strong supporter of Massachusetts Governor Michasel Dukakis, who was first elected in 1974, and Chelsea benefited from many state programs initiated by Dukakis to revitalize the state’s older cities.
Chelsea became a huge beneficiary of those programs. Thanks to state funding, the Bellingham Square area, the city’s principal business district, was modernized. In addition, state funding offered many programs to private developers and businesses who desired to relocate in the burned-out area of the Chelsea fire. The Mystic Mall shopping center, which brought a K-Mart to Chelsea, was the centerpiece of the redevelopment area. Pressman also played a large role in the development of the former Chelsea Naval Hospital, which had been decommissioned many years previously by the Navy, but which now was in the hands of the city. Pressman hired a well-regarded outside consultant, Robert Kenney, and the collaboration eventually yielded what is now Admiral’s Hill, a beautiful residential section on the city’s waterfront that is framed by the Tobin Bridge overhead.
Pressman briefly launched an unsuccessful campaign for Lieutenant Governor in the 1982 state election, but remained close to Gov. Dukakis (who returned to the governorship in 1982 after having been defeated in 1978 by Edward J. King). Three years later, Dukakis named Pressman, who was an attorney, as the chairman of the Industrial Accident Board (now known as the Division of Industrial Accidents), on which Pressman served for nearly a decade. Pressman then moved out of Chelsea, the city where he had grown up and had been educated, to Swampscott, where he raised his own family.
He eventually relocated to Revere Beach. Joel M. Pressman was the son of the late Meyer Pressman (a former State Representative) and Anne (Brass) Pressman. He graduated from Chelsea High School and Suffolk Law School. He is survived by his children, Matthew Pressman and Skyler (Pressman) Gardner, and her husband Zachary Gardner and their children Cole, Hunter, and Callie. He was the brother of David Pressman and the late Paul Pressman. He leaves behind many nieces and nephews, extended family, and dear friends.