Harvard Law School (1949) Barbara Scott Sears (Divorced) Jerome Lyle Rappaport (August 17, 1927 – December 6, 2021) was an American lawyer, developer, political leader, and landlord.

Rappaport, born and raised in the Bronx and Manhattan's Upper West Side, was the son of a clothier of Romanian Jewish extraction.

The Forum's Friday evening radio broadcasts on WHDH in 1946 garnered positive press and inspired the participation of Harvard's then-president, law school dean, faculty members, and students.

Rappaport's acceptance speech in January 1953 was mostly geared towards inspiring wealthier and more seasoned local businessmen to invest everything they could in Boston's then-languishing economic development program, and "to give more time, energy, and thought to community affairs.

"[12] Prior to that his efforts helped John Hynes beat James Michael Curley in the watershed city elections of 1949.

"[15] Six years later, Rappaport was one of the so-called "enemies" Boston's Rascal King aimed to bury through disparaging remarks published in Curley's autobiography, "I'd Do It All Again.

"[16] During this period Rappaport also worked in the John Hynes Administration, established a private law office, and taught a political science class at Boston University.

[18] Less than two years after the NBC and GBAC disbanded during the summer of 1954, Rappaport, Seon Pierre Bonan (a Connecticut and New York City-based developer) and Theodore Shoolman (Boston Realtor whose late father had built The Wang Theatre) began a forty-year business partnership by acquiring the rights to redevelop Boston's West End neighborhood, as part of the national urban renewal program launched by the Housing Act of 1949.

Throughout the 1960s Charles River Park symbolized the critical early successes of the "New Boston" - "proof that higher income families could still be attracted back to the city.

He received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Suffolk University in 1998, for "his career of outstanding accomplishments and public service and for his role in reshaping the city's West End neighborhood.

"[27] His reputation has also been negatively impacted by a chorus of scholarly and non-scholarly opinions about urban renewal and, in particular, his signature development which resulted from the City of Boston's decision to gentrify a working-class neighborhood.

The most widely known book on the subject is "The Urban Villagers," Herbert J. Gans critical analysis of the old area's clearance as an alleged "slum" and the West Enders' displacement from their neighborhood.

The West End-Charles River Park experience has been covered thousands of times in books, magazine articles, newspaper columns, and undergraduate and postgraduate papers.

Today, urban planning students are asked to consider if the positive value of the Charles River Park development—consisting of 2,300 units of skyscraper housing, 500,000 square feet (46,000 m2) of retail and office space, 3,400 parking spaces, and an affordable housing building for senior citizens—is outweighed by the destruction of the old West End, and the negative experiences of many whom the City evicted prior to this seminal political, economic and urban planning event.

[34] In 1993, Rappaport and other members of the community came together and donated funds to build a Jewish temple in Martin County, Florida.

The firm's investment activity totaled more than 23 million square feet of commercial real estate and more than 7,500 residential units.

[40] Prior recipients of the prize: Daniela Rivera (2019), Titus Kaphar (2018), Sam Durant (2017), Barkley L. Hendricks (2016), Matt Saunders (2015), Liz Deschenes (2014), Ann Pibal (2013), Suara Welitoff (2012), Orly Genger (2011), Liza Johnson (2010), David Cole (2009), Ursula von Rydingsvard (2008), Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons (2007), Abelardo Morell (2006), Sara Walker (2005), Debra Olin (2004), John Bisbee (2003), Lars-Erik Fisk (2002), Anne Spileos Scott (2001), Jennifer Hall (2000).

All organizational expenses are paid for by the Founders and the other Board members by allowing all other contributions to be applied directly to Alzheimer's Disease research.