Boston Business Journal, March 2026
Ted Landsmark is retiring from Boston’s planning board after 12 years, five decades after the day he was written into the city’s history books in an attack during a civil rights rally at City Hall Plaza. Landsmark, attacked with a flagpole attached to an American flag, became a symbol of the city’s strained race relations at the time. But he remained involved in city real estate in all the years since, including serving as president of Boston Architectural College for 17 years. He was a member of the Boston Planning and Development Agency for 12 years, ending on Thursday. Landsmark, 79, was lauded by Mayor Michelle Wu who said she counted Landsmark as a mentor when she was a young city councilor.