For the first time ever, the West End Museum is hosting a guest speaker who worked on one of the demolition crews that razed much of the neighborhood in the late 1950s.

Tom Hynes, co-chairman and chief executive officer of Colliers International’s Boston office, will speak at the museum Thursday and talk about his experiences working as a laborer in the West End on the controversial urban renewal project that bulldozed what was once one of the city’s most densely populated and diverse neighborhoods. The demolition of the West End not only resulted in the redevelopment of 46 acres of land but also displaced 2,700 families in the process, according to the City of Boston Archives.

Hynes recalled that in 1959 he was a 19-year-old college student and wanted a construction job where he could work hard and get in shape to play football at Boston College. His uncle, John B. Hynes, was the mayor of Boston at the time.

Nothing prepared him for the experience of toiling on the front lines of destruction. “It was torturous,’’ Hynes said in a telephone interview.

Hynes described how a city block would be reduced to a pile of rubble, and bulldozers would push the debris into a huge pile that would then be set on fire, filling the air with acrid smoke. His job was to pull out scrap iron and steel from the wreckage. The first day on the job was especially grueling, and he recalled how he nearly collapsed after spending hours lugging radiators and scrap iron out of burning mountains of debris.

Later he was given the task of climbing through basements and picking out bricks that could be salvaged from the ruins of the wine that was stored in a cellar. One crane operator that he worked with thought it was funny to pluck out a wine barrel and pour the wine all over him and the other workers below, he said.

Hynes ended up working in the West End in the summertime in 1959, 1960, and 1961. He also worked during the winter and spring vacations.

Hynes recalled how after working all day, he’d take the Orange Line home back to West Roxbury, completely exhausted, and smelling like “burnt cork.’’

“It was amazingly difficult work,’’ he said. “I certainly got in good shape.’’

Hynes acknowledges that at the time, he was “oblivious’’ of the larger picture and wasn’t aware of what the demolition of the neighborhood meant to the people who once lived there.

“That didn’t dawn on me until long after,’’ he said.

When he was on the job site, he was just focusing on surviving, he said. The dangerous working conditions didn’t allow much time for reflection. “We had to be vigilant at all times,’’ he said.

But as time went on, he began to learn more about the history of the West End and understand the irreversible effect on the neighborhood.

Emily Sweeney can be reached at esweeney@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @emilysweeney.