The Third Decade

Ferdinand Building Renovations Begin

Yesterday Mayor Menino and a phalanx of other locally elected officials came to Roxbury to tout the beginning of renovations to the Ferdinand Building in Dudley Square. I was honestly excited for the first time in a while by our local politicians. The mayor talked about how the project would bring in new jobs and transform the area. Senator Wilkerson mentioned that it was 10 years ago that the state promised and then reneged on a commitment to redevelop the block. She also said that she was glad to see lots of construction workers of color at the site, a sentiment which was echoed by Representative Fox. The most passionate speaker by far, though, was City Councilor Chuck Turner. When he spoke, church was in session! Chuck was fiery and passionate about the importance of the community's benefiting from the project, not just in terms of having a revitalized commercial district, but also in terms of making sure that local workers were filling some of the construction jobs as the building is being redeveloped. As Chuck spoke, people in the crowd behind me were shouting "Tell 'em, Chuck" and "Go on, brotha!" It was a special moment in politics that I've never seen at a building renovation. Even Menino seemed to get a kick out of it.

I stood at the very front of the crowd as all this was going on. The nice thing about having a big-ass camera is that most people think I'm either press or connected to something official, so I get to move around and access places without much resistance. As the speeches began, I excused myself to the front, crouched down on the ground for a few minutes to look like a press photographer, and then stood up to get comfortable again. No one said a word. I never claimed to be a press photographer, but I was more than willing to let people think that I was. Why not, right? The only time I've ever explicitly said that I was press was when I took some shots at the Hip Hop Summit in 2004. If I hadn't, I would've had to pay admission and I wasn't trying to do that.

Anyway, after the speeches ended, lunch was had and free t-shirts were given out (oddly only in XL and XXL sizes). After lunch I started taking more shots of the building. A couple of construction workers asked to have their photos taken and I gladly obliged; I then asked if they could take/let me inside the building in return. They couldn't let me in, but they gave me a commemorative hard hat - it's white with a blue seal of the City of Boston on the front - and let me stand at the front door and walk around the inside of the safety perimeter. After all these years of living in Roxbury and around Boston, that was the first time I had ever seen the inside of the Ferdinand Building or it's annex half a block away. The annex has a large staircase and a decorative floor leading from the stairway to the doorway. The Ferdinand Building itself is beautifully ornate on the outside and has vaulted ceilings on the upper floors. It crossed my mind to enter the Ferdinand and talk to some of the other construction workers I could see walking around, but I figured I was already pushing things in the first place.

The city also released a flier of the Dudley Vision Project. The Ferdinand is literally central to the revitalization of the district. An artist rendering of the renovated building looks quite impressive, too.

More information about the Dudley Vision Project and a community task force was released today. I received an email with a flier attached announcing the next task force meeting is Wednesday 4-6pm. While I'm glad to see that the community will have the option to submit feedback and input, what's up with a meeting during business hours? Who do they expect to attend when people will be working or commuting home? I try not to believe in conspiracy theories, but this does seem a bit suspicious. Sadly, it also ties in with the sentiments expressed in the video I featured in my last post.

Development in Dudley

Well, well, well...it looks like Hizzoner is coming to Dudley Square on Friday around lunchtime to talk about the Dudley Vision Project. I feel like I should know more than I currently do about project, but I just haven't had the time to keep up with that and with the plans for Bartlett Yard, Parcel 13, and Jackson Square (which I heard are now on hold because the stupid partners can't agree on something).

Anyway, I'll be interested in hearing what the Mayor has to say about development in Dudley this time. As a counterpoint to all the boosterism, here's a video about gentrification in Roxbury which mentions the Mayor's vision.

Roxbury Heritage Video

Shortly before my vacation to the Gulf states, I had a discussion with one of my neighbors. He wrote to express his appreciation for the work Discover Roxbury is doing and hoped that we would continue to build and expand. One of his frustrations is that there is so little information easily available or easy to find about Roxbury's history, boundaries, geography, and population. I chimed in that one of the problems with finding information about Roxbury is that there aren't enough people telling Roxbury's story and making it widely available.

Well, today I proved myself wrong. It's not that there aren't people telling Roxbury's story, it's more that we aren't necessarily looking in the right place. I did a YouTube search for videos relating to Roxbury and came across quite a few, although they're interspersed with videos from Roxbury, NJ and clips from the movie One Night at the Roxbury. I can't say that all of the videos are flattering; but they are real, show sides of the neighborhood from residents' perspectives, and provide a counter to the usual mainstream media clips.

One of the most interesting videos for me is Roxbury Heritage at Dudley Square. It's well produced and shows how quickly the area changed in just two generations. This video also reminds me of how important adequate public transportation is to a dense urban community. Dudley Square and Roxbury were clearly shortchanged by the removal of the Orange Line in 1987 (and by the removal of the trolley lines prior to that). It would be great if the neighborhoods between Dudley Square and Downtown Boston could coalesce to demand improved public transportation from the MBTA in the same way that Somerville and Medford are doing. The Washington Street corridor has a long history of excellent public transportation that just isn't being lived up to presently.

At any rate, enough of my soapbox. Enjoy the video and hear the stories of the neighborhood.

New Discover Roxbury Website

The revised Discover Roxbury website is up and running. We've included many new features not previously on the old site and have more coming over the next few months! We also hope you'll find the new site more interactive and easier to use. Please reset your bookmarks and visit often.

Common Boston Weekend

I'm really digging Common Boston's programming for this weekend and wonder why there hasn't been more publicity for it. As part of Discover Roxbury, I attended our event: the Roxbury Churches, Mosques, and Synagogues trolley tour. Our event attracted a wider variety of people than I had seen before and took us into to religious institutions normally tucked away or overlooked. We visited Masjid of the Quran on Intervale St., Charles St. AME on Warren St., Mission Church on Tremont St., and the First Church in Roxbury in Eliot Square.

As a kid, I went to Mission Church every first Friday, so that was a homecoming instead of a new discovery for me. Still, it was interesting to be there as a "tourist" learning about the church's symbolism and history. Plus, I finally learned the difference between a basilica and a cathedral; a basilica is the Pope's church when he travels from the Vatican, whereas a cathedral is a Cardinal's church.

The mosque was probably the place where I felt like I learned and was exposed to the most. I never go over to Grove Hall for anything, so having a small mosque become my first introduction to that side of Roxbury was eye-opening. I've been to mosques before, but never one in Boston, so seeing who attends that mosque was just as interesting as learning about its history. I knew it would be a Black congregation, but it looks like it's primarily an East African population, probably Somali or Sudanese. I felt a little bad that the imam felt it was necessary to say that his mosque and congregation are not tied to terrorism. At the same time, though, there's no point in skirting an issue some people were probably thinking and which he's probably been questioned about numerous times.

The other two places didn't interest me as much, but it was worth visiting them as a point of comparison to the Catholic church and Islamic mosque. The First Church of Roxbury is...well...plain. If you've seen one Unitarian Church, you've seen them all...at least around here. The Boston area has some really old Unitarian churches, but maybe they look different in other parts of the country. Charles St. AME was nice to visit simply because it has such a high political profile. The building itself isn't particularly impressive, although I did like their crucifix-shaped windows.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to tomorrow's Common Boston events and hope they do more of these more often. Event weekends like this fill a niche by giving Bostonians a means of interacting with and learning about each other on a personal level by taking us into each other's neighborhoods. Hopefully as their programming expands, more neighborhood organizations and institutions will also open their doors and engage the community in additional ways.