CONDITIONS
CONTEXT
HISTORY
ENVIRONMENTAL AND DESIGN ISSUES
SOCIAL ISSUES
PLANNING PROCESSES
TESTIMONIES

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Click here for data from census tract 813. (From U.S. Census 2000).


CONDITIONS:
Egleston Square refers to both a City of Boston Main Street District, and the neighborhood that surrounds it. There are no hard-and-fast boundaries to the Egleston Square neighborhood. Most people would agree that the Egleston Square community extends west and south of Columbus Avenue into Jamaica Plain and east to Franklin Park. People living just north of Columbus in Roxbury also generally refer to their neighborhood as Egleston Square.

The neighborhood has a variety of housing, much of which is in good condition, but some of which is abandoned and in poor condition. Due to the work of individual home owners, the City, State, and Urban Edge Community Development Corporations, the quality of housing is improving and vacant buildings and lots that have been a blighting influence on the neighborhood are being renovated and developed. Urban Edge, which is based on Columbus Avenue in Egleston Square, has been a powerful force in creating and renovating affordable housing in the area. In doing so it has aleviated the threat of gentrification to low-income residents who rent their homes.

In total, Urban Edge has helped provide affordable housing units for 768 families and more than 3000 people in the greater Egleston Square area, which bleeds into Jackson Square. For example, in 2001 Urban Edge renovated 88 units of affordable housing at Wardman Apartments and created nine homes on Westminster Avenue on long-abandoned property. One of the Westminster Avenue buildings is an historic 19th-century French mansard mansion that now provides five affordable owner-occupied condominiums. The organization has also established a housing cooperative and is building entirely new housing in Egleston Square.

Also, the City has invested in the Waldren Road Garden in recent years. In 1997, the City's Department of Neighborhood Development provided $95,400 to renovate the 21,000-square-foot Walden Road Garden, which is owned by the City of Boston.

Transit:
Egleston Square itself (the intersection of Columbus and Washington) is served by buses 22, 42, 44, and 29. The Stony Brook Station on the Orange Line is only a few blocks from Washington Street. Until the Elevated Orange Line was demolished in the 1980s, Egleston Square was served directly by rapid transit. Although transit access is less convenient today, it is still within close reach of Egleston Square.

Community facilities:
Egleston Square Library:
The library is located on Columbus Avenue. The library receives heavy use by local children although it is not located near the center of the commercial district. Egleston is a relatively smally library.

St. Mary of the Angels:
This catholic church is located at the corner of Walnut Avenue and Colubus Avenue. The church was created in 1906 and included an 1865 mansion built by Joseph Howard. Catholic immigrant groups have attended this church since the late 1960s (Heath, R. "A short history of St. Mary of the Angels Church," 2002).

Egleston Square Community High School and the Egleston Square YMCA:
The alternative high school and the YMCA are located in the same area at the corner of Washington Street and School Street. They provide excellent opportunities for neighborhood youth, including recreation, computer resources, afterschool activities, opportunities for drama, and a second chance to graduate from high school.

Egleston Square Peace Garden:
The new Peace Garden is located at the corner of School Street and Washington Street opposite the Egleston Square Community High School. Decorated with murals, plantings, and walkways, the Peace Garden was created and will be cared for by local community groups.

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CONTEXT:
Neighborhood boundaries:
As mentioned above, some people consider Columbus Avenue at Egleston Square a dividing line between the neighborhoods of Jamaica Plain and Roxbury. Today, however, the division between the two neighborhoods has softened. For many, the boundary between Jamaica Plain and Roxbury is unclear and of less importance than in the past. Some people interviewed on the street perceive the boundary between the two neighborhoods to be as far south as the intersection of School Street and Washington Street. This change is, in part, due to the movement of the Hispanic population from Jamaica Plain into southern Roxbury and Dorchester along the edge of Franklin Park.

Social improvements and increased public safety in Egleston Square can also be attributed to the efforts of groups such as the Egleston Square Merchants Association, Urban Edge CDC, and the Egleston Square Neighborhood Association. The Merchants Association has sponsored events such as "Hands Across the Square," which drew thousands of people to link hands around the four-block area beginning in 1992. For the most part, people in the neighborhood agree that communication and cooperation have improved over the past decade.

Demographic shift:
Between 1970 and 2000, the Egleston Square community shifted from predominantly African American to predominantly Hispanic.

Egleston Square includes two census tracts – 813 to the north into Roxbury and 1203 to the south and into a more affluent section of Jamaica Plain. Northern Egleston Square is 37.7 percent Latino or Hispanic (of any race) and the southern section of Egleston Square is 46.1 percent Latino. The northern census tract is slightly more than 50 percent black or African American while the southern census tract is 30.1 percent white and 19.2 percent black or African American.

The northern and southern sections of Egleston Square are dramatically different in terms of economic status. According to the 1990 Census, median family income for the tract that includes northern Egleston Square was $10,913 in 1989, while median family income for the southern tract of Egleston Square was $29,725 - an income gap of $18,812.

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HISTORY:
Early history:
(The following early history comes from unpublished research on the origins of the name Egleston Square carried out by Richard Heath in 2002).

In 1866, the town of West Roxbury laid out Egleston Square as an extension of Walnut Avenue and Washington Street (then called Shawmut Avenue), both of which were heavily traveled at the time. The name "Egleston Square" quickly came to refer not only to the square itself but to the surrounding neighborhood. Until 1882, the square was completely residential, with large houses accessed by wide entryways. The largest of these homes still stands as part of St. Mary of the Angels Church, which was built in 1866. In 1882, resident Francis Kittredge began building storefronts along Washington Street near Beethoven Street. The original Egleston Square was absorbed by Columbus Avenue in 1895.

It is not clear how Egleston Square received its name. However, local historian Richard Heath investigated possible origins of the name and found that the most probable namesakes were two Massachusetts men who served in the Civil War. Of these two, Heath writes, "Corp. Charles T. Egleston of Westfield, Massachusetts was killed at Petersburg, VA on May 16, 1864. The second was William R. Egleston of Springfield who served from 1962 until June 29, 1865 in Company M of the Fifth Calvary (Colored). It is quite plausible that one of the abutting landowners or one of the petitioners was in command when Corp. Egleston was killed or was commanding officer of the 5th Calvary (Colored). Given that West Roxbury was the home of Colonol Robert Gould Shaw and the high regard that Boston had for black regiments in the Civil War, it may be possible that Egleston Square was named for a black calvary soldier, William R. Egleston" (Richard Heath, 2002).

Recent history:
From 1909 to 1987, the Egleston Square neighborhood was in many ways defined by the elevated Orange Line, which barreled over Washington Street, blocking sunlight, raining down debris, and offering residents rapid transport to downtown Boston.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Egleston Square's commercial district was a center of community life. Frank O'Brien was born in 1928 and lived on the Roxbury side of Egleston Square during his early childhood. He comments that despite what people think now, the neighborhood "...was not monolithic by a long shot. We had British, French, German, Irish, Italian and Greek neighbors" (interview. November 26, 2001). A group of former residents of Egleston Square from this time period gathers each year to celebrate the place they grew up.

Egleston Square experienced a period of social and economic decline that began in the late 1960s and continued through the early 1990s. Egleston Square became one of Boston's most blighted neighborhood centers, characterized by substandard housing, boarded-up buildings and youth gangs. The Egleston Square library was shut down.

Various programs were implemented in efforts to make a positive difference in the neighborhood. These included parts of the Boston Plan, the Little City Halls program, and the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act. None had significant results. Paul Grogan, who worked with the City's Neighborhood Development Agency during the most difficult years for Egleston Square said, "We didn't understand that there was nothing we could really do [for businesses] when residential streets one block away were just coming apart...Housing is the fundamental act of economic development" (Charles A. Radin, "A neighborhood reborn," The Boston Globe, Nov. 15, 1998).

In the midst of efforts to make positive change in the neighborhood, there was a low-point in November of 1990 when police shot and killed 19-year-old Hector Morales. Morales, a member of an Egleston youth gang known as the "X-Men," was paradoxically both a well-known troublemaker and a community activist who helped paint a mural to improve the neighborhood and rallied support for the Egleston Square YMCA.

Ultimately, according to some residents, what did make a major difference to the safety and quality of the neighborhood was the removal of the elevated Orange Line and the subsequent reconstruction of Columbus Avenue, as well as the "Main Streets" program, community policing, and anti-gang initiatives. By 1995, these efforts "had dramatically changed the street environment" (Charles A. Radin, "A neighborhood reborn," The Boston Globe, Nov. 15, 1998). As noted above, the work of Urban Edge Community Development Corporation (CDC) has also been deeply significant to the stability of the neighborhood.

The establishment of the Egleston Square YMCA has also made a major difference. In 1991, the Greater Boston YMCA, the Egleston Square Neighborhood Association, the Ecumenical Social Action Council, and Urban Edge teamed up to build a $1.2 million youth center on Washington Street next to the Community High School. Funding for the facility came from the City's Public Facilities Department, the Economic Development and Industrial Corp., the Local Initiatives Support Corp., the US Department of Health and Human Services, and the Community Economic Development Assistance Corp.

By 1998, Boston's police commissioner felt that the neighborhood was "as good as, if not better than, it was 30 years ago."

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ENVIRONMENTAL and DESIGN ISSUES:
Vacant lots:
There are several high-visibility vacant lots in the neighborhood. However, through a community process run by Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE), it because clear that vacant lots were not a significant problem in the neighborhood. When people got together to discuss the issue, they realized that everyone was bothered by the same few, highly visible vacant lots, many of which were being held for speculative purposes. Urban Edge plans to take action on several of the most visible vacant buildings and lots in the area.

Maintenance of common areas:
Keeping sidewalks and common spaces clean and free of debris is an issue for any densely populated commercial area. The main commercial strips in Egleston Square are generally well kept by local merchants and organizations. Urban Edge CDC contributes to addressing these problems by maintaining the common sidewalk areas and the public areas within each of its residential developments in Egleston Square. The organization has also planted and maintained a public square on Walnut Avenue, where extensive Urban Edge properties lie.

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SOCIAL ISSUES:
Displacement/ gentrification:
As the cost of rent climbs in this area, concerns about displacement -- particularly within the large Latino population -- is growing in Egleston Square. Urban Edge has more than 1,000 unmet requests for affordable housing in the area in 2002.

It is commonly held that Egleston Square is losing its Latino population as rents increase beyond what lower income minority residents can pay. The demographic data, however, does not reflect this trend in the area overall between 1990 and 2000. In 1990, the census tract that covers the Parkside, School Street, and southern Egleston Square communities had 47.0% Hispanic residents while in 2000 that census tract (1203) was 46.1 percent Latino - only a slight decline percentage wise, although the overall number of residents in the area has declined at the same time. In comparison, the Hispanic population in northern Egleston Square has increased to 37.7 percent.

Crime:
Although public safety has improved considerably since the 1980s, total crime in Egleston Square has slightly increased in recent years, with about 60 violent crimes ocurring each year for the past three years and five homicides since 2000, according to the Boston Police Department. A grand total of 538 crimes were reported to the police in Egleston Square in 2001, as compared to 232 in the Centre Street/ South Street area and 318 in Roslindale Village. In 2000, Egleston Square was one of eight "hot spots" of gun-related crime identified by Boston Police. A fatal shooting that also wounded five young people in October 2001 on Bragdon Street between Washington and Columbia and caused some to question whether the Egleston Square neighborhood would return to its earlier days of violence.

Local organizations in Egleston Square are strong and local capacity to provide youth with alternatives to street violence has been greatly enhanced since the late 1980s. The Egleston Square Main Street district is thriving and neighborhood leaders have experience in how to respond to violence in their community.

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PLANNING PROCESSES:
In the winter of 2002, Urban Edge began a public process for a residential and commercial development called "Egleston Crossing." The development will be located at 3033 Washington Street and 3089 Washington Street, both of which were identified as problem properties by neighborhood groups and organizations.

Two new buildings are planned to replace two blighted properties: the long-vacant Beethoven Street Theater on the Jamaica Plain side and the garage property at 3033 Washington Street next to the Citgo Station on the Roxbury side. On the Roxbury side, Egleston Crossing will include a five-story apartment complex with 44 two- and three-bedroom affordable units. The ground floor will be retail space. On the Jamaica Plain side, the movie theater will be transformed into a three-story apartment building with 22 apartments, including 15 units for formerly homeless families making $15,000 a year or less. These units will be identical to the others in terms of appearance but will be managed by the Pine Street Inn. ICON Architecture will be designing these units, most of which will be two-bedroom units.

Urban Edge plans to market Egleston Crossing Development locally by using local realtors, while also acknowledging that they have to advertise citywide. The group aims to maintain local businesses and increase commercial life on the square by creating new commercial space for retail and service businesses along the Washington Street edge of the new development.

In 2005, the Boston Neighborhood Network (BNN) and Urban Edge jointly purchased the former MBTA electrical substation in Egleston Square on Washington Street. BNN, the city's cable access television operation, will situate its offices and studios in the building. Urban Edge has undertaken the cleanup and renovations, to be completed in the fall of 2007. BNN is pleased to have a centralized location in the middle of the city for its cable access operation to help further establish its identity. (Robert Preer, "Putting the power back on: Site to hum with TV studios," The Boston Globe, October 2, 2005)

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TESTIMONIES:
"Simply put, by accident or design -- and probably a little of both -- Urban Edge stopped the gentrification of Egleston Square after the destruction of the elevated railroad and gave housing stability to 768 families that number over 3000 residents. The private, speculative market has been in large measure stopped at Columbus Avenue because multi-family housing has been taken out of its hands and is not available for condominium conversions..." (Richard Heath, 2002).

"Now with Latinos being forced out of Jamaica Plain, they are being forced across the park to areas like Harvard Street and around Franklin Field. Some who can't find a place in Boston are being forced out to Lowell, Lawrence, Fall River, and other areas where they can afford to live. The Latino population is shrinking fast in Roxbury" (Bruce Smith, deputy director of public health practice at the Harvard School of Public Health and lifelong Dorchester resident).

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