OWNERSHIP
CONDITIONS
DESIGN ISSUES

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OWNERSHIP:
City of Boston

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CONDITIONS:
This segment of Blue Hill Avenue runs along the eastern edge of Franklin Park and has a mix of residential and commercial buildings along its eastern side. It is a six lane road with a grassy median.

Between Seaver Street and Columbia Road on Blue Hill Avenue there are four storefront residential buildings, including a check-cash business and a liquor store -- one of several along the Avenue owned by the Fernandez family. The corner of Columbia Road and Blue Hill Avenue is the former location of the Franklin Park Theater. The theater, which was built in 1914, had an ornate, columned crown and was for many decades a major center of community life. The building was used as a church in the 1980s, refurbished in the 1990s, and is now a pizza, sub, and seafood restaurant.

Along this edge of Franklin Park north of Columbia Road, high chain-link fences border the zoo, protecting the animals and blocking community access to the park. There are sidewalks along both sides of Blue Hill Avenue, and the gap between the sidewalk and the zoo fence is wide enough to allow people access to trees and grass. However, this space is very near the busy street, it is unprotected, and in most places it is on a steep slope. As a result, it is virtually never used by residents.

More than half a dozen blue banners let visitors know they are in the proximity of Franklin Park, but no impressive sign, grand gate, or historic entryway ushers the visitor into the main entrance of the park. There is only a sign for the Zoo New England here at Peabody Circle (the intersection of Columbia Road, Circuit Drive, and Blue Hill Avenue).

South of Peabody Circle and Columbia Road, the western edge of Blue Hill Avenue is dominated by small businesses and public institutions such as the Harvard Community Health Center, a street clothing store with a steady stream of customers, small-scale restaurants, a street-front church, and the Endicott Elementary School. There are sidewalks on both sides of the street, and Franklin Park is bordered by a low stone wall. The former site of the Refectory building within Franklin Park south of Peabody Circle is currently unused and creates a "dead zone" along the margins of the park. A former entryway to the Refectory now lies unused and forlorn.

A curving, heavily used, paved pedestrian walkway runs roughly parallel to Blue Hill Avenue within Franklin Park. The parkland slopes away from the street and a grove of mature oak trees insulates the walkway from the street.

Businesses include:
-- A new pizza, subs, and seafood restaurant
-- Hip Zepi USA (urban youth clothing with at another location in Mattapan Square)
-- Storefront churches including New Fellowship Baptist Church and the New Hope Church of God
-- CDs sold on the street
-- Caribbean restaurant
-- Harvard Street Neighborhood Heath Center (full non-emergency health services including general, pediatric, dental, teen services, family planning, mental health)
-- Several small markets
-- Tailoring, cleaners and storage store
-- Tire shop
-- Insurance agency
-- West Indian and American restaurant
-- Chinese restaurant
-- Auto repair shop
-- Gas station

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DESIGN ISSUES:
-- As noted above, the entrance to Franklin Park does not have the sort of grandeur that one might expect for a park of the scope, size and offerings of Franklin Park. Design issues regarding Peabody Circle are explored in greater detail in another entry. 

-- Crossing six lanes of traffic along Blue Hill Avenue to access Franklin Park can be daunting, despite the crosswalk. 

-- As noted above, the former Refectory entrance to Franklin Park is now unused, trashy, and partially broken down.

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