OWNERSHIP
CONDITIONS
CONTEXT
HISTORY
DESIGN ISSUES
SOCIAL ISSUES
TESTIMONIES

Click here for map and orthophoto

Click here for data from census tract 821. (From U.S. Census 2000).


OWNERSHIP: 
-- Elm Hill Avenue itself - Boston Transportation Department
-- Housing complexes along Elm Hill Avenue: Blue Mountain Associates Limited Partnership; Elm Hill Housing
LP; Kensington Associates; Boston Housing Authority; Federal Secretary of Housing and Urban
Development.
-- Grove Hall Motor Mart: Stephen T. Lepardo
-- Christian Science Reading Room: Second Church of Christ Scientist
-- Charles Street African Methodist Episcopal Church: First African Methodist Episcopal Church

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CONDITIONS:
Elm Hill Avenue:
Elm Hill Avenue runs uphill from Warren Street to Seaver Street, where it dead-ends at Franklin Park. The following description will move from the base of Elm Hill Avenue where it intersects with Warren to the top of Elm Hill Avenue at Franklin Park.

The historic Charles Street African Methodist Episcopal Church (originally located on Beacon Hill beginning in 1833) is currently housed in what was originally the All Souls' Unitarian Church, built in 1888 and located at the intersection of Elm Hill Avenue and Warren Street. Just south of the church is a Christian Science Reading Room that was built in 1899. Charles Street Church is a major neighborhood landmark and a center for community activity. The Christian Science Reading Room is an imposing stone structure with massive stone columns and a rounded dome that is seldom utilized. The bottom of the hill is characterized by large, free-standing homes with substantial yards, many of which are in good condition. Also located here is the Elm Hill Family Service Center, which provides a range of services to communities in Roxbury and North Dorchester. The Elm Hill Family Service Center, which is part of Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD), provides low-income residents with educational and employment opportunities, as well as youth and senior services, child care, and affordable housing advocacy.

As you climb the hill, moving southward and closer to Franklin Park, there are a series of dense apartment complexes owned by the organizations listed above, as well as some private owners. Some of these are undergoing repairs, and a few are in poor condition. This is a very high-density area with a great deal of pedestrian activity. The mix of housing along Elm Hill ranges from two-story decrepit brick buildings, to five-story apartment complexes, to grand, columned estates in various levels of repair.

Nearer the top of Elm Hill Avenue, lie larger apartment complexes owned by the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Elm Hill Housing Limited Partnership, as well as the six-story Holgate tower, an 80-unit complex owned by the Boston Housing Authority. Thus, towards the top of the hill near Franklin Park, the density of the neighborhood increases significantly.

At the very top of Elm Hill Avenue at the border of Franklin Park is the United House of Prayer for All People, formerly known as the Mishkan Tefila Temple and the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts. This stunning, ornate, enormous building made of Indiana limestone now serves as a church for an extreme Pentecostal denomination. The building is accessed by dozens of granite steps that lead to a grand entrance with four columns. Three colorful crosses hang above the columns. Carvings and stain-glass windows and statues adorn the sides of the square building.

Neighborhood around Elm Hill Avenue:
The streets around Elm Hill Avenue are almost entirely residential, and have a mix of different types of homes, ranging from apartment complexes to large single-family homes situated on wide open lawns.

Schuyler Street balances dense apartment complexes and free-standing homes. Although Cheney Street has four-story apartments on both sides, it retains a residential character because it is a one-way street and is rich in street trees. Although this is a densely settled neighborhood, it contrasts sharply with other densely settled communities that are not mediated by trees, grass, setbacks, and attractive design.

The southwestern section of Brookledge Street is very densely populated. Several large apartment buildings are owned by the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. The one way street then gives way to a line of identical brick two family buildings, many of which are in need of repair.

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CONTEXT:
Access to greenspace:
Elm Hill Street dead ends into Franklin Park -- the largest park in the city. It is possible to access Franklin Park from Elm Hill Avenue, although Seaver Street, which is a major six-lane thoroughfare, represents a barrier to access. Other barriers include the fence around the zoo, which blocks access to the park at all points southeast of Elm Hill Street, and the lack of a sidewalk along the Franklin Park edge of Seaver Street. The entrance to the park from Elm Hill Street is not particularly welcoming, with no signage and no formal sense of an entryway. One block northwest, however, is a more formal and attractive entrance to the park at Humboldt Avenue. The Tiffany Moore Playground is also located at the Humboldt Avenue entrance and is heavily used by local children and their families.

Demographics:
The community in Roxbury north of Seaver Street and east of Humboldt Avenue is both one of the densest (between about 14,000 and 41,000 people per square kilometer) and most transit dependent in the city (between 53% and 80% of households do not have an automobile) (Otake, "Analysis and strategies for transit justice in Greater Boston," 2002).

Median household income in the neighborhood is also much lower than in the neighborhood immediately to the west. In 1990, the main census tract that includes Elm Hill Avenue had a poverty level of 31.4% and a median household income of $16,106, while the census tract immediately west -- also in Roxbury and almost entirely minority -- had a much lower poverty level and a much higher median household income -- 19.6% and $27,225 respectively.

Similarly, in 2000, the median household income in the census tract that includes Elm Hill Avenue was $18,571 and the median household income in the census tract immediate west was $37,500. In 2000, both census tracts are approximately three-quarters black/ African American, with rapidly rising Hispanic population.

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HISTORY:
Elm Hill Avenue is the entrance to the remnant of the Old Indian Trail that originated at Boston Harbor and extended through Franklin Park. The area was settled by a Catholic community in the late 1800s, and Jews began to move to the Elm Hill area in the 1910s. By the 1920s and 1930s, Elm Hill Park was one of the most prominent Jewish communities in the Roxbury/ Dorchester area. During this time, homes in Elm Hill Park were more expensive than homes in any other part of Dorchester and Roxbury. As the surrounding community deteriorated, those Jews who remained in the area increasingly concentrated themselves in this small enclave. By the 1950s, however, most Jewish leaders had left the neighborhood for the suburbs such as Brookline and Newton.

According to long-time resident Melvine Levine, the transition from Jewish to African American began on the northeastern side of the Elm Hill Avenue and moved south toward Seaver Street and Franklin Park. The Elm Hill area was one of the first enclaves of African Americans in upper Roxbury. In the early 1900s, four synagogues were within walking distance of the area. Over the course of the 1930s and 1940s they all "went out of business," according to Mr. Levine.

Beginning in the 1920s with about 1,000 blacks, the population of African Americans grew slowly and steadily to 11,100 in 1950. This expansion and the proliferation of black-owned businesses did not cause problems in the neighborhood during this period. Jews co-existed peacefully with their neighbors (Gamm, G., Urban Exodus, 1999, p196).

In the midst of these changes, Jews in Roxbury and Dorchester were working on the grand Mishkan Tefila Temple on the corner of Elm Hill Avenue and Seaver Street, which was completed in 1925. The temple was intended to be a resource for Jews throughout the region. Before the building of the temple had been completed, however, the ethnic transition of the neighborhood from predominantly Jewish to predominantly African American was well underway. The congregation ultimately abandoned its grand edifice. After standing vacant for many years and being utilized for a range of purposes, most notably the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts, the temple was renovated as the United House of Prayer for All People, a predominantly African American Christian church.

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DESIGN ISSUES: 
-- According to local residents, speeding on Elm Hill Avenue has resulted in a large number of accidents in recent years. The intersection of Elm Hill Avenue and Seaver Street is particularly dangerous. In 2002, the Boston Transportation Department added a four-way stop sign at Elm Hill Avenue and Crawford Street in response to this danger.

-- A significant building on Cheney Street is the former "Grove Hall Motor Mart," which was built in 1920 and appears to be vacant in 2002, with bricks over the entrances. The industrial-zoned building is still in good condition, with beautiful stone carvings on the front of the building. 

-- Residents on Georgia Street are adversely affected by the flow of traffic in the newly revitalized Grove Hall Mecca area at the intersection of Warren Street and Blue Hill Avenue. As the Boston Department of Transportation struggles to find a balance between neighborhood access and facilitating the increased flow of traffic, residents of this street face the possibility of more limited access to their street.

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SOCIAL ISSUES: 
-- As noted above, the poverty level in this neighborhood (32.7% in 2000) is relatively high, and the median household income ($18,571 in 2000) is relatively low, even in comparison with other areas immediately adjacent to the neighborhood. Approximately 34% of all households earn less than $10,000 per year, according to the 2000 Census. 

-- In 2000, 89.4% of residents of the main census tract along Elm Hill Avenue rented their homes. Those who do not enjoy secure subsidized housing may be adversely affected by the increasing cost of rent in the Roxbury area.

-- Thirty-eight percent of workers in the neighborhood depend on public transportation to get to work each day. But despite this high level of transit-dependence and the density of the area, no rapid transit is available to these residents.

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TESTIMONIES:
"Since successful relocation [of Jewish institutions] required a healthy base of members and financial resources, each of these Jewish institutions moved out after many members had left but at a time when tens of thousands of Jews still remained in Roxbury and Dorchester. Jewish institutions that bided their time withered away and died at their old locations...every one of the more than fifty Jewish community centers, Hebrew schools, and synagogues that once stood in Roxbury and Dorchester had dissolved or relocated by the early 1970s" (Gamm, G., Urban Exodus, 1999, p20-21).

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