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

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OWNERSHIP:
City of Boston

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CONDITIONS:
Blue Hill Avenue is the spine of Roxbury, Mattapan, and western Dorchester. A commercial corridor and major six-lane thoroughfare for commuters, buses, and other traffic, Blue Hill Avenue runs from Dudley Square in Roxbury, through Grove Hall, along the eastern edge of Franklin Park, and south to Mattapan Square. The avenue has a rich and tumultuous history, and is in the midst of a major period of revitalization. Over 100 businesses operated on the Avenue in 1999, with clusters at the intersections with Warren, Columbia, and Morton Streets. Blue Hill Avenue is served by buses 14, 16, 19, 22, 23, 28, 29, and 45.

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CONTEXT:
For many, Blue Hill Avenue is synonymous with the eastern half of the Heart of the City. The major entryways to both Franklin Park as a whole and the Franklin Park Zoo lie just off of Blue Hill Avenue. The Avenue forms the western border of Franklin Field, as well as the eastern border of Franklin Park. Because the avenue runs along the edge of the Neponset River and connects to the Blue Hills Reservation, it is considered one of the most important connectors between greenspaces in the city. Blue Hill Avenue is named after the Great Blue Hill south of Boston, which can be seen clearly from the street.

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HISTORY:
Layout and development:
Blue Hill Avenue was originally known as Brush Hill Turnpike. The road was originally laid out along the ridges of the land so that the steep gradients of the highlands could be avoided (Warner, Streetcar Suburbs: The Process of Growth in Boston (1870-1900), 1978).  Blue Hill Avenue, Warren Street, and Washington Street (Dorchester) were the early north-south running roads in the area. Both farmers and suburbanites first settled along these roads and then spread outward.

In the mid-1700s, a Boston auctioneer named Thomas Kilby Jones built his country estate and a tavern at the intersection of Blue Hill Avenue and Washington Street. In doing so, he laid the foundation for the Grove Hall business district and forged a connection between Boston and interior towns via Blue Hill Avenue.

The opening of a trolley service along Blue Hill Avenue in the 1890s facilitated a residential construction boom in what is now Roxbury and Dorchester. People moved here and built their homes in part because they were attracted by Olmsted’s new city park. The City widened Blue Hill Avenue in 1898 for a streetcar, costing Franklin Park 30 feet, and then eliminated the trolley in the 1950s ("Boston's open space: an urban open space plan," Boston Department of Parks and Recreation, 1987).

Irish people were the first to settle along Blue Hill Avenue in Roxbury and North Dorchester, and were followed by Jewish people. In the early 1900s, no Catholic parishes or institutions existed south of Grove Hall on Blue Hill Avenue toward Mattapan Square. Catholic parishes tend to be stabilizing forces in a community, and historian Gerald Gamm argues that the absence of parishes along the Blue Hill Avenue corridor contributed to the eventual deterioration and social instability of the area (Gamm, G. Urban Exodus, 1999).

Jewish migration:
At the turn of the century, Boston's Jewish population was concentrated in Chelsea, Massachusetts, an industrial town north of Boston. The Jewish migration to Roxbury began as a result of a devastating Chelsea Fire of 1908 (1977 Neighborhood Profile Reports). Jewish residents were initially concentrated in Roxbury, but by 1957 most Jews had moved southward from Roxbury into Dorchester. In that year there were more than 40,000 Jewish people in Dorchester (Levine & Harmon, The Death of an American Jewish Community, 1992).

The migration of Jews to Roxbury and Dorchester coincided with the commercialization of Blue Hill Avenue. Beginning in 1914, the Franklin Park Theater at the corner of Blue Hill Avenue and Columbia Road served as the center of community activity. By the late 1920s, up and down the Avenue, Jewish developers were transforming residential blocks into ground floor storefronts.

The original Jewish districts grew together along the axis of Blue Hill Avenue in the 1920s. Wellington Hill in Mattapan became the southern terminus of a three-mile stretch of Jewish neighborhoods. By the mid-1920s, 85% of residents east of Blue Hill Avenue and west of the railroad tracks were Jewish. Just east of the tracks the percentage dropped to a third, while half a mile from the tracks only 10% of the population was Jewish. In total, about 77,000 Jewish residents lived along the Blue Hill Avenue corridor in the late 1920s and early 1930s, about half of all the Jews in Boston at the time (Gamm, G. Urban Exodus, 1999).

From the late 1920s through the early 1950s, Blue Hill Avenue was the heart and soul of Boston's Jewish community and formed the backbone of the second largest Jewish community in America. Known by some at the time as "Jew Hill Avenue," the borders of the Jewish district expanded southward to Mattapan Square. The Blue Hill Avenue area was known as one of the easiest, safest, and most enjoyable police beats in the city. The political epicenter of the area was the G&G Delicatessen on 1106 Blue Hill Avenue. Multiple synagogues were within walking distance for most residents. Candlepin bowling allies, pharmacies, fruit stands, and kosher butcheries dotted the Avenue (Levine & Harmon, The Death of an American Jewish Community, 1992).

The general peacefulness of this era was at times shattered by anti-Semitic violence between Jewish and Irish residents – particularly in the late 1930s and early 1940s. One historian describes how "Bands of Irish youths ranged up and down Blue Hill Avenue in the Jewish district of Dorchester (the Irish disparagingly called it "Jew Hill Avenue"), harassing shop owners, beating up Jewish boys on their way home from school, scrawling swastikas and ugly graffiti on Jewish homes and temples" (O'Connor, The Boston Irish: a political history, 1995. p204).

Jewish exodus:
Between the early 1950s and 1970, large numbers of Jewish residents moved away from the Blue Hill Avenue corridor. Communities east of Blue Hill Avenue that had been 85% to 100% Jewish in 1940 became 75% to 100% percent black by 1970. This dramatic social upheaval was to some extent facilitated by the Boston Banks Urban Renewal Group (B-BURG). The group offered low-interest loans to first-time African American homebuyers. Real estate agents employed scare tactics to encourage panicked white residents to sell their homes for cheap and then offered the homes to Black families for high prices. According to the Mattapan Organization at the time, "The agents reportedly [capitalized] on fears of neighborhood change and deterioration and [urged] people to sell their property at low prices." ("Mattapan Report," Mattapan Organization, 1967).

Practices known as "red-lining" and "block-busting," where certain areas of the city were declared ineligible or eligible for loans based on racial criterion, bear partial responsibility for the rapid transition along the Blue Hill Avenue corridor. Analysis of census tract data has shown, however, that the exodus of Jews from the Blue Hill Avenue Corridor was well underway by the time such loans were offered (Gamm, G. Urban Exodus, 1999).

Disinvestment and decline:
Many new black homeowners were able to purchase their homes with little money down, but few of the new owners had much of their own money at stake in their homes. When faced with high payments or costly repairs, residents often left their homes. Foreclosures and arson were common. Vacancy rates rose and business failures increased along Blue Hill Avenue beginning in the late 1960s. Certain areas along Morton Street, Columbia Road, Talbot Avenue, and at Mattapan Square, however, remained relatively stable ("Neighborhood Profile Reports: Franklin Field," City of Boston, 1977).

By 1979 hundreds of vacant lots lined either side of Blue Hill Avenue. The City owned almost 250 vacant parcels along the edge of the Avenue, and 90 other vacant lots were privately owned. Mattapan Square was the only commercial area along Blue Hill Avenue that planners described as a model business district. The other three were in poor condition ("The Blue Hill Avenue Corridor: A Progress Report and Guidelines for the Future," Boston Redevelopment Aurthority, 1979). But although homes and lots along the Avenue itself were often devastated, homes a block or two away from the main street were often in fair to good condition.

Efforts to rehabilitate the corridor:
In The Boston Plan of 1977, Blue Hill Avenue was identified as a long-term high-priority target area, although most of the plans made for the area did not come to fruition. Private and public partners made commitments for a $7 million arterial road north of Dudley Station (a right-of-way for the eight-lane inner belt that never materialized); a Dorchester Branch Railroad that would serve lower Blue Hill Avenue; reconstruction of the Avenue from Grove Hall to Morton Street; and revitalization of Grove Hall, which had been identified as a particularly distressed commercial crossroads ("Neighborhood Profile Reports: Franklin Field," City of Boston, 1977). In 1978, the City of Boston submitted an application for federal financial assistance for revitalization of Blue Hill Avenue for $7,680,000 ("The Boston Plan: Blue Hill Avenue Urban Development Action Grant," 1978).

In the 1980s, the City of Boston shifted its focus from these grand plans towards the rehabilitation of individual vacant lots. With the help of a city grant, the Boston Urban Gardeners (BUG) implemented a program called "Green on Blue,” which sought to bring trees and grass to Blue Hill Avenue. The program reclaimed vacant lots, put planters and plantings on the Avenue, facilitated the creation of urban gardens, and employed "Red Shirts" youth to carry out much of the work.

In 1993, when Thomas Menino was first inaugurated as mayor of the city, he announced the 'comeback of Blue Hill Avenue” at a time when few thought such a comeback was possible. In the 1990s, the City formed the Blue Hill Avenue Initiative and Task Force. More recently, Mayor Menino's administration launched the RESTORE program, which was part of a larger initiative for Blue Hill Avenue. Between 1994 and 1999, RESTORE renovated or expanded 30 businesses, helped establish 12 new businesses, retained 180 jobs, created 40 jobs, and invested $2 million in public-private partnerships on Blue Hill Avenue. In all, public-private investment along Blue Hill Avenue totaled more than $51 million between 1994 and 1999.

The City focused on the area from Grove Hall to Dudley Square in the early 1990s. Demolition and remediation work for the Grove Hall Mecca Mall began in the mid-1990s, and the Mall was completed in 2001. In total, $5.6 million of City capital funds and state highway funds were spent on the street reconstruction of Blue Hill Avenue in the 1990s. By 1995, the second phase of the Blue Hill Avenue redevelopment project, which focused on the Avenue south of Morton Street, was 75% complete.

Remainders of Jewish life on Blue Hill Avenue:
Today, the significance of Blue Hill Avenue for older Boston Jews is expressed in unexpected ways.

The Jewish history of Blue Hill Avenue is celebrated today on the bottom floor of the Hebrew Rehabilitation Center for the Aged in Jamaica Plain. Murals of Blue Hill Avenue cover the walls and show the Martin Theatre, the G&G Deli, the Prime Kosher Market, Blue Hill Credit Union, and Waldman Candies -- all touchstones for the Jewish community in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Many current residents of the Rehabilitation Center, which features a Jewish temple on its grounds, grew up along the Blue Hill Avenue corridor of this bygone era.

Older Jewish Bostonians also celebrate their youth along the Blue Hill Avenue corridor through the Blue Hill Avenue Memory Board and other websites that facilitate the sharing of memories.

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ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES:
Asthma:
High asthma rates in Roxbury and Dorchester are partially attributed to pollution due to diesel buses and heavy congestion along Blue Hill Avenue, Warren Street, and other major roads along the Blue Hill Avenue Corridor.

Soil Lead:
The large number of vacant lots or formerly vacant lots along the Blue Hill Avenue corridor are likely to have high levels of soil lead, which can be damaging to children’s mental development.

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DESIGN ISSUES:
Vacant lots and buildings:
According to the City of Boston Department of Neighborhood Development (DND), as of August 2002, 86 parcels of vacant land within three blocks of Blue Hill Avenue between Walk Hill Street in Mattapan and Lawrence Street in Roxbury were owned by the City and available for development. A concentrated cluster of this land lies in the Grove Hall section of Roxbury, north of Devon Street and south of Lawrence Street. In contrast, the DND owns only three vacant buildings within three blocks of Blue Hill Avenue. Other vacant lots and buildings along Blue Hill Avenue are privately owned.
 
Traffic congestion:
As a commuter route, Blue Hill Avenue is clogged with traffic in the traditional morning and evening rush hours. In 1999, the estimated traffic count on Blue Hill Avenue was 24,000 vehicles per day. Double and even triple parking are common along the Avenue and create slow, sometimes dangerous driving conditions. Seeking to avoid traffic, drivers often cut through residential areas at high speeds, also creating dangerous situations.

Abandoned cars:
As a result of tougher state regulations for automobile inspections, beginning at the end of 1999 there have been an increasing number of abandoned cars found in Boston neighborhoods. According to local police, abandoned cars are particularly problematic on Blue Hill Avenue, both on the street itself and in vacant lots.

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SOCIAL ISSUES:
Economic development:
Creating economic opportunities along the Blue Hill Avenue corridor is a priority for local residents. According to the Blue Hill Avenue Task Force, the "trade area population" of the Blue Hill Avenue corridor was 92,599 residents, or 30,103 households, in 1999. The group estimates that in 1999 the average household in the area earned $30,041 and that the collective purchasing power of residents in the trade area was $200 million each year, little of which was being spent at businesses along the corridor (Blue Hill Avenue website).

The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC) and the Boston Consulting Group have argued that the Franklin Park Zoo in particular could be a driver of economic development along the Blue Hill Avenue Corridor if sufficient investment is made in it and the surrounding area. The new Grove Hall Mecca Mall at the corner of Warren Street and Blue Hill Avenue provides residents with a range of services, including a grocery store, and has spurred development of other types in the surrounding area.

Crime:
Over the past two decades, areas such as Grove Hall, Franklin Field, and Franklin Hill have experienced periods of high crime and violence, including gun violence and violence among youth. These issues are covered in greater depth in other sections of the database.

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PLANNING PROCESSES:
Siver Line:
Roxbury residents and some Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) planners have made the case for extending the Silver Line from Dudley Square south on Warren Street and Blue Hill Avenue toward Mattapan Square. Others, including the Washington Street Corridor Coalition argue for light rail as opposed to the buses used for the Silver Line.

Roxbury Master Plan:
The Roxbury Strategic Master Plan, created by the BRA and a range of local participants, was published in January 2004. The plan articulates a community vision for the entire neighborhood of Roxbury, including Peabody Circle, and the Grove Hall area, both of which lie along Blue Hill Avenue. 

Housing on Main Streets in Grove Hall:
In 2002, Grove Hall Main Streets and the BRA identified potential residential development concepts for privately owned parcels along Blue Hill Avenue.

Long Bay Management, a minority-owned developer, is rehabilitating the Silva Building at the corner of Warren Street and Blue Hill Avenue. The HeritageFlag Company is moving near the intersection of Intervale Street and Blue Hill Avenue and five artist's lofts will be built above the factory. Habitat for Humanity plans to construct 22 affordable homes on a large vacant lot just north of Intervale on Blue Hill Avenue, ("Blue Hill Upgrade," March 31, 2003).

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TESTIMONIES:
"There are still [Jewish shopowners on Blue Hill Avenue] left, cowering behind police locks, burglar alarms, heavy steel grilles, pretending to do business. The fruit store has a few rotten apples, an old pear, dried plums and in the back they take wagers on the last few digits of the Treasury balance, numbers racket. Yet it all seems furtive, desperate, beleaguered swapping, the last jerk of a chicken's wings, its throat slit. As if the Jews had swept out of Dorchester in one blow. A thunderclap catastrophe the rabbi called upon our heads" (Mirsky, J. "Who lost the Emerald Necklace? In search of Franklin Park." The Boston Globe Magazine, 1972. p3).

"Blue Hill Avenue is today probably the most striking physical personification of the many economic ills besetting Boston's low to moderate-income population; it is a four-mile stretch of roadway characterized by boarded storefronts, abandoned multi-family housing, and all-too-visible expanses of vacant land" ("The Boston Plan: Revitalization of a Distressed Area: Blue Hill Avenue," 1977, p1-2).

"Anchored by the new shopping center 'Grove Hall’s Mecca,' Grove Hall has once again become a thriving hub of activity” (Draft II of the Roxbury Strategic Master Plan).

"Blue Hill Avenue is the 138 shortcut" (participant in a Grove Hall community meeting convened by Project RIGHT, Feb. 14, 2002).

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