Tag: Codman Square

  • Legislators petition to name Dorchester Courthouse after the late Juvenile Court Judge Leslie E. Harris

    A new bill in the Legislature proposes to rename the Dorchester Courthouse in Codman Square for the late Judge Leslie E. Harris as tribute to the work and legacy of the lifelong educator who spent his early years as a probation officer and public defender before sitting on the bench in the Suffolk County Juvenile Court for 20 years until his retirement in 2014. 

    “If you’re from Dorchester or Roxbury, you know who Judge Harris is,” said state Rep. Chris Worrell, one of the bill’s House sponsors. “One of the only judges that you could see in community. You don’t see judges like how you saw Judge Harris at the supermarket and different kinds of events.”

    When Worrell attended Judge Harris’s wake last October, he said he saw mourners from all walks of life, from justices and elected officials to formerly incarcerated individuals, community leaders, and students. That gathering, Worrell said, reflected the life Judge Harris had lived.  

    “To rename the Dorchester District Court after Judge Leslie Harris, it was a no-brainer,” he said. “From the first day we filed the bill, hundreds of people reached out. Everyone’s excited about seeing this done.”   

    For the Harris family, the proposed designation marks a legacy of service and support and serves as a reminder that the man they called “dad” was deeply appreciated. 

    “I wish he were here to see it,” said his son Brian. “He was just dad to me. I have an opportunity to keep his legacy going, and that’s kind of our intentions.” 

    He noted that while Judge Harris was deeply involved in his community and was the kind of person who would go out of his way to help someone, it never took away from his role as a father.  

    “A lot of the people he worked with are no longer children. But some of them have children now,” Brian said. “I hope that in that legacy, their children understand that this was someone in the community who did a lot for you and made a big impact.”

    Should the bill pass, the courthouse would be the third in the state to be named after a Black legal professional, the others being the Roderick L. Ireland Courthouse in Springfield and the Edward W. Brooke Courthouse in Boston.

    “The Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association is considering what we can do as an organization to contribute to supporting that goal,” said Theresa Wilson, president-elect of the association, which is dedicated to fostering inclusivity and equity within the legal field.

    “I remember sitting in meetings with Judge Harris where he was frustrated at the lack of Black men in the juvenile court,” Wilson said. “Juvenile court is often full of little Black boys coming before judges who are making decisions about their lives.”

    As of 2021, nearly 88 percent of lawyers in Massachusetts identified as white, according to census data from the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, while young people of color made up around 60 percent of juvenile arraignments, 80 percent of pretrial detentions, and 84 percent of commitments to the Department of Youth Services, according to the Massachusetts Coalition for Juvenile Justice Reform.

    Wilson said it is essential for young people to be able to see and recognize themselves in a court system that is often “one monolithic appearance,” something Judge Harris advocated for through his work with the MBLA.

    He was the co-chair of the MBLA Judicial Academy, where he worked with his community network and co-chair Joseph Feaster to create an advisory team that supports those interested in becoming members of the judiciary.

    “We just had our second graduation for our Judicial Academy [Feb.12] for Black History Month, and we have decided to rename the Judicial Academy in honor of Judge Harris,” Wilson said. “It’s now called the MBLA Honorable Leslie E. Harris Judicial Academy.”

    In the legal profession, having a mix of people from different perspectives only makes the work done stronger, said Rodline Louijeune, president of the Boston College Law School Black Alumni Network.

    “If you asked Judge Harris if he thought he would have been a judge when he was in South Side, Chicago, he probably would have said ‘Absolutely not,’” Louijeune said. “I don’t think this time last year I would have thought that Judge Harris would only be a memory now.”

    Leslie E. Harris was a founding member of BC Law’s Black Alumni Network in 1985, when he and a few other students were looking for a way to stay in touch after graduation. BC BAN celebrated its 40th anniversary last year and works to keep alumni engaged and connected while supporting current students on their journeys to become attorneys, which, Louijeune said, is part of Harris’s legacy. 

    “As more of our icons become legacies … it’s important to remember that there’s foundational work that’s been done,” she said. “Having this physical representation of Judge Harris would be, and will be, important and foundational in ensuring that his memory lives on.”

    The House and Senate are currently resolving differences in the bill.

    “My father loved Roxbury, he loved Dorchester, he loved giving people an opportunity, and he loved connecting with people,” Brian Harris said. “We don’t want his legacy to fade away, so that’s why this is important. We hope that everybody who has been moved or motivated by him will share his legacy moving forward.”

  • City tells aggrieved resident that it will address intersection safety in Codman Sq.

    Dean Toulan and city officials take the measure of things at the intersection of Washington and Armandine streets on March 11. Karyna Cheung photo

    Dean Toulan hit the new crosswalk button at Armandine and Washington streets that was installed by the city in the Codman Square neighborhood a few weeks ago and waited for the signal to change.

    The crosswalk has special meaning for Toulan, a resident of Armandine Street, who months ago sent a message to city government about his concerns for pedestrian safety after he was nearly hit by a driver trying to run a red light at the corner in November. The fact that there was no button on one side of the crossing was one safety issue that Toulan cited in a series of emails to city officials.

    Toulan spoke to The Dorchester Reporter in February about the lack of pedestrian infrastructure along the Washington Street corridor, which is used as a thoroughfare by students, parents and children at TechBoston Academy, the Dorchester YMCA, Roberts Playground and Ashmont Nursery School, where a driver alleged to have had an invalid license, a loaded gun, and drugs in his vehicle crashed into the side of the building in January. 

    Days after The Reporter published the article on pedestrian safety, including Toulan’s complaints, a city neighborhood liaison contacted the newspaper to connect with him. Now, the city has proposed fixing the issues he raised over time, beginning with minor tweaks and escalating toward major changes.

    “I think a lot of people don’t know where to start, or they feel overwhelmed, and even if you get to a certain point, what if you don’t send the invite?” Toulan said. “What if that doesn’t happen because I didn’t push?”

    Members of the Office of Neighborhood Services and other city officials, including City Councilor Brian Worrell, joined Toulan for a site walk on March 11 to examine intersections along the corridor and determine what to do.

    They suggested the work would begin with simple improvements, such as repainting crosswalks and installing new signage if needed. More significant improvements, such as traffic signaling changes, would need to involve multiple city departments. Major changes — curb bump-outs, new traffic islands on the road — would come last.

    Toulan said he is optimistic that the city is willing to move forward on the project, but it took months of emails and receiving minimal responses before there was any significant movement. Following the article and the city’s initial contact with him, Toulan emailed multiple times before finally inviting officials to a site walk.

    The Office of Neighborhood Services did not respond to The Reporter’s repeated requests for an interview. Toulan has yet to receive a formal message about what the government will do next, but he hopes the city will act quickly — not for his sake, but for the elderly and young children who use the crosswalks daily to get from one place to the next.

    “It’s about safety and making an ideal environment for that volume of foot traffic,” Toulan said.  “Why not just do it all right, once? Why do it halfway? And I think that this is an area that deserves a lot more than halfway, because we’re not even getting that.”

    •••

    A walk along Washington Street; a near miss at Armandine

    The first thing Dean Toulan points out are two spots on the road flanking Armandine Street. There used to be pylons to discourage drivers from cutting too close to the sidewalks.“It’s actually better that they’re not there anymore,” he said. “They’re just going to get run over again.”

    What hasn’t been replaced and should be, Toulan said, are the words painted in white that are meant to alert drivers: “20 MPH SLOW ZONE.” The paint on the road was not redone after Armandine Street was uprooted to install a natural gas line. That project also stripped the crosswalk of half of its paint.

    Toulan gestures to a bus stop that two cars are using as parking spaces. The stop, which services the students and elderly in the area who take the No. 26 bus, is marked by a weathered wooden bench. There is no bus shelter. As we wait for the crosswalk light to change, one of the cars pulls out of the stop and drives away. Less than 30 seconds later, another car takes its place. 

    Toulan said that the bus has to stop in the middle of the road to pick up passengers. There is nowhere else for it to go.
    He continues one block down Washington Street, stopping in front of the Ashmont Nursery School at the Ashmont Street intersection. There are plywood boards covering the side where a driver ran through the building in January.

    As we make our way back to Washington and Armandine, Toulan is talking about a bus stop that was never replaced when he breaks off mid-sentence and lunges toward the crosswalk, grabbing the shoulder of a boy on a scooter and stopping him from riding into the path of a red sedan making a curving turn onto Armandine, barely stopping.

    The boy’s mother, another kid beside her and one more in a stroller, catches up to her son. Toulan waved off her thanks and the family continued on through the intersection. He sighed, shook his head, and spots one of his neighbors and waves, pointing at the traffic.

    They laugh about it. It’s just another day.

    This story is part of a partnership between the Dorchester Reporter and the Boston University Department of Journalism.