Local businesses, organizations, food vendors and musicians assembled on Jamaica Plain’s Centre Street last week in celebration of Boston’s last Open Street festival of the season.
The city closed Centre Street from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. between Jackson Square and Soldier’s Monument, according to Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s office.
The Open Street program began with three neighborhoods in 2022, six years after Open Newbury in 2016, the region’s first neighborhood event. This year’s series began in July with events in Roxbury, followed by Hyde Park, Dorchester and Mattapan before concluding in Jamaica Plain.
In all, the Open Streets event has attracted more than 30,000 people to various neighborhoods, according to Ginger Brown, executive director of JP Centre/South Main Streets.
Franklin Park Defenders, a community action group, used the street festival to raise awareness about its opposition to the city’s proposed sports complex at White Stadium.
“These are the opportunities we have to meet people [and] talk to people,” said Melissa Hamel, a volunteer with the Franklin Park Defenders, an organization that lobbies city officials to restore White Stadium as a public space, rather than proceed with a for-profit establishment.
Michelle Davis, a Franklin Park Defenders volunteer who grew up in the area, said the city neglects Franklin Park because it is surrounded by minority communities.
Organizers divided the festival into three zones separated by intersections, which allowed traffic to pass through. Zone 1 stretched from Jackson Square to Moraine/Boylston Street, Zone 2 extended to Green Street, and Zone 3 concluded at Soldier’s Monument, according to a map provided by the city.
The Stop & Shop near the Jackson Square MBTA station offered free fruit, water and granola bars.
“We’re doing everything we can,” said Cindy Sailer, the store’s community relations specialist, responding to recent cuts to the federal food stamp program.
Brown said Open Streets enriches Jamaica Plain’s community spirit, along with year-round events such as dance classes, farmers markets and other community events. According to Niche, a website that profiles neighborhoods and schools, Jamaica Plain is the third best neighborhood to raise a family in Boston.
Northeastern graduate students Krithika Krishnamurkhy and Tanvi Kandalla are new members of the Jamaica Plain community who visited Open Street for the first time last week. They said it helped acclimate them to the neighborhood.
“It was nice to go and sort of interact with a bunch of people who live here and meet them,” said Kandalla, who bought chicken wings from Cambridge Smoke, which, according to Instagram @cambridgesmoke, specializes in smoked meats, barbecue, Southern and Haitian cuisines.
Replenish Scrubs owner Shaneen Harris offered visitors samples of organic body scrubs. Harris began creating the products in 2018. Her products include lavender vanilla, peppermint tea tree and sweet orange lemon scents, according to @replenish_scrubs on Instagram.
“You create a buzz,” said Harris, describing Open Streets’ benefit to businesses.
Families were able to use sidewalk chalk, take swings in batting nets set up by the Boston Red Sox, and participate in live painting classes combined with music from At Peace Arts.
Brown said the Open Street event served its purpose by bringing people together.
“What tends to happen is we isolate ourselves to the neighborhood we live in,” she said, “so if folks walk a bit further, they could discover something new.”
Lisa Murphy’s house on Moultrie Street sits on land once cultivated by descendants of Dorchester’s first English settlers. Though she has lived there since 1998, Murphy didn’t learn this until 2023, when she asked the Dorchester Historical Society (DHS) for help.
The society’s House History Research program provides Dorchester and Mattapan residents with comprehensive reports of their home’s histories. Some accounts date back to the colonial and federalist era, but more often they include details about the architect, builder and owners in much later times.
Since 2020, nearly 600 house histories have been recorded.
Run entirely by volunteers, the society collects, preserves and circulates historical facts about Dorchester. The House History team, which includes Earl Taylor, Marti Glynn, Vicki Rugo, Kayla Skillin, and Kit Binns, was formally recognized on Oct. 21, with a Stewardship Award at the Boston Preservation Alliance’s 37th Annual Preservation Achievement presentation at Artists for Humanity in South Boston.
The citation recognizes a preservation initiative without a definite end.
“This really stands out, because unless you share the history of all, you only learn the history of some,” said the non-profit alliance’s deputy director, Matthew Dickey. “It just shows how much of a melting pot Dorchester is and continues to be, and it’s really cool to be rooted in the history that surrounds you.”
Winners are selected based on the project’s quality of execution, creativity, innovation, and public impact, among other factors. Past awardees have included WGBH’s “The Big Dig” podcast, Joseph Bagley’s book “Boston’s Oldest Buildings and Where to Find Them,” and The History Project’s “Stonewall 50” walking tour.
Dickey says he encourages a variety of projects to apply, including those from the Dorchester Historical Society, where he sits on the board of directors — though he says he is not part of the awards selection committee or process.
“We’ve learned a lot just about Dorchester’s history in general, and we’ve shared what we can,” said Earl Taylor, the historical society’s president. “To be recognized for that effort … it’s just great.”
Lisa Murphy had been searching in the Boston Public Library’s archives for the architectural plans of her house. For a $75 fee, the historical society analyzed tax records, building permits, marriage records, and census data to produce a 20-page report, dating back to the home’s construction in 1898.
“We were very curious,” Murphy said. “This part of town has so much interesting history.”
A plaque near the front door signifies it meets the historical society’s criteria for a “historic” home. The off-white oval marker includes the year of construction and the builder’s name, John N. Chute, in black lettering. Homeowners must apply separately for the house marker.
Blocks away, Edward Cook has a similar plaque that lists a construction year of 1897 and architect John A. Block. Cook, a former board member of the society, was an “early adopter” of the house histories project in 2020. He says that while there wasn’t anything particularly captivating about his home’s history, it was nice to have the information.
“It gives a sense of inclusion in the neighborhood, of rootedness and continuity in the house,” Cook said. “[Volunteers] have spent hours of their time and become incredible researchers, even though this wasn’t in their backgrounds. It’s an amazing resource for the community.”
The awards ceremony is the Preservation Alliance’s largest fundraising event of the year, Dickey said, though what defines the event is its film project. Dickey interviewed 45 people among this year’s winners to create short films about each project, the people who completed it, and its associated history. For those who can’t attend in person, Dickey says the films will be available online by mid-November.
Other honorees include the Twelfth Baptist Church, the Curley Community Center, The Pryde independent living apartments, Harvard Medical School’s Francis Countway Library of Medicine, renovations to City Hall, and Copp’s Hill Burying Ground’s gravestone conservation.
“We’re from all walks of life, but what ties us together is the curiosity to look at a topic and try to figure out all the aspects of it,” Taylor said. “Most houses may not have extraordinary events or people connected to them, but they are part of history, and they tell the story of what people were doing at any particular time.”
For more information on the DHS House History program, go here.
This story is part of a partnership between the Dorchester Reporter and the Boston University Department of Journalism.
This article was originally published on October 23, 2025.
Boston’s bike share system is expanding throughout Dorchester, Mattapan, Roxbury and Jamaica Plain, with 20 new Bluebikes stations to be installed in those neighborhoods. City officials hosted an open house on Oct. 1 at the Marshall Community Center, where residents reviewed proposed site maps and offered feedback on potential station sites (see map below for specific locations).
Here’s a look at the details of the initiative.
What is Bluebikes, and how does it work?
Bluebikes is a publicly owned bike share system that lets anyone rent bikes from docking stations. The system operates in 13 municipalities and has 337 stations in Boston.
Payment plans include 30-minute rides for $2.95, $10 day passes, monthly and annual memberships. Passes and memberships can be bought on the Bluebikes app and website, or at a station kiosk.
Boston saw 2.6 million Bluebikes trips in 2024, 11 percent of which started in Dorchester, Mattapan, Roxbury, and Jamaica Plain.
What is the Bluebikes expansion plan?
Last year, Mayor Wu and the Boston Streets Cabinet — consisting of the Public Works and Transportation departments — announced plans to add 100 new Bluebikes stations throughout Boston’s neighborhoods to meet a rising demand.
This is all part of Go Boston 2030, the city’s transportation plan to improve safety, expand access, and reduce emissions. Launched in 2017, the project’s initiatives have included extending MBTA service hours, building neighborhood “slow streets,” and ensuring each household in Boston is within a 10-minute walk of a public bike share station. About 89 percent of households meet that criteria, according to the Streets Cabinet.
“The objective is to make it convenient and reliable for people to get around the city by bike,” said Boston Bikes Director Kim Foltz. “Biking is a sustainable and affordable form of transportation and is a good connection to other transit.”
What has already been done?
The expansion has been implemented in phases, beginning with the MBTA Red Line diversion in 2023. The first phase involved the addition of eight new bike stations in Dorchester and Mattapan, and 31 docks were added to existing stations.
Since last year, the city has received more than 2,600 comments offering feedback on proposed bike station sites, compiled from open houses, emails, and survey responses. So far, nearly 80 of the 100 new stations have been installed across the Beacon Hill, Downtown, South Boston and Allston neighborhoods, to name a few.
Where is the project now?
The initiative is in its fourth phase, focused on adding 20 new Bluebikes stations throughout Dorchester, Mattapan, Roxbury and Jamaica Plain. The Streets Cabinet aims to install two to four stations in Dorchester, two to four in Jamaica Plain, two to five in Mattapan, and four to seven in Roxbury.
Boston Bike Share Planner Louisa Gag said proposed sites were chosen for their visibility, clearance of utilities, and potential accessibility for a Bluebikes service van. Gag said it is a priority to put docking sites within half a mile of an MBTA station.
Other requirements include access to at least four hours of sunlight each day, to charge the sun-powered docking computers, and ensuring sites leave at least 5 feet of sidewalk space for pedestrians and 1.5 feet of clearance from the street curb. Off-street sites were favored overall, as they don’t disturb parking and don’t need to be removed for snowplows in the winter.
Sites may be installed on public or private property, which can include plazas, residential neighborhoods, sidewalks, parking lanes, and libraries.
Residents are invited to attend open houses where they can review maps of potential docking locations, offer feedback and ask questions. There will be two events in Mattapan this month, on Oct. 28 at the Mattapan Library and on Oct. 30 via Zoom.
Feedback forms will be offered in person at each open house or can be accessed on the city website until Oct. 31.
What is the timeline for the project?
The Streets Cabinet will accept suggestions for new bike stations until Oct. 31. They will be reviewed and considered over four weeks. Site lists will be narrowed, and permits will be filed. Installation is expected to begin in January.
What other programs does Boston Bikes offer?
Boston Bikes offers community workshops like adult bike lessons, youth biking programs, and community ride events. Cyclists can arrange to have their bikes repaired at no cost or learn how to fix them independently during community workshop events.
Discounted bike passes and e-bikes are available for residents, new riders and those who are income-eligible.
This story is part of a partnership between the Dorchester Reporter and the Boston University Department of Journalism.
This article was originally published on October 17, 2025.
Nazir Ali, the founder of Ali’s Roti, inside his Blue Hill Avenue restaurant. A native of Trinidad and Tobago. He married into a Dot family and “followed love” to his current home. Sarah Khafif photo
Ali’s Roti Restaurant has been serving Indian-Caribbean dishes in Mattapan for 35 years while Boulevard Cleaners has been providing laundry services in the neighborhood for 60 years.
Now the two businesses, each started and run by immigrants, are among 30 honored this year with Boston Legacy Business Awards that Mayor Wu announced in late May. They were presented on Tuesday evening (June 3) at a reception in partnership with The Dorchester Reporter.
In addition to plaques that they can hang in their shops, the businesses will receive technical assistance with focuses on succession planning and employee ownership as well as free legal consultation and advice for dealing with commercial leases.
ALI’s ROTI
Standing and greeting almost every customer who comes into his restaurant, Nazir Ali, the owner and founder of Ali’s Roti, has worked for more than three decades to make his dream come to life.
He migrated from Trinidad and Tobago after living there with his wife, who was born and raised in Dorchester and wanted to return home, and children for a couple of years.
“I followed love,” said Ali, who arrived in the United States with almost nothing. Back home, he had worked as a painting contractor, but when he converted his earnings to US dollars, it amounted to very little.
“I’ve never worked so hard for so little in my life,” said Ali, remembering those early days.
Initially, he planned to move to Florida and start a taxi business there, but his wife insisted on Boston. Although he had been a painting contractor for over 20 years in Trinidad and Tobago, that business thrived on networking, he said. Because he didn’t know anybody in Boston, he said, he pivoted to his second idea: a restaurant.
Ali’s Roti began with him, his wife, and his in-laws, and with his children helping on weekends and during summers while they were growing up.
Although none of his current employees are immediate family now, he says they are all “like children, brothers and sisters.” Some have been working there for more than 25 years.
The restaurant’s signature dish, roti, is an Indian-Caribbean flatbread filled with different curry fillings such as curry potato, chicken, shrimp, and vegetables. The menu also includes chicken curry, beef curry, goat curry, and steamed cabbage.
“I have a policy that I implemented: If a customer is wrong, we make them right,” he said. “If it costs us a meal, we’ll take the loss. We don’t want to lose a customer.”
City Councillor Brian Worrell says he often eats there with his colleagues, craving not only the rotis but also the restaurant’s ambience.
“It’s like a reunion, like you’re running into family, friends from school, people from work,” he said. “It’s just a special place.” From their seats in the restaurant’s red booths, diners have a direct view into the kitchen where they can watch the cooks make the rotis.
Winning a Legacy Business award feels unnatural, Ali said. “I was an award giver,” he said, not the other way around, referring to the various times the restaurant has donated awards for church, clubs and carnivals in the neighborhood.
His restaurant means everything to him, said Ali. “I do get emotional when I talk about it.”
BOULEVARD CLEANERS
Above, Peter Papadogiannis, co-owner of Boulevard Cleaners, is shown in the Blue Hill Avenue business last month. “I look at them as family,” he says of his longtime customers. Hannah Roderick photo
Brothers Peter and Dimitrios Papadogiannis are the essence of Boulevard Cleaners & Tailors, a laundry service that has served customers from all over Massachusetts since the 1960s.
“I look at them as family,” said Peter, the owner. “We love everybody here,” said Dimitrios, Peter’s right hand man.
The moment you step inside Boulevard Cleaners, your eyes fix on a wall filled with photos that tell of the family’s odyssey to Mattapan. They start with scenic landscapes of Greece, including Athens, Santorini, and Ioannina, and end with images of the Boston skyline.
The brothers’ late uncle opened Boulevard Cleaners after migrating from Greece during the political turmoil of the 1960s, seeking a better life in America. The brothers and their mother followed in 1977, and their father joined them two years later.
When they first arrived, Dimitrios, who was 19, worked at a bakery in the Fenway to help pay the bills, while Peter, then 14, attended high school. After graduation, Peter started working in the laundry business with his uncle. Dimitrios joined later – he had opened his own business, but shut it down after the 9/11 attacks.
Together, they’ve continued their uncle’s legacy, which has earned them a Legacy Business Award.
“It’s an honor,” Dimitrios said. “It’s not just for us. The award is for everybody.”
Peter said he has avoided the temptation to raise prices in difficult times because he wants to keep his customers. “I’d rather work a little harder instead of raising my prices.”
Some customers keep bringing their laundry to Boulevard even after moving out of town, the brothers said. Customers come from as far as Brockton, Framingham, and Martha’s Vineyard, they said.
The brothers’ fun-filled ways and easygoing personalities have helped build long-lasting relationships with customers. “We joke all the time,” Peter said.
That’s especially true on April Fool’s Day, when they have made a habit of pulling pranks on customers. This year, they said, a customer pulled up early in the morning and parked next to the curb. He stepped in to pick up his clothes and was faced with worrisome looks.
“Did you notice you have a flat tire on the rear?” Peter recalled telling him. The customer turned around to check out his car and was greeted by laughter from behind the counter.
The trolley rumbles up to the Ashmont/Peabody Square platform on a shallow incline before it creaks and rattles to a stop at the eastern terminal of the Mattapan Line. The doors open squeakily to let out a stream of passengers.
New riders heading toward Mattapan take their place. The car shudders into movement and screeches slowly around the looped track, descending swiftly onto its route again.
State Rep. Brandy Fluker-Reid, who represents parts of Dorchester, Mattapan, and the town of Milton, said the Mattapan Hi-Speed Line, which runs on a 2.6-mile loop through those neighborhoods, is like a “roller coaster.” She wasn’t the only one with that thought in mind.
“I’ve never been a fan of it. It just looks outdated,” said Chichi Hernandez, an employee at Sweet Life Bakery and Cafe in Lower Mills. She used to commute on the trolley 10 years ago from Ashmont to the Milton Station stop. Today, she drives. “It makes me a little nervous.”
The Mattapan Line is the last MBTA rapid transit line still using Presidents’ Conference Committee streetcars, which were introduced in the city in 1937. The last of these vehicles on the Green Line were retired in 1985, but the Mattapan trolleys have been running continuously for more than 80 years and are the oldest PCC cars still in service in the country.
The MBTA laid out significant changes planned for the Mattapan Line in March 2018, starting with a refurbishment of the remaining serviceable PCC cars. Alongside these developments, the T introduced proposals in 2019 to bring the line’s eight stations up to ADA standards and revamp infrastructure while laying the groundwork to bring Type 9 light rail cars currently used on the Green Line to the Mattapan Line within the next 8 to 10 years.
Most recently, in March 2024, engineers were seeking permits to drill “exploratory borings” along the tracks to prepare the transition to Type 9 cars, which require less maintenance and can transport 212 passengers per car (PCCs can carry up to 130 riders). A year later, those Type 9s are nowhere in sight.
The project is in its eighth year this month. Only two of the nine PCC cars have been redone, far behind schedule.
Legislators, including Fluker-Reid and state Sen. Bill Driscoll, and some of their constituents are frustrated with how long plans are taking, coupled with a seeming lack of explanation from the T.
“It’s clearly not a priority for the MBTA. That is evident in the fact that […] we don’t know what’s going on,” Driscoll said. “If workers were actually being posted and tasked with doing the work, I have a hard time believing that it would take this long.”
The MBTA invested $127 million into refurbishments and the transformation combined, a total that has not changed since 2018. With potential changes in funding availability and the consistent project delays, Driscoll wondered whether the ongoing projects will cost hundreds of millions of dollars or if the money still exists.
“It’s a real concern because of how long these delays are continuing. That money could go elsewhere or evaporate.” Driscoll said. “I think the T really needs to be the one to answer that question.”
When plans were first announced, the MBTA aimed to complete refurbishments on its current trolley cars by 2020. Driscoll, whose constituency resides in Milton, said the MBTA “reset” its timeline on the project in 2022 following delays caused by the pandemic, unforeseen lead paint removal, and the complexity of the refurbishment. The first revamped trolley went into service in spring 2022, followed by a second in the summer. The T promised a new trolley every five to six months, but the remaining seven have not been updated.
“[In 2022], there were MBTA officials saying, ‘We know we need to repair the relationship here with the ridership and constituency and elected officials and that we haven’t lived up to commitments. Going forward, this is the reset,’” Driscoll said. “It has not happened.”
When Driscoll requested an update on the refurbishments after the Neponset River flooded Milton Station in February and disabled two trolleys, he did not receive an immediate response.
Within the reset, the MBTA promised quarterly updates for legislators whose constituencies live along the line and biannual public community meetings. The MBTA hosted its last public meeting on the transformation project in June 2023 and does not have another scheduled in 2025. Both Driscoll and Fluker-Reid confirmed they last met with the organization in June 2024 and have not confirmed a new meeting.
Fluker-Reid recalled that the MBTA took legislators on-site to see trolley refurbishments in action at the start of the reset, compared to the current lack of updates.
“In that meeting and that site visit, we received quality information in terms of what was happening,” she said. “It seems as though our information became less clear as the project became further behind in timeline.”
Before her time in office, Fluker-Reid said there was talk in community meetings as early as 2012 about the possibility of Type 9 light rail cars replacing the PCCs. The timeline then was also 8 to 10 years for the project. With continual delays, Fluker-Reid said, she and some of her constituents now wonder whether refurbishing the trolleys is still worth the time or money. New parts for the trolleys are difficult to obtain because of the age of the vehicles.
“The community has been of the impression that these [Type 9] lines would be here […] And even when having done the reset, they still have not met the deadlines that they articulated,” she said. “It’s really hard to build community trust and establish credibility when they say that this is the new timeline, and then they fail to meet the benchmarks of said timeline.”
Former Lower Mills resident Linda Lewi, once a regular commuter on the Mattapan trolley from the Milton Station stop, said she felt that upgrading the line was a “second thought” to the MBTA. When the T demolished the decrepit Adams Street stairwell at Milton Station in 2023 to begin making the station ADA compliant, Milton community leaders expressed long-held frustration on how little the MBTA had committed to improving the stop; they claimed the stairwell had been in disrepair for a decade and the demolition plan would only make poor conditions worse. The town had sued the MBTA the year prior on the issue.
“The MBTA clearly had absolutely no intention to do anything,” Lewi said, calling conversations at community meetings “circular.” “And nobody can ever give a good reason why it’s so slow.”
In its last community meeting – in June 2023 – on the Mattapan transformation project, the MBTA said that an accessible sloped walkway was in “early planning and design.” The old entrance to the stairwell on Adams Street remains unchanged today, with access blocked off. Passengers have to walk across the neighboring Extra Space Storage parking lot to reach the platforms from Adams Street.
Regardless of setbacks with the transformation, some riders have fond memories of the 1940s PCCs. Dorchester resident Kathy Glynn remembered hopping on the trolleys for fun or to get around the city while growing up in Jamaica Plain. She was also open to a newer system for the Mattapan Line.
“The important thing is that there’s a connectivity and that the schedule is such that it runs frequently enough,” she said, adding that there needed to be enough infrastructure at stops for passengers. “Other than that, I don’t have a problem if they change the style.”
Robert Cromwell, who is 78, has been riding the Mattapan trolley for as long as he can remember. As for getting him to his destination, he says the current cars work well enough.
“I look at the things that I can change, the things I can’t change,” he said. “If I didn’t like it, then what would be one of the reasons? Is it not going to my stop? Yeah, it goes to Mattapan Station. Is it frequent? Pretty much.”
As project delays have piled up, Fluker-Reid and Driscoll have continually questioned the T on what will happen to the Mattapan Line. Before his more recent update request, Driscoll wrote to MBTA General Manager Phillip Eng and MassDOT Secretary Monica Tibbits-Nut in February 2024, asking whether the T was committed to completing Mattapan Line-related projects, because communication had returned to “relative silence.” He said he did not get a clarifying response.
In response to the Dorchester Reporter’s request for an update, the MBTA wrote that it was “committed to delivering safe, reliable, and improved service for the public across all our modes.”
The statement continued, “We fully and deeply understand how important the Mattapan Line is to the community and have been assessing the Mattapan Transformation effort to date to determine how best to move this project forward. We thank the community for their patience in allowing us the necessary time to ensure the next public meeting will provide sufficient information that demonstrates our commitment.”
During her first term, Fluker-Reid sat on the Legislature’s Joint Transportation Committee. During an oversight hearing in 2023, she invited Eng to ride and experience the trolley to highlight the importance of the ongoing projects. Though an MBTA liaison said that Eng would be open to taking the trolley, he has not yet accepted the offer.
Fluker-Reid noted that Mattapan and Dorchester residents often feel “forgotten” by large organizations like the MBTA because of the slow, uncertain progress on projects meant to benefit predominantly Black and Brown neighborhoods.
“We all want what’s best for our community,” she said. “It’s an outdated system that is somewhat dilapidated; it does not meet the needs of modern day travel and transit; and this community deserves and needs something better.”
This story derives from a partnership between the Dorchester Reporter and the Boston University Department of Journalism.
Affordable child care and senior housing are coming to Mattapan in the very same building.
The Shattuck Child Care Center, an affordable child care center established in 1969, will have a new home on the ground floor of Brooke House, a future apartment complex for low-income older adults.
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Brooke House is part of a larger plan to redevelop land into Olmsted Village, an intergenerational neighborhood offering affordable housing and services for foster children, families, young adults and senior adults.
The plan was approved by the state in December 2021, and the team hopes to begin construction on the project, including the $90 million Brooke House initiative, early next year.
Olmsted Village represents the final phase of a long-term project to develop the last 10 acres of the former Boston State Hospital site. The concept was proposed by housing developers 2Life Communities and Lena New Boston.
“This is the last chapter of the story, which we’re really excited to be a part of,” said Zoe Weinrobe, the chief of real estate for 2Life, a nonprofit affordable housing developer and operator for older adults based in Brighton.
Shattuck was an obvious partner to 2Life when it considered incorporating affordable child care into its proposal, according to Lizabeth Heyer, 2Life’s president. She said she sent her children to Shattuck and remembered the center’s struggle to find a permanent home after the state decommissioned its original location in 2012.
Shattuck has rented space inside First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain since 2017. Mary Grace Casey, the center’s co-director, said she’s grateful for the relationship. But before Sunday services, she said, the center’s staff must cover up art projects and tuck away tables so the altar can slide back in front of the window.
Casey is excited for Shattuck to have its own space again — and even more thrilled to return to Mattapan, where the center was originally located on the campus of Lemuel Shattuck Hospital.
“There’s nothing about this that isn’t amazing, other than the fact that they haven’t dug the hole for it yet,” Casey said.
Both Shattuck and 2Life want their relationship to be more than landlord-tenant: as the building comes together, so will plans to foster a meaningful connection among the children, senior adults and wider Olmsted community.
“There’s something about children that really do bring out the best in people,” Casey said. “If you’re lonely, or if you live alone, sometimes hearing kids’ voices and laughter is a nice thing to brighten up your day.”
Casey also hopes to work with young adults at Treehouse, another proposed project within the village that will offer housing to those who are at risk of aging out of the foster care system.
“If you’re lonely, or if you live alone, sometimes hearing kids’ voices and laughter is a nice thing to brighten up your day.”
Mary Grace Casey
She sees a future where a 20-year-old living in Treehouse is an aide for her classroom, or a former librarian living in Brooke House spends time teaching the children how to read.
There’s practical benefits, too: enrollment will increase at Shattuck from 46 seats to 55 seats in the larger space. Casey hopes that will give Shattuck the flexibility to turn its pre-K classroom into a Boston universal pre-K classroom, allowing families to feed into Boston Public Schools.
Other features are on deck: the new space will have everything she’s long dreamed of, such as sinks in the classroom –– thanks to a long conversation with Mass Design Group, the project’s architect.
Most importantly, the center’s co-director is looking forward to having more socioeconomic diversity in her classrooms at its future location. She believes Shattuck, which accepts vouchers from Child Care Choices of Boston, will be an attractive, affordable option for Mattapan families.
“I believe that our program is going to meet the needs more of that community,” she said. “And we always want families with vouchers to be able to find space.”
But outreach to families must wait on development, which is still in its final phases before construction.
Weinrobe, of 2Life, said the project is anxiously awaiting its last piece of funding to come in from the state, which will allow them to go out to bid and get into the ground in early 2026.
That timeline leaves Shattuck’s leaders hopeful to move in by spring of 2028. As one of the first providers to arrive to the new community, Casey was asked by the developers if nearby construction would be problematic.
She said she immediately shut down that concern.
“I was like, are you kidding? Preschoolers and construction?” she said. “That’s all they’re going to want to see! You’ve got a curriculum right in front of us.”
This story is part of a partnership between WBUR and the Boston University Department of Journalism.
