McKinney Park

At McKinney Park (74 Faneuil St), a bustling expanse of playgrounds, basketball courts and wide soccer fields, young children gather on the field for soccer practice while teens bump arms in a basketball court. Elderly neighbors and young families walk through the entrance from surrounding homes that line the park. 

The city has been planning renovations to McKinney Park since 2016. Pam Mullaney, co-founder and treasurer of the Friends of McKinney Park, said she and her neighbor, Michael Bianchi, decided to start the group after the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the City’s plans.

Mullaney said she saw firsthand, working for Councilor Breadon with the Friends of Chandler Pond, how much of a difference neighborhood advocacy groups can make. 

“When a group of neighbors becomes organized and advocates for a park, it makes a huge difference,” Mullaney said. “It can help the neighborhood and the Boston Parks and Recreation Department by having one organized point of contact when some tough decisions are approached.”

McKinney Park’s renovations are expected to conclude in 2027 and will include splash pads, better park lights and natural turf fields.

One of the most contentious issues, Mullaney said, is whether the new renovations should include artificial turf. It might mitigate the park’s existing drainage issues and extend sports seasons. On the other hand, neighbors worry about the plastic’s impact on health and heat conduction, especially during hot days. McGuirk and Mullaney point out that the hot rubber would be unbearable to step on in Boston’s heat. 

According to the National Library of Medicine, the bits of rubber cushioning artificial turf may contain hazardous chemicals classified as carcinogens, neurotoxicants and endocrine disruptors; however, there are not enough studies showing how they actually impact people’s health.

Mullaney and Bianchi started the friends group to give their neighbors a place to voice their opinions.

“We’re expecting great things in the park,” Mullaney said. “Just more opportunities as the neighborhood continues to be more diverse.”

Patricia McGuirk, who is on the board of the Friends of McKinney Park, has lived on Goodenough Street, one of the streets lining McKinney Park, her entire life. She said that the park is a great neighborhood resource, especially for families who don’t drive.

“I wish we had more trees, more open space, more places for kids to just be kids,” McGuirk said.

McGuirk described how she took her kids to baseball practice at McKinney Park when they were young. Now, she takes her grandkids to the playground. 

Established in 1930, McKinney Park has had a long-standing presence in the Allston-Brighton neighborhood. 

In the 19th century, the area that is now McKinney Park was mainly open fields but contained a few houses near the side of Faneuil Street. 

In the 19th century, the area that is now McKinney Park was mainly open farmland but contained a few houses near the side of Faneuil Street. The infamous Winship family made Brighton, at the time, the epicenter of cattle trade and a significant horticultural hub in New England. 

Nearby, on much of the land from the corner of Market and North Beacon Street to the river, there were the Winship Gardens. These nursery gardens were a regional attraction. People would come from far and wide using the Boston and Worcester Railroad to see them.  

In 1937, after McKinney Park was eventually created, a group of 50 children held a demonstration to protest the stalled completion of the park’s field house, where officials had yet to install showers or other accommodations. 

Charles River Community Garden

The Charles River Community Garden (1450 Soldiers Field Road) is sandwiched between the narrow, western side of the Charles River and the busy Soldiers Field Road speedway, where cars zoom past. Runners and bikers speed down a trail towards the Charles River Park. When we meet her on a sunny April afternoon, Susan Bellows, a Charles River Community Garden council member, jokes that if you close your eyes, it almost sounds like you’re on the beach.

It’s a sunny April afternoon, and Bellows treads lightly along the garden’s woodchip paths, identifying the few small green roots that have sprouted up so far: carrots, onions and strawberries. 

The garden is quite bare around this time of year — it’s too early for growing. Each plot is separated with wood planks, and one has a batch of yellow daffodils that add a pop of color. 

In the summer, the garden turns into an all-you-can-eat buffet for voles, rabbits, birds and squirrels, and some gardeners already have built makeshift fences — even entire cages — to keep the critters out. 

Bellows, who has been involved with the garden for over 30 years, has endless stories about animal mischief — like the time her husband and son went to the garden late one night and turned on their flashlights only to find a colony of rabbits in the garden.

Bellows said when planting starts in the summer, zucchinis, tomatoes and unusual varieties of squash fill the garden.

“It’s a very international group of gardeners of all ages who bring their gardening techniques and plant preferences and knowledge,” Bellows said.

The 240-square-foot garden houses around 75 plots and over 100 gardeners. Anyone interested can sign up on the Charles River Community Garden website, where they’ll be placed on a waitlist. There is a 30-dollar annual fee, and members must volunteer two days a year laying down fresh chips, clearing out weeds and trimming roots or trees.

Sometimes people will abandon their gardens, Bellows said, and at that point, Henry Shapiro, the Charles River Community Garden coordinator, will pull people from the waiting list. 

With funding from the Massachusetts Department of Food and Agriculture’s community garden program, Hensler and 20 friends started the garden in 1979 after she could not find an available plot at Herter Garden in Herter Park, according to the Charles River Community Garden. 

As a board member, Bellows manages shipments to the garden, organizes work activities and supports gardeners when they have disagreements or complaints. She joined the Charles River garden after moving to Cambridge from Los Angeles. 

“I realized how nice it was when you live in a city and feel like you could still go out and be in a garden and be part of a community,” Bellows said. “

Chandler Pond 

Lake Street bleeds into Lake Shore Road as Chandler’s Pond (Lake Shore Road) comes into view and an array of trees frame the water as it ripples in the breeze. Geese float in the pond amidst the peaceful silence.

Neighbors of the pond walk along the curved path in the adjoining Alice E. Gallagher Park. There is a mix of light chatter and a rhythmic tapping of dog paws. 

Residents fish along the edge of the water, patiently waiting for a catch. On a patch of grass, two people lounge across a blanket, eagerly sketching the scenery before them.  

During the New England winters, the pond completely freezes over. In the 19th century, it acted as a fruitful source of ice for residents before the invention of refrigeration and electricity. 

Local horticulturist and entrepreneur William C. Strong excavated Chandler’s Pond in 1855, establishing an ice-harvesting business. In 1858, he sold the pond and its adjacent ice house to ice merchant Malcolm Chandler. 

He created Strong’s Pond, which is largely gone now, to the west of Chandler’s Pond seven years later. With the introduction of refrigeration, the two owners engaged in fierce competition over the ice business until they eventually sold off their properties to respective buyers. 

After a trail of different owners, developer George W. Robertson acquired Chandler’s Pond in 1925 and subdivided the area into lots for residential development. The City of Boston then obtained the pond in the late 1930s and, under the persuasion of then-City Councilor Maurice Sullivan, created the Alice Gallagher Memorial Park on the southwestern rim of the pond in honor of the local activist.  

“It’s kind of unique,” Charlie Vasiliades, the vice president of the Brighton Allston Historical Society (BAHC), said. He explained that many of the ponds in the metro Boston area were later filled in. 

It is “the last survivor of nearly twenty ponds, which once dotted Allston-Brighton,” according to the BAHC website. 

Concerned for the pond’s run-down state, Genevieve Ferullo and fellow Brighton residents founded the Chandler Pond Preservation Society in 1996. 

In a 1998 interview between the BAHC and members of the Chandler Pond Preservation Society, neighbors recall how clean the pond was during the ‘40s and ‘50s, when most of the Chandler Pond residents first moved to the area.

“In the spring, I remember, you could go around and see the turtles,” Alan Morgenroth said. “It was nice and clear, you could see all the flora down the bottom.”

Some neighbors describe the pond shrinking, overgrown reeds along Kenrick Street and yellow algae growing on the water’s surface. 

In 1998, the Boston Parks Department and Chandler Pond Preservation Society collaborated with Harvard University and the City of Boston’s Urban Wilds Program on a dredging project, according to the Friends of Chandler Pond website. The project removed the pond’s surface sediment and planted wetland species along its shoreline to protect wildlife. 

The organization was renamed to Friends of Chandler Pond in 2019, according to the Friends of Chandler Pond website. 

Now maintaining the pond for over 30 years, the non-profit organization collaborates with the City of Boston to advocate for the pond’s preservation. 

The organization also collaborated with Crawford Land Management to develop a vegetation management plan in 2020, according to the City of Boston’s Chandler Pond improvements master plan, but has not yet been implemented.

Volunteers regularly hand-harvest invasive species in the water and fundraise for geese mitigation efforts.

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

Correction, April 12: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Susan Bellows was a board member of the Charles River Community Garden. She is a council member of the Charles River Community Garden.