Gentrified Area Shooting Brings Focus to the ‘Hood

If you’re an astute reader of the postings here you’ll know that Bostonist packed up our things and moved to the other side of the tracks back in September. After a good bit of time living in Egleston Square our landlord decided to sell our triple-decker apartment building as affordable condos. They were priced affordably by Boston standards, not, unfortunately, by Bostonist standards. While living there we told our mother we were living in Jamaica Plain, we told her to address letters there but make sure to use the zip code 02119. We knew, as the USPS knew, 02119 really meant Roxbury. Before we left our little neighborhood with Dominican flavor we were sitting out on our neighbor’s deck enjoying a nice summer BBQ one evening, just as dusk was turning to night. We heard some gun shots. A 14 year old and 17 year old had been non-fatally shot, one was the target the other was apparently recipient of stray retaliation fire. Incidents like this didn't prompt our departure, rather it was the 1-hour commute and the notice of impending sale.

We were not surprised this morning when the front page of the Boston Globe circled our former neighborhood and labeled it a ‘Hot Spot’ on their crime stat graphic. Three areas got the red-circle treatment, becoming this fall's usual suspects: Egleston Square in Roxbury, just across Melnea Cass from Dudley Station on Washington near Lenox Street in Back Bay/Roxbury, and the Blue Hill and Walk Hill Avenues in Mattapan. (The usual suspects happen to be, in Bostonist's humble opinion, home to some of the best murals in the City of Boston-even the repainted Egleston Sq. mural is good.) The number of murders and other incidents of gun violence is up this year across Boston, even as the city marches along the path to gentrification. And gentrification is at the heart of the Boston Globe article, quotes from executive director of the Washington Gateway Main Street Inc. above the fold highlight the problem of gun violence as it effects sushi eaters and hip diners…not the impoverished neighborhoods where it’s been said journalists don’t want to live or report. Of course taking guns and people with a propensity for violence off the street will help reduce the crime rate. Tools like community policing are effective in areas (in fact, when we were in Egleston the only BPD we saw on the street was the crossing guard every morning as we crossed Washington on the way to Stony Brook) but as the Globe has editorialized in the past it’s perhaps a war on poverty that will be most effective in curbing Boston’s increase in crime.