So a few weeks back our friend Bill Forry over at the Dorchester Reporter put out this great piece about the folks who maintain the Ashmont/Mattapan trolley line. With all the anti MBTA sentiment that’s being tossed about it was a welcomed perspective. Of course I, like a lot of …
The cars were lining my street, the yards were freshly groomed, and on this Dot Day the neighborhood was eerily quiet. It was the 1986 finals and the Boston Celtics held a 3-2 lead going into game six. Nobody was moving until this game was decided and Larry …
There is something special about my section of the neighborhood. Just like Martin, the Ashmont/Adams area is the place I grew up in…just two blocks from where Martin played with his friends just a couple of days ago. I’m not going to go at length about the Richard family. In my opinion not one of these national media outlets is going to do the family justice quite like the Forry family and the Dorchester Reporter. They understand the dynamics of this community like no other and nobody tells our stories better.
I’m writing this based on my gut and the range of emotions that kept me awake until 4 this morning. All I keep thinking of is this young kid. This kid that heard the same sounds, walked the same sidewalks and played in the same parks. I’m assuming he knew what it was like to walk out of his door in the morning and look at all the majestic homes of our neighborhood. Perhaps the sounds of trains at Ashmont station in the distance gave him the same sense of home that it gives me to this day. Did he know he was playing street hockey around the corner from where JFK used to visit his grandparents house? On any given day could he hear the MacMaster family practicing the bagpipes? Did he love walking down to Peobody Square to watch the Dorchester Day parade?
In 8 years, I was already in love with all of this, I was already in love with Dorchester. Deep in my heart I know Martin felt the same.
Our nation is watching us right now. Most of them don’t understand just how deeply we adore this neighborhood of ours or how fiercely loyal we are to one another. Boston didn’t get its reputation from Beacon Hill. That reputation was born in our streets.
Martin was a Dot Rat.
It’s up to us to show the world exactly what that means.
Check out this video project by a Harvard student….have you ever given a stroll down Dot Ave this much thought? Usually if I’m walking down the Ave…I’m only thinking of making last call…. People need to RELAX!!! ; ) (looks like the video went private…why?) …
I know…some of the most beautiful houses in Dorchester. This is what it looked like in 1889….when the Carruth family owned pretty much the entire patch of land from Carruth street down to Adams street. When you’re the director of the Old Colony Railroad, Dorchester Gaslight Company, Co-Founder and Director of Cedar Grove Cemetery and a director of the Mattapan Bank…you can be as gangster as you wanna be. That is 24 and 30 Beaumont Street….at the time this street served as their driveway.
30 Beaumont Street is actually a bed and breakfast these days…. Here is their site.
Wanna get out of Savin Hill for the weekend? Take your lover to Ashmont for the weekend!! 😉
Let me start by saying I am truly a burger aficionado. As a kid my buddies referred to me as Wimpy because I ate burgers constantly. Now that I’m older, I’m lucky if I have 2 a month because I keep an eye on what …
