Here’s a sneak preview of City Council President Mike Ross’s bimonthly Fenway News column, which will be in the September issue of the paper coming out this Friday, Sept. 3.
While it is known around the country for being home to our beloved Fenway Park, those of us who live in Boston know that the Fenway neighborhood is so much more. Its parks are some of the most beautiful stretches of open space in the Emerald Necklace. The neighborhood is home to cultural institutions like the Museum of Fine Arts, and world-class colleges and universities like Berklee College of Music.
But as time goes on, we’re beginning to see the emergence of what I call “two Fenways”—the East Fenway and the West Fenway.
The West Fenway—the part of the neighborhood near Fenway Park and home to young professionals, couples, and senior citizens who have lived in the area for years—has become an example of what responsible development can do for Boston. It is a neighborhood where developers work with the community on new projects to achieve a shared vision. With the positive changes started in 2002 by new Red Sox owners, the West Fenway has undergone a successful transformation. Projects like the Trilogy building, 1330 Boylston Street, and the Landmark Center have shown that development can transform neighborhoods for the better—bringing in street-level restaurants and retail. The West Fenway is also a place where “fun” is allowed and embraced—Puma City and Tasty Burger being two recent examples.
The East Fenway—across the Muddy River—is at a crossroads. When I graduated from college, I moved to a well-priced studio in the East Fenway, in one of the dozens of residential buildings in that neighborhood. This is becoming harder for young professionals today because of housing gridlock. Our colleges and universities are attracting students from around the world in record numbers. That’s the good news. But they are struggling to keep pace with the demand for on-campus housing. This forces undergraduates into off-campus apartments, drives up rents and property values, and prices recent graduates out of our city. These young people are deciding to leave Boston after graduation, taking their skills and ideas with them to other cities. As a result, Boston has lost a greater percentage of 20 to 34-year-olds than the nation as a whole in the past 20 years.
There are ways that the East Fenway can offer just as much as the West Fenway, but not without help from neighborhood institutions. At a minimum, Northeastern University needs to fulfill the promise of its Institutional Master Plan and start construction on the new dorms it plans for Roxbury, Mission Hill, and part of the Fenway. That will open up apartments in the area for graduates, young professionals, new families, and others, thus easing housing gridlock. In addition, landlords who are in the student-only rental business should consider other ways to improve, market, sell or rent their housing stock.
There’s another opportunity to revitalize the East Fenway—Forsyth Park. Recently, the Museum of Fine Arts acquired the Forsyth Institute. The MFA has agreed to return a portion of Forsyth Park—long used illegally as a parking lot by its previous owner—to the Parks Department. This is a good first step. But with an institution as vibrant and progressive as the MFA, so much more is possible. Imagine a place where residents could enjoy free public art. I believe that the ground floor of the Forsyth building should be activated for pedestrian use—perhaps as a top-tier restaurant, with an outdoor café looking out over the park—turning this dead corner into a vibrant space.
We must also ensure that we do not leave vulnerable residents behind as we continue to bring new life to this great neighborhood. As we develop new areas of the Fenway—including the recent proposal to develop the former Goodyear site into a mixed-use building—we must consider the needs of the residents who have called Fenway home for decades, and those who plan to live there for decades to come. We must ensure that there are affordable housing opportunities in these new developments. Also, strong neighborhoods require an investment by residents. The percentage of home ownership in the Fenway is among the lowest levels of any neighborhood in the city—there need to be additional home ownership opportunities created. Finally, the Peterborough Senior Center is a valuable resource for elderly residents in the neighborhood, but its current space is too small for all the activities the Center coordinates for its visitors.
Both sides of the Fenway have so much to offer—convenience to downtown, historic open spaces, and a diverse community in which people of all ages want to live. But as the West Fenway embraces new development, the East Fenway is being passed by, due to a lack of available housing. As the economy turns around and development begins anew, we must ensure that city leaders, residents, developers, and our cultural institutions work together to maintain the vitality of this great place for generations to come.
