Dorchester

Six candidates for City Council battled last week for the attention of District 4 voters in a crowded race for the seat covering parts of Mattapan, Dorchester, Roslindale and Jamaica Plain.

Last week, acting Mayor Kim Janey joined city officials, Massachusetts Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Michael Kenneally and staff from the affordable housing nonprofit Hearth to cut the ribbon on a 54-unit, low-income elderly housing building in Dorchester.

More than 40 artists and creative-small-business owners working at Humphreys Street Studios in Uphams Corner are facing an unknown future tied to the impending sale of their building.

Despite its immeasurable damage to the local art scene, the COVID-19 pandemic has also forced innovation in arts organizations. The latest example of that innovation is Tiny DAP Concerts, a season of intimate concerts styled after NPR’s Tiny Desk program and developed by Dorchester Art Project and Boston Compass Newspaper with funding from The Boston Foundation.

Meet Maux Morgan, Executive Chef at Fresh Food Generation, a farm to plate Caribbean American food truck, catering and home delivery company.

When Chef Anthony Caldwell was doing time in state prison, he never imagined he would one day own a popular Boston restaurant or that he would end up on a nationally televised cooking program with celebrities like Martha Stewart.

We are a Black, immigrant, and woman-owned business. Our food celebrates the flavors and ingredients of the African diaspora — global comfort food — connected globally through the spice trade. We believe that food is a vital aspect of community building and can't wait to bring Comfort Kitchen to Uphams Corner, where we'll celebrate the history, flavor and vibrant life of our neighborhood.

Two development teams presented plans last week for the redevelopment of the former Citizens Bank branch in Uphams Corner. Both proposals include affordable housing and artist live/work space.

In late October and early November, eight residents, aged 20 to 60 – some of whom participated in the on-site planting – took a virtual 35-hour training course, taught by Queeley and his colleague Danilo Morales over three weekends, in preparation for the National Green Infrastructure Certification Program’s exam.

The 1,300-space parking lot is now a site of competing visions for Dorchester as residents struggle over its future. The conflict has exposed neighborhood divisions along racial and class lines and stoked tensions between homeowners and renters.

A small army of developers is altering the fabric of Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan in defiance of a zoning code that some argue was meant to protect abutters from the excesses of speculative real estate development. In case after case, developers are pushing past the previously set limits on building height and density.

A new affordable housing project is underway in Dorchester, set for completion in summer 2021. The Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corporation (DBEDC) broke ground in December after five years of gathering resources for the 80-unit, mixed-use space.