Dorchester

Karmimadeebora “Mima” McMillan’s “Unsung Heroes” is an ode to the neighborhood and specifically to the Freedom House, an advocacy group that works with Black, Brown and immigrant students working through high school and college.

“Project Misik: A Neponset RiverYard,” is a celebration of Afro-diasporic artwork pioneered by local musician Kera Washington with the help of one of the Olmsted Equity grants intended to diversify Boston’s green spaces.

This weekend, the streets of Dorchester will come alive with music during the first-ever Dorchester Porchfest, dubbed Dorchfest. More than 45 bands will perform on 25 porches and venues around the Ashmont-Adams neighborhood on Saturday, June 4 from 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. The festival is free and open to all.

Parents, teachers and students from the Pauline A. Shaw School in Dorchester demonstrated, testified at School Committee meetings and wrote op-eds in a concerted effort to stop what many saw as the district’s attempt to pull the plug on the school, denying them grade expansions while all other BPS elementary schools are switching to a K-6 grade configuration.

Last week, tenant organizers celebrating the acquisition of a multifamily home by the Boston Neighborhood Community Land Trust came together to announce that their work is not done — they are now asking that city and state officials use federal ARPA funds to continue purchasing area homes to be preserved as permanent affordable housing.

The Lower Neponset River has been designated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a Superfund site, local officials announced Monday at a press conference in Mattapan.

Boston officials are planning to redesign a three-mile stretch of Blue Hill Avenue between Mattapan Square and Grove Hall. Planning will likely include center-running bus lanes.

Neighbors in the Fields Corner area were apprehensive in 2019 when they learned developer James McClure was planning a six-unit condominium building on a parcel of land zoned for a three-unit building.

As 2021 comes to a close, several large-scale projects aimed at economic development in Roxbury, Hyde Park, Dorchester and South Boston were approved by the Boston Planning & Development Agency (BPDA) Board of Directors at its Dec. 16 meeting.

Political dynamics are shifting in Hyde Park and Dorchester’s Savin Hill enclave as both neighborhoods diversify, multiple community members said.

The race for the newly-drawn 2nd Suffolk District seat is open and state Reps Liz Miranda and Nika Elugardo are in.

As election season moves forward with a pared-down list of candidates, community activists are capitalizing on added attention to the ongoing opioid crisis at “Mass and Cass” by demanding that campaigns have concrete plans in order to secure neighborhood support.