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Mission Hill
Nov. 17th, 2005 03:03 pmIt's been over 2 years since I was last at HSPH. Since I take the T, and the Green Line is both crowded and slow, I got into the habit of taking the Orange Line to Roxbury Crossing and then walking on Tremont St. to HSPH, about a 10-minute walk. This takes me through the "main drag" of Mission Hill, a neighborhood that has a less than stellar reputation, but it's a good location (near Longwood Medical Area, Northeastern University, the MFA etc.) so it was only a matter of time before it would be "discovered."
When I was a student here, the "discovery" process was just starting. By 2003, there was one nice pub/restaurant on Tremont, and HSPH (which is chronically short of space) had moved into some vacant offices along the way. But... the street was still filthy, the small businesses largely tired-looking, and people were always telling me not to walk down Tremont to get back to the Orange Line at night, to just take the Green Line instead. (I disagree, mostly because it's a main street and always busy. Now there were side streets I wouldn't walk into in broad daylight, much less at night, but Tremont itself? Too many people around -- on foot, not just in cars -- for the bad guys to get too excited. Plus, I am white, and as far as I can tell, these (black, mostly) guys mostly target each other. I seem to be invisible to them.)
Now, it's gentrifying. #1 sign: LOTS more white people on the street. Most are college students but I've seen white women with kids in tow. #2 sign: old, formerly decrepit buildings now condo-ized, with prices more expensive than one might imagine at first. Also some of the worst buildings are just *gone* and replaced by condo units. The street is still dirty, but it becomes less so as one moves towards HSPH and Huntington Ave. (and there's a real supermarket at Brigham Circle now...) Most of the scary-looking guys are down near the T-stop; they no longer walk up over "the Hill" towards Huntington. #3: the T-stop itself has a coffee bar where the very odd "Black Muslim" regalia store used to be. It's appropriately multi-racial, and nice. It serves brunch on the weekends. #4: the one "nice" restaurant (Solistice Cafe) is still in business, suggesting that there are enough people with disposable income around here who'll pay twenty bucks for a meal.
Of course there's tension... people who have lived here a long time because they could afford to are getting squeezed out, and the black population is more and more restricted to the various housing developments in the area. Today, on my walk, there were two black guys driving down Tremont and every time they saw a white woman they'd pull closer to the sidewalk and one of them would lean out the window and yell "ASS!" very loudly at her. (I don't know why they picked "ASS!" but they did make me jump when they did it to me...)
When I was a student here, the "discovery" process was just starting. By 2003, there was one nice pub/restaurant on Tremont, and HSPH (which is chronically short of space) had moved into some vacant offices along the way. But... the street was still filthy, the small businesses largely tired-looking, and people were always telling me not to walk down Tremont to get back to the Orange Line at night, to just take the Green Line instead. (I disagree, mostly because it's a main street and always busy. Now there were side streets I wouldn't walk into in broad daylight, much less at night, but Tremont itself? Too many people around -- on foot, not just in cars -- for the bad guys to get too excited. Plus, I am white, and as far as I can tell, these (black, mostly) guys mostly target each other. I seem to be invisible to them.)
Now, it's gentrifying. #1 sign: LOTS more white people on the street. Most are college students but I've seen white women with kids in tow. #2 sign: old, formerly decrepit buildings now condo-ized, with prices more expensive than one might imagine at first. Also some of the worst buildings are just *gone* and replaced by condo units. The street is still dirty, but it becomes less so as one moves towards HSPH and Huntington Ave. (and there's a real supermarket at Brigham Circle now...) Most of the scary-looking guys are down near the T-stop; they no longer walk up over "the Hill" towards Huntington. #3: the T-stop itself has a coffee bar where the very odd "Black Muslim" regalia store used to be. It's appropriately multi-racial, and nice. It serves brunch on the weekends. #4: the one "nice" restaurant (Solistice Cafe) is still in business, suggesting that there are enough people with disposable income around here who'll pay twenty bucks for a meal.
Of course there's tension... people who have lived here a long time because they could afford to are getting squeezed out, and the black population is more and more restricted to the various housing developments in the area. Today, on my walk, there were two black guys driving down Tremont and every time they saw a white woman they'd pull closer to the sidewalk and one of them would lean out the window and yell "ASS!" very loudly at her. (I don't know why they picked "ASS!" but they did make me jump when they did it to me...)
