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Is Allston nearby?
Stop & Shop in Allston/Brighton (Everett St?) had a bunch yesterday. Can't guarantee they will today though.
OK, not nearby, but...
If you get desperate, Russo's in Watertown has plenty, both bagged and loose.
Good luck, and happy Thanksgiving.
Not Roxbury, but the Star
Not Roxbury, but the Star Market near the Prudential Center still has lots.
Thanks!
For posting something nearby. In response to the other (valid) comments about people posting things in other neighborhoods, the Pru is closer to Dudley Square than Brigham Circle is. Quick walk/bike/train. Or long drive sitting in traffic. Daily Table in Dorchester, which is great, is actually a lot further from the part of Roxbury near Dudley.
So many people in Boston have this weird concept of where neighborhoods actually are. "All the way to/from ____" sometimes means the person legitimately doesn't know distances very well, and sometimes means that they're rationalizing that they don't know people of different demographics, because those neighborhoods are so far away, not because they've made choices to stick close to home (literally and figuratively). And sure, this city is totally non-Euclidean. I get that. But it could be to people's benefit to look on a map and see how far away a new business or event in Roxbury is, instead of just holding to the idea that it's far away and will take hours to get there.
The Longwood area, MFA, Symphony Hall, The Fens, Titus Sparrow Park, to name a few, are within a one-mile radius of Dudley Square. The Common and esplanade are under two. All the time, when we're within a mile or two of our home, we get (always white, upper-middle class) people from much further away saying, "wow, you came a really long way" or "you walked/biked? That must have taken hours." Sometimes these are people who live in Mission Hill or near Northeastern who do most of their shopping and socializing in Needham and Newton and stuff "because there just isn't really anything near here."
Mile radius around Dudley Square: http://www.freemaptools.com/radius-around-point.htm?clat=42.329965&clng=...
The Village Market in
The Village Market in Roslindale still had fresh cranberries, bagged but from Mass, on monday evening.
Daily Table
Washington Street, Dorchester
http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?m=1122821575241&ca=57afc1...
FWIW, I bought a bag of Ocean Spray at Tropical Foods yesterday
But there's never going to be any useful information on universalhub about actual life in Boston's African-American neighborhoods. Maybe a story about a shooting now and then, but that's about it. Similar to the Globe and Herald in that respect.
Ask the same question with "West" as your third word - and watch for 60 responses within the hour.
That's not a criticism, just an observation. Every media outlet has a target audience, and the people of Roxbury, Mattapan, and Dorchester obviously aren't this one's.
Well
Just keep in mind that Adam is a one man shop so its hard to keep track of everything in the city. I also don't think its intentional either.. sometimes without eyes and ears in other parts of the city, its hard to know what's going on. Adam does his best but he can only do so much.
But may I suggest registering an account? Then you can write and post your *own* articles and such. Uhub really a user driven site in both people who write articles directly for the site AND people who tell adam (on twitter and FB) and he will make a post from it if you don't want to write something yourself. (as this is how many of the articles start.. as tweets or 'hey did you see this, Adam).
So it's all user created and submitted. So if you feel like you have something you want to cover those neighborhoods. Bring on!
Fair criticism for the Globe
though I'd argue that they've been a primarily suburban paper for a long time. The Herald much less so. But I'd echo Cybah--what stories do you feel are missing? Who's collecting them? UHub is an aggregator of news stories, so send material his way. I've felt for years that UHub is more in tune with news in Boston proper than either major paper.
I guess an attempt is made
to link to content from Bay State Banner or the Blackstonian whenever those outlets have something decent. But the value of this website is gaining some new insight from its users in the form of information that isn't widely known.
And in that respect, there just isn't anybody here from the African-American neighborhoods. Witness how a question about supermarkets in Roxbury gets responses about Allston, West Roxbury, the Pru, and Needham. So a lot of the Roxbury content ends up being about people getting shot (another story just popped up at the top of the website).
Not much can be done about it, I guess - the denizens of the D-R-M area aren't very active on the web. Check out the Roxbury Reddit page - it's mostly links back to universalhub posted by a couple of guys on Fort Hill once every 3 or 4 days.
It certainly underscores the digital divide in this city. Sure, African-Americans are on the web, but they're not using it for community news and activism. It would be nice to see the Walsh administration try to promote the development of DRM community content, maybe starting with some sort of incentives for teens or young adults to work on some new web-based content.
So, in the end, I mean to offer no criticism of universalhub - just disappointment that Boston's African-American community has been left behind when it comes to truly leveraging the knowledge-based web on a local basis.
You clearly haven't been here long
Whenever somebody asks for "X in Y" there is always a lot of "well I found X in Z" replies. That isn't unusual.
Linking papers only? People frequently contribute material that Adam puts up before it would get in those papers (and, yes, the snake ball was trivial but it was user-generated content).
I'm glad that you now realize that it isn't any decision by Adam if the content is lacking. Become your own news source, and this place will give you a mic check.
Not quite
You're reading the wrong sites if you think Black folks aren't using the Internet for community pages and social justice organizing. And there are plenty of us here; we just don't tend to comment because when we do, the resident racists tell us our lived experiences didn't happen, or that we're racist for realizing that race exists and impacts our lives every day. If y'all want more Black folks here, do your work to educate yourselves so this place is welcoming. The reason we have our own spaces is because, well, why would we want to chat with people where we have to explain and defend everything we experience? "Do you have proof that was because of your race?" "I wasn't there but I'm going to defend the white guy instead of the person who is here and telling me what they experienced." "Why did you need to mention your race?" So, we go places where that crap doesn't happen. If you want us more active here, call out the other commenters and make the "polite" racism stop.
You're preaching to the choir
I couldn't agree with you more, except on the issue of genuine Dorchester-Roxbury-Mattapan African-American content. Aside from Facebook, I don't see it.
Thanks for your comments
You're quite right about my lack of non-crime content for those neighborhoods (ironically, yesterday I actually wrote a Roxbury story).
To be honest, though, the same could be said about my coverage of pretty much every neighborhood, except possibly Roslindale, and to a lesser extent West Roxbury and Hyde Park (because I live in the first and spend a fair amount of time in the latter two).
As others have noted, I depend to a large extent on the kindness of strangers for finding stories - it's what lets me cover, or at least try to cover, a large city as a one-person Action News Team. I do have a fair number of Twitter followers from Dorchester and Roxbury, but they're like many of my followers in other neighborhoods: They tweet at me when they see a ton of cruisers and firetrucks on their street or in their neighborhood. That's actually what really got me into trying to cover breaking news in Boston - that people were seeing things going on but not knowing why.
But, yes, there's more than just crime and fires, so where are people in Dorchester, Mattapan and Roxbury posting stuff online that I'm missing?
Yes, you wrote a Roxbury story
And someone whose only familiarity with the area comes from google streetview commented and said that a major thoroughfare a few blocks from an orange line station is "desolate."
Tropical Foods is fantastic
Clean, bright. Good to great prices and selection for both traditional supermarket fare and specialty items. Well-staffed with friendly and helpful people. Unfortunately it's just outside of reasonable walking distance for me but I take the bus there a couple of times a month to stock up.
Yes to all of that
And thanks. Tropical's slipped my mind because we were out driving to stores, and we only ever walk and bike to Tropical's, therefore it didn't exist in my head while in the car. Found them at Brigham Circle, but would have headed there next. Thanks!
Volante Farm Needham
You'll probably enjoy some samples while you're there. Good luck avoiding the apple cider donuts. Good beer selection and decent wine section to boot- prices aren't awful but not great but there's something to be said for one stop shopping.
Um...
I like the sound of the place (especially the doughnuts) but last time I checked, Needham was nowhere near Roxbury.
...Adam, can we STILL not delete double posts?
:-(
Yeah, that
Needham is 30+ minutes from here. It's all non-highway roads.
Cranberries
Back to Cranberries-Stop and Shop Brigham Circle Mission Hill...........Which is Roxbury.........
Thanks!
Yep, they had a ton. And they were BOGO.
Market Basket
I know there isn't one near Roxbury... but if your desperate enough. I was at Market Basket in Chelsea yesterday. And they had a huuuuge display of bagged Ocean Spray cranberries.
But if you do go today.. bring a Xanax and a flask of your favorite booze. You'll need it. All 47 Registers + 10 on wheels will be out and running. It'll be something like "The Hunger Games: Local Edition" in terms of crowds.
I'm sorry, but ...
For sheer pre-Thanksgiving terror, absolutely nothing beats the West Roxbury Roche Bros. You want to cut down on car crashes in Massachusetts? Make one of the requirements for passing a driver's test the ability to get into a parking space there on the day before Thanksgiving. Hardly anybody would pass and there'd be fewer people on the roads to get into crashes.
ha!
Probably.. Roche is a far smaller store than the Chelsea Market Basket :-)
And I agree.. even at the basket, the parking lot is INSANE. It is a stress test for drivers.
But I'll rebuttal and say Market Basket is so insanely busy.. a few years ago i went in the evening on the day before Thanksgiving. It was a mob scene. Every single register had a line going down the aisles in the store. And good luck on pushing a cart around.. its like bumper cars :-)
We went last night
Crazy, but not bonkers. Got there at 8:15 and finishes a big shopping and got in line at 8:50. Several people were clearly shopping for church dinner or charity drives, with entire carts full of turkeys.
I loved the final closing announcement, repeated in Portuguese, Spanish, and Hmong. The young women doing checkout then started teaching one another another to say "Thank you for shopping at Market Basket" and "Happy Thanksgiving" in Chinese and Spanish.
Such is Chelsea.
I just wish I had time to find the slivered almonds. They weren't in the baking aisle or with the nuts.