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New BPL branch, affordable condos could replace former bank building in Uphams Corner

By adamg on Fri, 08/23/2024 - 10:22am

A Worcester developer and a local architecture firm say they will soon file detailed plans for replacing the shuttered Dorchester Trust at 555-559 Columbia Rd. in Dorchester's Uphams Corner with a two-story Boston Public Library branch and 33 affordable condos.

In a filing with the Boston Planning Department, Civico of Worcester and DREAM Collaborative of Boston say the units will range from studios to three-bedroom condos.

The building, where the library would replace the current library branch down the street, would have a 21-space underground garage.

Mayor Walsh first announced plans for a library on the site in 2017. The BPDA awarded the project to Civico and DREAM Collaborative in April.

The project is the second one to marry a new BPL branch and housing formally announced this month. Preservation of Affordable Housing and Caste Capital filed a letter of intent for their plans to replace the current West End Library with a 12-story building with two floors for the library and ten floors for 119 affordable apartments.

555-559 Columbia Rd. filings.

Neighborhoods: 
Dorchester
Topics: 
Development
Free tagging: 
Uphams Corner
Columbia Road
BPL
Boston Planning Department


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Comments

By PeyoteEatingWaterBear on Fri, 08/23/2024 - 11:57am.

This is a great idea. They should do this with all the BPL branches, at least 12 stories of affordable housing on top. The older branches are falling apart and Lord knows Boston needs all the housing we can get. YIMBY all day!

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Voting closed 35

By John Costello on Fri, 08/23/2024 - 1:10pm.

May we please get a plaque on the building owing to the anti-Catholic history of the parking lot there now?

Here is the sanitized history of part of the site.

https://www.dorchesteratheneum.org/project/sarah-baker/

Here is what the church used to look like which was on part of the site.

https://www.historicnewengland.org/explore/collections-access/gusn/194929

Little backstory - Ms. Baker hated the Irish (So did fellow Dorchester resident painter Chide Hassam - Twilight on Boston Common, All those paintings of Flags on Fifth Avenue, etc.).

There was a codicil in Baker's bequest that the church to be built could only be a Catholic Church if it was first used as a stable. The Archdiocese wanted a church in Upham's Corner in the 30's and was rebuffed from buying this church. Instead they bought a phone company building up the street and that was St. Kevin's until it got turned into residential by the Archdiocese a few years ago.

In this day and age of anti-foreigner MAGA rage in this county a little reminder that Know Nothingism, which was mid-18th century MAGA, was associated with this place would be nice.

I can't wait for the discrimination is ok because it was in the past replies and I should get over it. The double standard which is coming should be great.

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Voting closed 24

By SwirlyGrrl on Fri, 08/23/2024 - 2:37pm.

There was a codicil in Baker's bequest that the church to be built could only be a Catholic Church if it was first used as a stable. The Archdiocese wanted a church in Upham's Corner in the 30's and was rebuffed from buying this church.

Covenants and wills were allowed to be used to discriminate beyond the grave in many ways. When someone claimed that covenants in house deeds in my neighborhood would forever bar me from expanding into a two-family house even if the state banned single family restrictions, I pointed out that deeds in my neighborhood also barred selling to people of color ... but we all know those weren't legal past 1965. Bad enough that the city split the neighborhood into two precincts in entirely separate wards to split the Jewish community that moved in post-war.

Then there was redlining ... but by then Irish Catholic communities yielded sufficient power (mostly due to having been here longer) to not be lumped in with Italians, Portuguese, Greeks, Jews, and Blacks when neighborhoods were determined to be "hazardous" for investment because of their presence.

I think a plaque covering the issue could be more than about a single bigot - it could be called out as an example of the ways in which legal documents such as wills, codicils and covenants were used in discriminatory ways to exclude immigrants and children of slaves, sometimes beyond the grave.

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Voting closed 27

By Lee on Fri, 08/23/2024 - 6:15pm.

…. would inherit their dead husband’s homes and property except if they remarried, in which case they would automatically lose it all, are another example of ways to control and disempower certain groups, in these cases, women, beyond the grave.

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Voting closed 19

By Lee on Fri, 08/23/2024 - 6:07pm.

Ever ask yourself if maybe being so excited and turned on by anticipation of possible bigoted comments to the point where it sounds like you’re begging for them could be a sign of mental imbalance?

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Voting closed 18

By John Costello on Fri, 08/23/2024 - 8:11pm.

I was just getting out in front of you and your repeated and unchecked anti-Catholic bigotry.

What do you so long to respond? Too much crying because no one would talk to you at tea dance?

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By Lee on Fri, 08/23/2024 - 8:29pm.

… a little bit more than is healthy.

Is your repeated and unchecked anti gay bigotry a result of your religion?

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By John Costello on Fri, 08/23/2024 - 9:50pm.

Just anti pathetic crying twerp.

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By Don't Panic on Mon, 08/26/2024 - 1:10am.

Affordable Condo is an Oxymoron. Even after you fully pay for it you are still responsible for fees, and I'm not talking taxes, water, utilities and stuff like that. You're better off buying a house.

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Voting closed 12