![]() “Boston's Red Line: Bridging the Charles from Alewife to Braintree” details one of Boston's oldest and busiest subway lines. The subway became known as the Red Line and eventually extended from Cambridge across the Charles River through Boston, serving Dorchester, Braintree, and Mattapan. Other cities, such as New York and Philadelphia, paid close attention, adopting many of the Cambridge Subway's revolutionary design features. But if we come together, what we do now will forever define us.When the Boston Elevated Railway Company broke ground for the Cambridge Subway, its intention was to provide the cities of Boston and Cambridge with the finest and most efficient rapid-transit system of the time. She adds: “If we do nothing, nothing will change. “Redlining sparks a whole bunch of confusion for people who just want to have the basics, which is all we want.” ![]() “We’re talking to the community, we’re pushing this machine to make this red line, and hopefully get people to ask the question, ‘What are they doing, what is this?’” Lomax says. “People know about it, but no one really talks about it.”īy participating in “Redlined,” she was able to write her story directly onto neighborhood streets in the hopes of sparking a conversation. She has struggled every step of the way due to misinformation and a lack of advocacy and support.“It’s interesting how redlining is still affecting us today,” she says. ![]() Along the way she says spent some time in a shelter, unable to afford the rent closer to the city center, where she worked. Lonnie Hutton holds up the historic FHA redlining map of the neighborhood.Ĭarolyn Lomax, a member of CLVU, moved her children from a small, primarily white community outside Boston, feeling distinctly unwanted she eventually purchased a home in JP. Ivan Richiez, of the youth coalition Keep It 100 for Egleston and a “Redlined” volunteer, notes that “Boston has a history of organizing against foreclosures, gentrification, redlining, which are essentially the same thing, just different strategies.” Local groups such as CLVU and the Affordable Egleston Coalition are advocating for residents and fighting for local affordable housing amid mass displacements as a result of gentrification. The walk will takes hours, given interruptions for chatter, refills of chalk, and water breaks. He mans the machine for an hour, starting right after lunch, and then other volunteers rotate. “I’m an old man, but I can do this much,” he adds with a smile, leaning heavily on the handle as he goes. “We are here to talk about redlining!” roars an older volunteer, who hands off his cane to push the chalker. Volunteers chat with residents they encounter along the route, explaining the purpose of their field chalker filled with crushed brick recycled from demolitions. “We want to inscribe that history onto the streets of Boston, to make that history visible, to make public policy visible.” To that end, the “Redlined” group - which was part of local social justice organization City Life/Vida Urbana (CLVU) - walked from JP to Dorchester, to South End and the Back Bay, around to Mission Hill and back again to the Forest Hills station in JP, marking a heavy, messy red line on the streets the entire way. “Redlining, reverse redlining - it’s just another version of the same story of housing discrimination based on race,” says Hulsey. ![]() This process effectively limited home ownership, leading to decades of housing policies that kept property values low and residents vulnerable to predatory developers. The lines that were drawn helped shape discriminatory housing policies, denoting neighborhoods where the government would not underwrite loans or mortgages to residents. What separates the two parts of JP is the historical process of redlining : the dividing of the city by Federal Housing Administration policies in 1936. On the edge of the neighborhood are grand homes with expansive lawns. One woman chases them down catching up and of breath, she pants, “What’s this all about?” As the walk moves down the Washington Avenue corridor, residents call out to them, shouting greetings or questions. “We’re here to facilitate an encounter with history,” says John Hulsey, one of the “Redlined” coordinators. This is especially significant because Jamaica Plain, known locally as JP, is touted as one of the city’s most diverse neighborhoods it is home to historically black and Latino communities - no small feat in one of the most segregated cities in America. Heather Gordon walks with City Life volunteers to educate passersby.
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