From left: DSNI Director of Organizing Rene Mardones, Executive Director John Smith and organizers Kalamu Kieta and Vikiana Petit Homme gathered last week at 518 Dudley St. Yawu Miller photo
Five decades ago, when land in Boston was cheap, the owner of a shuttered gas station on Dudley Street gifted the land to the city of Boston for use by the local community. In 1975, a largely Puerto Rican contingent of neighbors christened the park at the corner of Dudley Street and Brook Ave. as “Plaza Borinquen”— or Puerto Rico Square.
By 2020, however, the plaza on the Roxbury-Dorchester border had fallen into disrepair, with weeds and overgrown vegetation and trash providing cover for open-air drug use. The city fenced off the site at 518 Dudley St.
That same year, state Sen. Liz Miranda secured a $100,000 earmark for the redevelopment of the lot using American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds. Organizers with the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI), where Miranda had volunteered as a teenager, pulled together meetings to solicit ideas from neighbors.
“We were looking at low-impact ways to transform the space,” said Rene Mardones, DSNI’s director of organizing. Through those community meetings, DSNI came up with a plan for an arts plaza. A rendering the organization produced shows seven shipping containers positioned around a central plaza on the lot: four of them to be used as arts studio space, two combined into a performing arts space and one to be used as a café space.
DSNI’s proposal described their concept as a “dynamic civic arts environment” that serves as a public square and cultural laboratory.
The DSNI organizers envision the re-booted space as being art of a larger arts scene in the area that includes the Humprey Street artist studios, the offices of the Design Studio for Social Innovation and is part of the Fairmount Cultural Corridor.
“It’s a blank canvas for any project you might want to explore,” said DSNI organizer Kalamu Kieta.
When DSNI was founded in 1984, the neighborhood was plagued with vacant lots, illegal dumping of trash and construction debris and a lack of city services. Over the decades, the nonprofit has led efforts to develop affordable housing and other community uses on vacant parcels.
“This is one of the last vacant parcels,” noted organizer Vikiana Petit-Homme. “Developing it would help bring the community to the next level.
City officials have yet to begin a public process for planning what goes on the lot. Because the federal ARPA funds must be spent by the end of 2026, they have little more than 11 months to conduct public outreach, decide on a plan for the lot and begin any possible construction if they are to access the $100,000 Miranda secured.
The Department of Neighborhood Development, the Parks Department and other city agencies will likely hammer out the details in the coming months. A spokesperson from the city would not provide comment for this article.
Since the parcel previously housed a gas station, John Smith, executive director of DSNI, believes the soil under the asphalt on the site is likely contaminated and could not be disturbed without significantly running up the costs of re-developing the parcel.
DSNI has found a donor who has agreed to provide the seven shipping containers free of charge and has also identified a landscaping firm that would work on the site for free. Smith said he is concerned a further city process could stretch beyond the end of the year.
“As the community organization on record, we have done two community processes,” he said. “I feel like we can run this.”
