Roxbury, Massachusetts Totally Explained

Everything about Roxbury Massachusetts totally explained

Roxbury is a neighborhood within Boston, Massachusetts USA. It was one of the first towns founded in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630 and became a city in 1846 until it was annexed to Boston on January 5, 1868. The original town of Roxbury once included the current Boston neighborhoods of Jamaica Plain, Roslindale and West Roxbury, the South End and much of Back Bay. Roxbury now generally ends at Columbus Avenue to the north and Melnea Cass Boulevard to the east.The original boundaries of the Town of Roxbury can be found in "Drake's History of Roxbury and its noted Personages." Those boundaries include the Christian Science Center, the Prudential Center (built on the old Roxbury Railroad Yards) and everything this side of the Muddy River including Symphony Hall, Northeastern University, Y.M.C.A., Harvard Medical School and many hospitals and schools in the area. This side of the Muddy River is Roxbury, the other side is Brookline and Boston. Franklin Park, once entirely within Roxbury when J.P., West Roxbury and Roslindale were villages within the town of Roxbury until 1854, has been divided with the line between J.P. and Roxbury located in the vicinity of Peter Parley Road on Walnut Avenue, through the park to Columbia Road. Here, Walnut Avenue changes its name to Sigourney St. indicating the area is now Jamaica Plain. One side of Columbia Road is Roxbury the other side is Dorchester. Melnea Cass Blvd. is located approximately over the Roxbury Canal that brought boats into Roxbury bypassing the busy the port of Boston in the 1830's.
A store known as "The Blue Store," was located at the intersection of Washington and Warren Sts. in Dudley since 1699. Many remember the furniture store there known as "Ferdinand's Blue Store," as the elevated train bisected the building. This area was also the home to several famous Boston business firms, "W. Bowman Cutter's Hardware Store" with the upside down sign, Timothy Smith's Department Store, and J.S. Waterman and Sons Funeral Directors to many prominent Boston families.

History

Early history

The early settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony established a series of six villages in 1630. During this time the church served not only as a place of worship but as a meeting place for government. The congregation had no time to raise a meeting house the first winter and so met with the neighboring congregation in Dorchester, Massachusetts. One of the early leaders of this church was Amos Adams. The first meeting house was built in 1632, and the building pictured here's the fifth meeting house, the oldest such wood-frame church in Boston. The Roxbury congregation, still in existence as a member congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Association, lays claim to several things of note in American history:

The founding (along with five other local congregations, for example Boston, Cambridge, Watertown, Charlestown and Dorchester) of Harvard College.
First Church of Roxbury was the starting point for William Dawes' "Midnight Ride", April 18, 1775 (in a different direction than Paul Revere) to warn Lexington and Concord of the British raids.

Urban and industrial development

As Roxbury developed in the 19th century, the northern part became an industrial town with a large community of English, Irish, and German immigrants and their descendants, while the majority of the town remained agricultural and saw the development of some of the first streetcar suburbs in the United States. This led to the incorporation of the old Roxbury village as one of Massachusetts's first cities, and the rest of the town was established as the town of West Roxbury.
In the early 20th century, Roxbury became more diverse with the establishment of a Jewish community in the Grove Hall area along Blue Hill Avenue. Following a massive migration from the South to northern cities in the 1940s and 1950s, Roxbury became the center of the African-American community in Boston. Social issues and the resulting urban renewal activities of the 1960s and 1970s contributed to a decline in the neighborhood. In particular, a riot in response to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. resulted in stores on Blue Hill Avenue being looted and eventually burned down, leaving a desolate and abandoned landscape. Rampant arson in the 1970s along the Dudley Street corridor also added to the neighborhood's decline, leaving a landscape of vacant, trash filled lots and burned out buildings. The arrival of the crack epidemic in the 1980s helped make Roxbury one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Boston. The violent crime wouldn't be significantly reduced until the late 1990s. In early April of 1987, the original Orange Line MBTA route along Washington Street was closed and relocated to the Southwest Corridor (where the Southwest Expressway was supposed to be built a couple decades before). More recently, grassroots efforts by residents have been the force behind revitalizing historic areas and creating Roxbury Heritage State Park. The Boston Transportation Planning Review stimulated relocation of the Orange Line, and development of the Southwest Corridor Park spurred major investment, including Roxbury Community College at Roxbury Crossing and Ruggles Center at Columbus Avenue and Ruggles Street. Commercial development now promises reinvestment in the form of shopping and related consumer services. The Fort Hill section experienced significant gentrification when college students (many from Northeastern University and Wentworth Institute of Technology), artists, and young professionals moved into the area in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In the present day, there's much commercial and residential redevelopment, but violent crime (especially gang violence) and drug abuse remain consistent problems. Roxbury is widely-regarded as the most dangerous neighborhood of Boston [Citationneeded].

Demographics

Roxbury is still a majority African-American neighborhood as it has been since 1960, but there's a growing Puerto Rican population. As of the 2000 census Roxbury was 5% Non-Hispanic White, 63% African-American or Black, 24% Hispanic or Latino who can be of any race, 1% Asian-American, 3% from other races and 4% from two or more races.

Notable residents

Among Roxbury's most notable inhabitants was famed clockmaker Simon Willard (1753-1848), whose prolific output included the invention of his patented banjo timepiece, or banjo-shaped wall clock. He is also honored for the tall-case clocks he made in the "Roxbury style," which he produced until about 1815.
Other notable residents include:

Joseph Alexander Ames, portraitist and artist

Bobby Brown, musician and TV performer

Marcia Hines, American-Australian musician

Melnea Cass, Civil Rights activist

Cid Corman, poet

Rev. John Eliot, minister, "Apostle to the Indians"

Frederick Douglass, abolitionist, orator, and author

Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam

Charles Dana Gibson, graphic artist (of Gibson Girl fame)

Edward Everett Hale, editor, author, clergyman

William Heath, Major General, Continental Army, American Revolutionary War

William Lloyd Garrison, abolitionist, publisher of "The Liberator"

Roy Haynes, jazz drummer

Jonathan Kozol, author, educator, and activist

Malcolm X, minister, Black nationalist

Karl Hobbs, basketball coach

Charles Sedgwick Minot, anatomist

New Edition, R&B/Pop music group

Samuel Pierpont Langley, astronomer, physicist, aviation pioneer

Louis Prang, artist, printer, engraver, maker of the first Xmas card.

John L. Sullivan, heavyweight boxing champion from 1882-1892

Simon Willard, renowned clockmaker

Joseph Warren, doctor, soldier, and patriot

John Wilson, artist

Rev. Dr. Soliny Védrine, Founder of Haitian Ministries International

Edo G, Rap artist raised on Humboldt Avenue

Points of interest

Franklin Park Zoo

Shirley-Eustis House

John D. O'Bryant School of Mathematics & Science

Long Crouch Woods

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