Home, or Layers of a Neighborhood

I've graduated. And, like many others this year, I moved back to Boston, in with my parents. As I walked around my old neighborhood, I could see how much its changed.

Even when I was in high school, the neighborhood was changing. They spent a lot of money widening the street behind my house into a major thoroughfare. Then a lot of fancy restaurants started showing up. Then they starting building newer, fancier buildings for luxury apartments. The old Chinese folks who used to grow vegetables in the community garden started losing their plots to richer, young professionals who wanted to grow flowers. Rents went up everywhere. Gentrification reshaped the neighborhood relentlessly.

I was aware of all this in high school, but coming back after a few years made the changes so much more jarring. I didn't watch new buildings go up. They appeared out of nowhere. And old landmarks are gone, like the mural that is now a green wall by a dog park.

On one street, three old shops remained: a boarded up restaurant, a Syrian grocery, and a glass shop. They remain, next to gourmet cheese shops, artisan jewelry shops, and dim-lit restaurants. These shops have existed as long as I can remember, the last traces of the Syrian neighborhood that remained until the 1940's. Back then, the Syrian and Chinese communities shared what is now Chinatown.

Some moved away after the second generation, tried to assimilate as ethnic whites. More were pushed out when the City built a highway through the neighborhood. Its sad to imagine Chinatown being pushed out, leaving only tiny traces. Something precious is lost in this "progress and development".