(Globe Staff Photo / Dina Rudick)
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In an effort to stem violence in Dorchester's Codman Square, the Rev. Bruce Wall and supporters from Global Ministries have rented an apartment near a troubled street to see if they can ease the problem by their presence. A Globe reporter will provide daily reports from the street.
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MONDAY
Residents call it the Hell Zone: a half-block of Lyndhurst Street in Dorchester's Codman Square where dope dealers openly run their business and prostitutes turn tricks from dusk until 7 a.m., forcing residents to lock themselves inside their half-million-dollar homes. Rev. Bruce Wall of Global Ministries Christian Church is staging what he calls a one-week ''occupation" of Lyndhurst Street to rid the street of drug-dealing and gun-wielding youths. Some residents are glad Wall has arrived. Others worry about what will happen when he leaves.
(By Megan Tench, Boston Globe)
RELATED GRAPHIC: Map of Lyndhurst Street
GALLERY: A week on Lyndhurst Street
TUESDAY
It was just after midnight when the two police cruisers roared up and screeched to a halt, cornering the small crowd near Lyndhurst Street. The officers did not notice the Rev. Bruce H. Wall, who as part of his weeklong occupation of Lyndhurst Street had confronted the young people as they stood on a sidewalk near the area that residents call the ‘‘Hell Zone,’’ the most troubled part of the street.
(By Megan Tench, Boston Globe)
WEDNESDAY
She let the strangers keep coming back after they gave her $20. But Georgianna Richardson, 38, knew what was going on inside her kitchen and living room. The strangers were drug dealers, and they were snorting, packaging, and selling cocaine, all the while inviting outsiders to her first-floor apartment, she said yesterday.
(By Megan Tench, Boston Globe)
THURSDAY
It only took a moment for a Fourth of July barbecue on Lyndhurst Street to turn into a senseless bloodbath.
(By Megan Tench, Boston Globe)
FRIDAY
It was nearing 1 a.m., and Ebony Bell, 16, and her best friend, Mary Boyd, 14, were hanging out on the stoop of 4 and 6 Lyndhurst Street, one of the apartment buildings in the area residents call the Hell Zone. The girls were people-watching, laughing as the dope fiends, drug dealers, and prostitutes paced their block.
(By Megan Tench, Boston Globe)
SATURDAY
At the beginning of the Rev. Bruce Wall's weeklong occupation of Lyndhurst Street, he and six followers did exactly what they had set out to do: They tried to confront the bands of dope dealers, prostitutes, and other young people who were hanging out at night on the street corner that some residents call the Hell Zone.
(By Megan Tench, Boston Globe)
FOLOW-UP
At the end of a peaceful, weeklong occupation of a trouble-plagued Dorchester neighborhood, the pastor and parishioners from Global Ministries Christian Church announced a plan for their next, more permanent occupation.
(By Christine McConville, Boston Globe)
