COMMUNITY PROFILE

By Thomas Grillo, Globe Correspondent, 8/10/2003

The demise of St. Ambrose Elementary School and Monsignor Ryan Memorial High has taken a toll on Dorchester's school community. Parish officials say financial problems, poor enrollment, and fallout from the church's sexual abuse scandal forced the closing of the K-4 school and the all-girls high school, two cherished neighborhood institutions.

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Rather than be deterred, neighbors saw the school closings as another way to unite. Next month, Elizabeth Seton Academy, a Catholic school, will open at the former St. Gregory's, an all-girls high school that closed in the 1990s. Seton's supporters have raised nearly $300,000 of the $1.5 million needed to help fund a permanent home. Galvanizing support for a parochial school within their close-knit neighborhood is just another example how new and old residents have coalesced in troubled times.

In May, following a rash of muggings, a group of Savin Hill residents called a neighborhood meeting and invited Boston police. As a result, a plainclothes officer was added to the night shift.

As real estate prices in Jamaica Plain, the South End, and South Boston have risen beyond the means of many young professionals, Dorchester has lured buyers who once overlooked the neighborhood. Since the 1980s, Dorchester has attracted diverse buyers who have renovated run-down and boarded-up properties, built homes on vacant land, and in some cases converted triple-deckers into condominiums.

More than a dozen former Baker Chocolate Factory buildings in Lower Mills have been converted into condominiums, artists' live/work spaces, and retail outlets. The buildings are part of the Baker Chocolate Historic District, where Walter Baker opened the nation's first chocolate factory in 1780. The buildings went up between 1868 and 1947.

Last month, the Boston Redevelopment Authority approved Habitat for Humanity of Greater Boston's proposal to build the Arrowhead Habitat Homes development on Blue Hill Avenue -- 22 new affordable homes and mixed-use commercial space. Groundbreaking is expected this fall. The site consists of parcels vacant since the 1970s.

Thomas Grillo can be reached at tgrillo@hotmail.com.

This story ran in the Boston Globe on 8/10/2003.
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