Hyde Park is the southernmost neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Situated 7.9 miles south of downtown Boston, it is home to a diverse range of people, housing types and social groups. It is an urban location with suburban characteristics.
Hyde Park is covered by Boston Police Department District E-18 located in Cleary Square, and the Boston Fire Department station on Fairmount Avenue is the quarters of Ladder Company 28 & Engine Company 48. Boston EMS Ambulance Station 18 is located on Dana Avenue. Hyde Park also has a branch of the Boston Public Library.
The George Wright Golf Course, named for Baseball Hall of Fame and Boston Red Stockings shortstop George Wright, is in Hyde Park and Roslindale. It is a Donald Ross–designed course and is considered one of his finest designs.
Hyde Park has taken the motto "A Small Town in the City" because of its suburban feel. The area was established in the 1660s and grew into a hub of paper and cotton manufacturing in the eighteenth century. The extension of rail lines from Boston in the 1850s spurred the area's residential development. The Readville section of Hyde Park contained a large manufacturing base housing the massive operations of the B. F. Sturtevant Company and the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Locomotive and Car Shops.
Hyde Park and some of its residents have been an important part of societal change in the United States. It was once home to the first all African-American army unit, the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. The regiment was made famous in the movie Glory. Hyde Park was home to the prominent abolitionists the Grimké sisters, Sarah and Angelina, as well as Theodore Dwight Weld, for whom Weld Hall in Hyde Park is named.
Name Hyde Park is named after the park in London, England, which opened to the public in 1637.
History In 1845, retired businessman Henry Grew took his family on vacation to an area south of Boston, in what was then the western section of Dorchester, and came to a spot in the Neponset River valley with an unexpectedly pleasant view of the nearby Blue Hills. He purchased several hundred acres of land there (which later became known as "Grew's Woods", partially preserved today as the Stony Brook Reservation and the George Wright Golf Course) and moved to the area in 1847. (Grew later served as chairman of the Town of Hyde Park's first board of selectmen and was one of its most prominent citizens.) During the next few years, a group called the Hyde Park Land Company bought about 200 acres of land in the area and began building houses around a small and unofficial passenger stop on the Boston and Providence Railroad that had developed at Kenny's Bridge, located on the road from Dedham to Milton Lower Mills (the road was River Street, and the station today is Hyde Park Station). At that time, the closest actual station was in the manufacturing district of Readville (formerly Low Plains) in Dedham.
Alpheus Perley Blake is considered the founder of Hyde Park. In 1856, he was the organizer of the Fairmount Land Company and the Twenty Associates, which developed the Fairmount Hill on the western side of Brush Hill Road in Milton. This led to the establishment of a bridge over the Neponset River and a new station on the New York and New England Railroad, which is today's Fairmount Station. In addition to Blake, The Twenty Associates included William E. Abbot, Amos Angell, Ira L. Benton, Enoch Blake, John Newton Brown, George W. Currier, Hypolitus Fisk, John C. French, David Higgins, John S. Hobbs, Samuel Salmon Mooney, William Nightingale, J. Wentworth Payson, Dwight B. Rich, Alphonso Robinson, William H. Seavey, Daniel Warren, and John Williams. Within a few years, the two land companies had merged and growth in the area accelerated. By 1867, the settlements had grown to the point where there were 6 railroad stations in the area. A formal petition was made to the General Court of the Commonwealth and, after settling land and boundary disputes with Dedham and Milton, the Town of Hyde Park was incorporated on April 22, 1868, in Norfolk County from the settled land in Dorchester (Grew's Woods and the Hyde Park Land Company development), Milton (Fairmount) and Dedham (Readville). Dedham opposed the taking of its land to create the new town.
It remained a part of Norfolk County until 1912, when the town voted in favor of annexation to the City of Boston in Suffolk County.
The 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, one of the first official African-American units in the United States Army and which was commanded by Col. Robert G. Shaw and served during the Civil War, was assembled and trained at Camp Meigs in Readville.
In the 1960s, Hyde Park threatened to secede from Boston over plans to build a Southwest Expressway (Interstate 95) through the town along the route of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, which would bifurcate the neighborhood and displace many residents, as had happened in Roxbury and Jamaica Plain. Hyde Park has also faced other challenges along with its fellow Boston neighborhoods, such as the busing crisis of the 1970s.
Hyde Park has had an active industrial history. For over 100 years, it was the main base of the Westinghouse Sturtevant Corporation. The Readville area was home to the Stop & Shop warehouse, until it was moved to Assonet in the early 2000s.
Hyde Park is home to many churches, most notably the Most Precious Blood, Saint Adalbert's and Saint Anne's Roman Catholic churches, and the Episcopal Parish of Christ Church (the oldest parish in Hyde Park, now Iglesia de San Juan), the latter of which was designed by the architectural form of Cram Wentworth & Goodhue and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Hyde Park is also the original home of the Boston Crusaders, a world class drum and bugle corps founded in 1940 at the Most Precious Blood Parish.
Community activism Two important Hyde Park residents committed to social change and activism were sisters Sarah Moore Grimké and Angelina Emily Grimké. They played important public roles throughout their lives in ending slavery and promoting women's suffrage.
In the 1970s, desegregation busing of the Boston Public Schools caused an explosion in public activism. Public meetings and protests from concerned parents of affected children continued for years. The issue united Hyde Park with surrounding areas in an attempt to form a new school district for the purpose of avoiding desegregation. Public tension over busing lasted for more than a decade.
Hyde Park is home to a large Haitian community that arrived from the island during the 1980s and on into the 1990s. Immigrants from rural areas of Haiti had limited education beyond early elementary school years. As a result of a Federal lawsuit by parents from Hyde Park and other areas of the city, Boston Public Schools were mandated to provide a comprehensive literacy program. The Haitian Literacy Program has been housed at Hyde Park High School since 1989.
Hyde Park is currently under a major redevelopment effort by the Boston Redevelopment Authority. The Hyde Park Neighborhood Strategic Plan was adopted by BRA. As of yet, the plan has not met notable public resistance. Its aim is to change the zoning regulations in Hyde Park, with an emphasis on public transit and pedestrian use. There is a proposal by non Hyde Park residents to create an urban farm that is receiving public resistance.
Urban development and policies
By the time Hyde Park was incorporated into the City of Boston, B.F. Sturtevant Co had a 20-acre industrial park in the Readville area. It became one of the largest fan manufacturing plants in the world. The plant employed 1,500 people in Hyde Park.
In the early part of the 20th century, Hyde Park hosted harness racing. The site of the track was redeveloped on the former site of Camp Miegs. The Readville Trotting Park was neighbored by the large B.F.Sturtevant plant, thus prompting the installation of a railway station. The track migrated from horses to auto racing, which was the main attraction at the track until its closure in 1937.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the Massachusetts Department of Public Works attempted to implement two separate interstate highway expansion projects. Both plans would have created a highway that would have passed through land in Hyde Park. The projects were started but, because of public opposition, were never finished. Interstate 695 and the Southwest Corridor would have run right though Hyde Park, effectively cutting it in half. Hyde Park residents considered seceding from the City of Boston. Residents from Hyde Park and other surrounding communities affected by the proposed project banded together and held a large protest on Boston Common, during what was called "People Before Highways Day". This rally proved to be crucial in having the plan stopped.
Because of the presence of the Stony Brook Reservation, a large part of Hyde Park's interior is effectively off-limits to any new development. The Stony Brook Reservation is a part of the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation.
In April 2008, the Boston Redevelopment Authority Board, along with Mayor Menino, voted to remap and rezone Hyde Park. Mayor Menino appointed an advisory group of 13 residents to assist the BRA in creating a comprehensive rezoning plan. After two years, with input from city agencies and the community at large, BRA adopted the Hyde Park Neighborhood Strategic Plan. BRA then went on to hire a team of consultants from the urban architecture and design firm of Crosby Schlessinger Smallridge. Articles and a new zoning map were prepared and presented to the Boston Redevelopment Authority Board, which accepted it. The Boston Zoning Commission subsequently agreed to the plan in February 2012.
Demographics Hyde Park has a significant number of individuals who are foreign-born. Non-citizens make up approximately 10% of the population, consisting primarily of Caribbean-born individuals. 38% of the total population speaks a language other than English. The latest census reports the current demographics breakdown to be as follows: African American 49.49%, Hispanic 19.7%, Non-Hispanic White 33.39%, Other Race 11.34%, Two or More Races 3.46, Asian 1.7%, American Indian or Alaskan Native 0.5%, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander 0.1%. These two specific demographics, race and nationality, have remained largely unchanged over the last 20 years. A comparison of 2000 and 2010 census shows a 1% difference. The largest age demographic is individuals aged 39–54, who comprise 29% of the population. Hyde Park's elderly population has remained relatively unchanged over the last 20 years, with the count hovering around 4,000, or 6.5% of the total. Hyde Park is home to roughly 7,000 school-aged children and has experienced one of the fastest growth rates in the city in the number of children. 39% of Hyde Park residents are married. Hyde Park's per capita income of appr. $32,224 is roughly average for the US ($33,706). Conversely, the average household income of approximately $89,815 is higher than the US average ($48,150). The poverty rate for Hyde Park, reported as being 10%, is also below the national average (14%). These figures include 586 families.
Historic architecture