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Home > Boston's Neighborhoods
> Mattapan
Learn more
about your ancestor's neighborhood through the timeline, find more information
in the Further Reading section, or use the links to experience life in
that community today.
Timeline
- 1600-1650: Mattapan is the original Native American Mattahunt
tribe name for the Dorchester area. The earliest development was around
present day Mattapan Square and Babson Street.
- 1650-1850: Mattapan is part of Dorchester.
- 1855: The Midlands Railroad comes through town.
- 1870: Dorchester is annexed to Boston after a vote of 928 to
726. Mattapan becomes part of Boston.
- 1874: The Municipal Building is at Field's Corner. Mattapan,
the original Native American name for the area, is given to the southwest
section of Dorchester. There is no formal political demarcation line
as it is a neighborhood, not a political entity.
- 1886: The Church of the Holy Spirit is built on River Street.
- 1893: Trolley service begins and spurs a period of intense
construction along Blue Hill Ave and in Wellington Hill (Morton Street
on north, Blue Hill Ave on east, Walk Hill and Almont Streets on the
south, Boston State Hospital/American Legion Highway on the west). Mattapan
becomes a "streetcar suburb." Many immigrants, especially
Irish, move into Mattapan.
- 1908:
The Chelsea fire causes many Jews to move south into Mattapan.
- 1920-1940: Jews continue moving into Mattapan as two family
homes are built in the Mattapan Square area (present-day Cummins Highway,
Blue Hill Avenue, and River Street). Blue Hill Avenue become the center
of Jewish working class Boston culture. The area near Gallivan Boulevard,
Morton Street and Mattapan Square are the commercial centers of the
neighborhood.
- 1930: The Mattapan Chronic Disease Hospital is completed after
20 years of construction.
- 1940's:
Mattapan Trolley gets twelve new cars. It runs 2.55 miles from Ashmont
to Mattapan. As late as 1993, 7,000 passengers a day use the trolley.
- 1930-1960:
South Mattapan develops gradually with single-family homes on large
lots. The two areas that develop are Western Mattapan (Harvard Street
on west, Almont Street to Blue Hill Ave on north, Neponset River on
east, Greenfield Street on south) and Eastern Mattapan (Penn Central
railroad on north, Blue Hill Ave on west, Neponset River on south, Morton
and Maryknoll Streets on east). Western Mattapan is one of the newest
areas of Boston and most buildings are less than forty years old. Eastern
Mattapan, in contrast, has an ethnically diverse population of Irish,
Jews, and blacks.
- 1950:
The Census records the population of Mattapan and the Franklin Field
area northwest of Mattapan at 44,520 and 5.6% of Boston's total population.
- 1960-1975: Many Jews leave Mattapan. Boston Banks set up Boston
Bank Urban Renewal Group (BBURG) area in the wake of Martin Luther King,
Jr's assassination, in an effort to help African-Americans who do not
own homes to buy them as a way of quelling social unrest. African-Americans
begin moving into Mattapan. Middle class African-Americans move into
Wellington Hill and Mattapan Square area.
- 1960-1980:
As blacks move into Mattapan, some families settle in the Blue
Hill/Norfolk area (Blue Hill Ave on west, Morton Street on north, Penn
Central railroad on east and south).
- 1968:
Community gardens open on the Boston State Hospital grounds.
- 1970:
The Census has 20,637 people in Mattapan with 5,129 Blacks. The
racial make-up of Mattapan has changed greatly in the last decade; the
percentage of black residents has gone up 48%.
- 1970s:
Two public housing projects are built in Eastern Mattapan: an elderly
development on River Street and Gallivan-Morton duplexes.
- 1970-1990:
Haitians settle in the Dorchester and Mattapan sections of Boston.
- 1985:
Horizons provides six units for housing endangered (battered) women
and the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development
spends $83,000 for Horizons II with 11 units.
- 1990:
The Mattapan population is 19,585 and 3.4% of the total Boston
population. It has the second highest minority percentage of the Boston
neighborhoods: 89.2% Black, 5.4% White, 4.5% Latino, and .6% Asian.
The median income is slightly above the Boston average, except for single
mothers with children have a significantly lower than average income.
The entire population of Mattapan, especially in the Blue Hill/Norfolk
area, is much younger than the rest of Boston.
- 1991:
Another wave of Haitian immigrants move into Dorchester and then
Mattapan after the ousting of President Aristide.
- 1994:
Mattapan resident NT Izuchi, who emigrated from Nigeria in 1976,
starts the Igbo Organization of New England. In 1999, the Organization
estimates that 15-20,000 Ibgo live in New England and that there are
30,000 Nigerians in the region.
- 1995-1999: Mayor Thomas Menino's Blue Hill Avenue Project
helps to revive business along Blue Hill Avenue into Mattapan Square.
- 1996: Thomas Finneran (D-Mattapan) is elected the 83rd Speaker
of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
- 1999: The Boston Globe reports that the largest concentration
of Haitians in Massachusetts, 70-120,00 people, live in Mattapan. For
example, St. Angela's parochial school in Mattapan is 71% Haitian.
Further Reading
- Ginsberg, Yona. Jews in a Changing Neighborhood: The Study of Mattapan.
New York: Free Press, 1975.
- Mattapan: District Profile and Proposed 1978-1980 Neighborhood Improvement
Project. Boston: Boston Redevelopment Authority Neighborhood Planning
Program, Summer 1977.
- Mattapan: Neighborhood Profile 1988. Boston: Boston Redevelopment
Authority Neighborhood Planning Program, 1988.
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