I drive up Blue Hill Avenue at least three times a week. Today I noticed a Cape Verdean woman at the bus stop, carrying a brown paper bag. Farther down Dudley Street feels like Cape Verde. Not that I have ever been to the islands, but I can tell by the smell of the neighborhood - it’s not a Boston scent. Across from the woman with the brown paper bag is a Hispanic-owned tire shop that my Hispanic husband and I often use.
As you drive farther up Blue Hill Avenue, you see what Washington Street in the South End of Boston once was, prior to its sandlots becoming multimillion-dollar condos; before the liquor store became the small but elegant restaurant that you better not even look at because it could cost. The drunks, drug addicts and hoes were forced to find another place to live because doctors, yuppies, and newlywed same-sex couples have found an area that they like, and they want it. The Blackstone Park, with the old-fashioned water fountain that I loved to splash in as a child, is now a dog park.
Tags