Urban wilds in Roxbury

Prompted by a UniversalHub post to the blog Lizkdc Dislocation, we poked around the Urban Wilds page at the CityofBoston.gov site.

Things seemed very familiar.  The names of two of the first-listed urban wilds leaped out at us:  Back of the Hill and Cedar Street.

John Eliot Square Urban Wild (photo from CityofBoston.gov)

The a little more poking turned up an urban wild said to be at John Eliot Square.

It seemed a high percentage that, out of all of Boston, three urban wilds should be in Roxbury. 

Then marching through all of the listings, we found five more:  Iroquois Woods, Parker Hilltop/McLaughlin Woodlands, Puddingstone Garden, Rockledge, and Warren Gardens.


Who knew?  While none of them are as impressive as the Allandale Woods featured on Liz Kelleher's blog, eight of the urban wilds listed on the City of Boston web site are located in Roxbury.

Urban Amenities: Open Space I

One of the best things about Fort Hill—besides being located on a hill in view of Dorchester Bay—is its parks and open space. Of all the close-in neighborhoods of Boston, Highland Park seems to have the highest ratio of open space.

This open space consists of city parks, a State Park, designated Urban Wilds, community gardens, the vestigal Roxbury Common at the First Church, playgrounds and playing fields, and, of course, the numerous unimproved lots, the dubious legacy of the plague of arson in the 1970s and '80s.

One city park, Clarence "Jeep" Jones Park, located at the bluff on Malcolm X Boulevard, has been improved at least twice since the '70s.

In the sweetheart deal conveying the 88,000 sq ft parcel at 100 Malcolm X Boulevard to the Islamic Society of Boston, ISB was to have maintained the park, and the King Street Playground, for a period of ten years until 2013.

The ISB fell on hard fund-raising times and has been just able to complete phase 1 of its planned mosque and cultural center. It has so far failed to fulfill its obligations for maintenance of Jeep Jones and the King Street Playground.

The Boston Parks and Recreation 2008 Annual Report [1.3MB pdf] contains a very brief notice of a $885K state grant for capital reconstruction of Jeep Jones and the Ripley Playground.

For its second improvement, crews have been busy at Jeep Jones during the winter. It seems the park will open soon with new fences, planting, and hardscape. The basketball courts are gone, but the new design invitingly opens onto John Eliot Square.

However, the King Street playground and the corridor of ISB-owned land at Roxbury Street remain a wasteland.