Boston looks to spruce up disorderly Newmarket neighborhood, home to Mass and Cass

Community leaders are confident a four-story “state-of-the-art” high school going up in Newmarket, next to a dilapidated city playground and blocks away from the Mass and Cass drug zone, will revitalize the area.

Newmarket, a mostly industrial neighborhood that overlaps Dorchester, Roxbury, South Boston and the South End, has long struggled with open-air drug use, public sex and violence, but a new Roxbury Prep High School and other projects are looking to change the script.

The dangerous, unsanitary conditions continue to mar the troubled intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard and have worsened in surrounding neighborhoods, residents and business owners told the City Council last week.

At the same time, the steel frame and exterior of the new Roxbury Prep, slated to open before the 2025-26 school year, are nearly complete, and the next-door Clifford Playground is due to be renovated in the winter.

Roxbury Prep, which will be home to upwards of 800 students from its current Mission Hill, Hyde Park and Nubian Square campuses, is filling a lot that has been vacant for years.

Principal Chelsea McWilliams told the Herald that when the public charter school has opened buildings across the city since its founding in 1999, the crime rate tends to drop as a result in the respective neighborhood.

She hopes for more of the same with the Newmarket location, an $85 million investment, which will feature a full-sized gymnasium, performing arts spaces for stage production, “top-notch science labs” and more.

“It replaced something that was abandoned so it will be a beautiful addition,” McWilliams said, “and ultimately, the research shows that bringing a new school to a community tends to be a catalyst for change.”

Residents and business leaders, during a hearing on Mass and Cass last week, slammed the Wu administration for citing progress in the area, saying the claims are a stark contrast from the crowding, drug dealing and filth that returned in full force this past summer.

Mayor Michelle Wu ordered tents cleared out at the hot spot last November, but residents say that conditions have spilled over throughout nearby neighborhoods, particularly in parks.

Domingos DaRosa, a Roxbury resident and community activist, has shut down his Pop Warner football program, the Boston Bengals, over the past few years because of Clifford Park’s disorderly conditions.

Needles, human feces and other trash litter the 8-acre park regularly, DaRosa told the Herald. He added that he often calls the police to report various activities seen at the park.

“If you thought that was bad in one area, imagine when you have those pockets all over,” DaRosa said of the spillover from Atkinson Street. “As far as community use, we’re starting all over again.”

“This has killed a whole community,” he added.

Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission, said the city has made progress since the tent removal last year, “not just working in the Mass and Cass area,” but working “citywide,” while noting the decline in overdose deaths seen over the first four months of this year compared to last year.

The city Parks and Recreation Department is completing construction drawings for a planned renovation of Clifford Park and moving through the permitting process this fall. Construction is slated to begin in winter, a city spokesperson told the Herald.

Roughly $14 million in the city’s capital plan is being allocated towards the effort, the spokesperson added. The initial budget had been $7.2 million.

Steph Lewis, president and CEO of The Base, is hopeful for the area’s future.

Lewis’ urban sports academy borders Clifford Park, with it purchasing the building it had rented since 2019 in August for $3.5 million. The Yawkey Foundation chipped in $1.5 million, allowing for program expansion and the acquisition of an adjacent plot of land.

“Our young folks in this community deserve the highest quality,” Lewis said of the area’s revitalization efforts. “It sets even more of a statement of the commitment to this community and the people of it.”