Dirty in Dorchester 1


If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that when I write about Dorchester, it’s usually to pay tribute to how much I love my corner of this community.  I especially like the walks I take in Dorchester.  I’ve written 14 posts that mention Dorchester positively.


The other shoe had to drop and so it has.  I am dismayed by the condition of one spot in Adams Village in Dorchester.  It’s dirty, unkempt, “to’ up from the flo’ up”.  I don’t understand why this is so.  I’m talking about the parking lot behind the Rite Aid Pharmacy, Gerard’s Restaurant, Greenhill’s Irish Bakery, and a smattering of other businesses.  Blaisi Café is across the street from the lot (on the corner of Minot and Adams Street) and its customers use the lot also.


These businesses are always teeming with customers and visitors and the huge parking lot is often full especially on weekends when people go to Gerard’s for brunch.


In researching who owns the lot, a friend sent the link to an article published in April 2005 in the Dorchester Reporter.  The article, It Takes a Village: Adams Merchants Move Toward Business Group, indicated that the owner of the mall and lot, Thomas Cifrino, felt that the owners of what was then Brooks Pharmacy, who lease space from him, should take responsibility for the lot.


Six years later, nothing has changed. 


In addition to the numerous potholes, craters, broken barriers in the lot, there are unsightly dumpsters with no fences around them right by the rear entry.  The last time I ate at Gerard’s, I came out on a weekday afternoon to see a rat climbing on top of the garbage there.  That did it for me.  I won’t be eating there anymore.


While the owner of the lot is ultimately responsible, all of the owners of the thriving businesses that are there, ought to do better for their customers and their employees than leave the lot in the deplorable shape it’s in.


(Note, it turns out that Mr. Cifrino is also owner of the Field’s Corner Shopping Mall which currently looks great.  I wrote about it in a post – Temptation in Dorchester – where I bemoaned the temptation that the new anchor store there, Home Goods, was posing for me.  The Dorchester Reporter did an article about that mall, Investment Pays in Fields Corner Shopping Center.)



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About Candelaria Silva

Candelaria Silva-Collins is a marketing, community outreach and programming consultant; writer; and trainer/facilitator who lives in Boston, Massachusetts. She has designed and facilitated workshops on a wide variety of topics including communication, facilitation, job search skills, team building, and parenting issues. She currently coordinates the Community Membership Program of the Huntington Theatre Company. Her work as Director of ACT Roxbury was profiled in several publications, including The Creative Communities Builders Handbook. Candelaria’s children’s stories, short stories, essays and reviews have been published in local and national publications and she is an active blogger. Her publications include the booklets, Handling Rejection; Pushing through Shyness: Networking Tips when You’re Shy, Slow to Warm Up or Just don’t Feel you Belong; and Real Questions about Sex & Relationships for Teens: A Discussion Guide for Parents. She has served on the boards of Goddard College, Wheelock Family Theatre, Boston Foundation for Architecture, and Discover Roxbury. She is currently Chair, Designators of the Henderson Foundation.

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One thought on “Dirty in Dorchester

  • Wendy Ellertson

    Keep up the observations and pressure.
    Over here we finally succeeded in getting
    Fernandez liquor & market to put out two trash barrels for customers…we’ll see if it helps..Now just to figure a public
    campaign to educate both stores and people!