DID YOU KNOW?

Native Americans came to what is now known as Dorchester at least 10,000 years ago. In 1630 approximately 140 English settlers arrived on the ship “Mary and John” and formed a community near Edward Everett Square. Dorchester was officially named in 1630 and is now home to people from many countries and of many nationalities.

BUY-A-BRICK

The bricks at Edward Everett Square continue to share Dorchester voices and tell the history of local residents. We love what they say about our community!

QUOTE

“Dorchester as a separate municipality would rank among the top five Massachusetts cities.”

Wikipedia.org

OUR COMMUNITY:

What is the “Dorchester Community”? 

Dorchester, once a separate town, and one of the original settlements of Massachusetts Bay Colony, is today Boston’s most populous neighborhood. Its boundaries at annexation to Boston in 1870 enclose an area today harboring a population estimated at 120,000. The demography of this population is one of extraordinary diversity. It consists of African Americans, Latinos, Cape Verdeans, Caribbean Americans, Vietnamese and other Southeast Asian Americans, Poles and other East European Americans, Northern Italians, Irish Americans and Irish immigrants, a medley of other ethnicities, as well as “young (and not so young) professionals”, gays and working artists. There are many geographic sections within Dorchester where one ethnic or socio-economic group or another may be found predominant, and if there is a “Dorchester Community”, it consists of a great multiplicity of demographically self-contained communities.

Yet, their boundaries are not always hard and fast, and it is possible to perceive them melding at the edges in an increasing number of social and political collaborations. The Edward Everett Square Project was conceived as a means to promote and honor the concept of community. Dorchester is a thick soup. Its exotic ingredients may be an acquired taste for different people at the dinner table. However, everyone likes pears.