Resentment, Frustration Surface at Hearing on Stalled Allston Community Center

BOSTON — Dozens of Allston-Brighton residents and local leaders demanded action from Boston officials after years of confusion and delay on its promise to replace Allston-Brighton’s only community center at a Tuesday City Council hearing.

During three hours of raucous testimony — punctuated by cheers and applause from an audience of more than 230 people — residents lambasted the city for its failure to support Allston-Brighton, whose crumbling Jackson-Mann Community Center has been slated for demolition since 2019 without a clear timeline for replacement.

The hearing was held at the community center rather than city hall, putting the poor physical condition of the building on stark display for all attendees. The Boston public school that shared the space was shuttered two years ago.

“If this community center was a business and somebody was making money off of it, it would have been done yesterday,” said Elaine McCauley Meehan. “Listen, I am a last-stage breast cancer patient. If you do not have a community center done before I am dead, I am coming back for it.”

One after another, a diverse lineup of speakers — including an unusually strong turnout of young people — testified to how much they depend on the center, which provides free childcare, after school programming, summer camp, English classes, and a GED program.

Uncertainty over when the demolition and construction would begin, and where the center would relocate in the meantime, have forced the center to halt several of those services.

Though councilors had the opportunity to grill Boston’s chief of operations and the commissioner of Boston Centers for Youth and Families onstage, their tense exchanges brought little new information to light. The officials argued they could not make any hard commitments about the center by themselves.

Dion Irish, the chief of operations, said the Grove Hall Community Center planned in Dorchester has taken over a decade – and counting — to be built.

“It shouldn’t take that long,” he said.

“I agree with everyone there, but I cannot tell you a specific time at this evening,” he continued, in reference to the city’s timeline for Allston-Brighton’s center.

“We’ll be back with an future date we can tell you that’s more definitive, but I’d be dishonest if I tried to give you an answer tonight, because there’s a process that we have to go through to look at everything that’s being planned and make decisions about how we move forward,” he said.

BCYF declined to comment for this article.

The hearing’s high turnout represented a major political victory for Allston-Brighton’s city councilor, Elizabeth A. “Liz” Breadon, who organized the event and spent over a month recruiting residents to testify at it. Eight out of Boston’s 13 city councilors were present.

The city’s slow progress on the community center touched a nerve for many neighborhood leaders, who argued that Allston-Brighton was often treated unfairly by the city, despite being its second-largest neighborhood.

“Allston-Brighton is not getting its fair share of city resources,” Susan Gittelman, executive director of B’nai B’rith Housing, said in her testimony.

The neighborhood has often come in last in the city’s annual capital funding allocations, which support public infrastructure projects like park renovations or building new schools.

Jackson-Mann is also the neighborhood’s only city-run community center, even as many smaller neighborhoods have three, four, or five centers each, Breadon pointed out.

Allston also lacks a post office after its only one was shut down in 2019 — another sore spot, especially after a letter from Massachusetts’ congressional delegation this summer complained about post office closures in the state but failed to mention Allston.

Gittleman pointed out the disparity was at odds with Allston-Brighton’s role in the city as a “heavyweight” in its municipal revenue.

“Allston-Brighton is a giant among the neighborhoods in what it generates in taxes, jobs, and economic spinoff. Ultimately, these uses generate major revenue to the city,” she said, referencing the corporate offices, three major universities, and significant biotech developments that the neighborhood hosts.

After the hearing, Breadon acknowledged that the show of force failed to deliver any immediate results but described it as a necessary step in pressuring the city to act.

“No commitments were made because the people who make those decisions weren’t here,” she said in an interview.

“I’m very, very skeptical and cynical about the city’s commitment to actually delivering on this project,” Breadon said in the hearing. “That’s why we’re all here tonight.”

—Staff writer Jack R. Trapanick can be reached at jack.trapanick@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @jackrtrapanick.