Nancy & Dennis Deleon

Nancy & Dennis Deleon

ND:    I’m Nancy.  I’m 28 years old, and I was born in raised in JP, so I’ve been here for 28 years.
DD:    And I’m Dennis.  I’m 22, and I was born and raised in JP as well.
ND:    Well, the area that we moved in — in Eggleston Square — it was known to be a bad area, when we first got there.  Actually, there was a shooting in front of our house when we first moved in.  I was probably seven, and he was one, so this was many moons ago.  But, drastically, it has been changing, but it has been changing for the good — for the better.  I think it’s just I love JP, even when it was known to be kind of not so good.  I still loved it.  I did.
DD:    It’s safe.  I mean, now it’s safe.  Like she said before, it was bad.  It’s like, different, because when I was little, you got to see some familiar faces and everything, even though they were not good people.
(laughter)

DD:    But it’s like, now that years gone by, some of them are gone, and different people came in, and now the whole place, and the whole neighborhood is different.  It’s gotten better.  It’s quieter now.  But it’s really, like she said, has gotten better as the years went by.  I still love JP.  It’s where I was born and raised.
ND:    I had a good education, I would say.
DD:    I would say too.
ND:    Even though our high school, English High, didn’t get any good grades as far as, you know, the academics, but I had a great time.  I had fun — met great people — teachers, students, staff, everybody.  I had a good time here in JP.  My schooling was good.  How about you?
DD:    It was cool.
ND:    We graduated.
(laughter)

ND:    We survived.  We survived.  No, I mean, it was good.  Like she said, when she got out of there, people asked me, you know, was your sister here?  And I’m like, yeah, of course, and they have told me, and bragged to me that how good of a student she was, and I’m like, I could be better.  It was tough.  Academically, it was not the best, but we worked it out, and we graduated, and like I said, we survived.  All the kids that were different and challenging, but we did it.
MJ:    Any sibling rivalry?
ND:    No, we actually get along pretty well.  We’re still sad that our brother left, and moved down to Florida.  But, no, we get along — we’re gossiping on the way over here.
(laughter)

ND:    Like, did you watch American Idol last night?  So, no.
DD:    Like any sibling when they’re young, you have your little fights, but as we grow up, and get older, you know, you connect and everything.  Of course I love my sister, and I love my brother.  Like she said, we’re sad in that he’s gone to Florida, sometimes I also hope — praying that he comes back.
ND:    Back to JP.
DD:    Yeah.  But, no, we don’t have no rivalry.  We love each other, and we’re proud of what we do, and what happens to us.
ND:    And our accomplishments.
DD:    Yeah, and our accomplishments, and what we do in life, and no matter what we do in life, I’m always going to be proud of my sister or my brother.
ND:    We were kind of busy as kids, with my Barbies, and he was with his Power Rangers, so we were just totally in our different little worlds, and rooms, so now that we’re older, we experience a lot of things, and we experience things together, and it’s just like, Oh, OK.  We have each other’s back, basically.
MJ:     What do you do now?
ND:    I’m working at a law firm.  I work as a legal secretary in the financial district.  So that’s what I’m doing now.
DD:    I work at a TV sports channel in Watertown. I’m a mass control operator. I went to a communications school in Brookline.  So I did, like, two years.  I got my social degree.  Then I worked at another television station.  It was really, really low — small time.  Then once that place closed down, I found that sports channel, and I applied to it, and they hired me.  I’ve been working there maybe half a year already.  I just work with the technical stuff like a board where I just switch from program to commercials.  You get commercials on tape, then we put in the computer and we air them on air, and whatever needs to be done — put games into tape, and stuff like that.  Sometimes the best thing is to do audio, but we have our own audio guy for that stuff.  Then we have two good camera guys.  A lot of people do a different variety of stuff, but mainly my thing is all of that, that happens in the control room. Behind the scenes.  Make sure all the shows are being aired on television.  That’s pretty much what I do.
MJ:    How would you describe Jamaica Plain to somebody who’s never been here before?
ND:    I would say diverse, multicultural, eclectic, eccentric, beautiful — just my home.  That’s it.
DD:    She pretty much said it all.  It is.  It’s really nice.  It’s beautiful.  No other — I can’t imagine living in any other neighborhood.
ND:    I love that you can go from one end of the street being loud, and boisterous and vibrant, to the end of the street which is calmer and quiet.  It’s just all in one street.
MJ:    Are you talking about Centre Street?
ND:    It’s Centre Street, yeah.
DD:    Yeah, Centre Street.
ND:    Which is the center of JP.
DD:    That’s, like if you want to sum up JP, or sum up one street, and that’s Centre Street, because it is a diverse street.  You’ve in one part where, like she says, loud, and the other part is quiet.  That’s what makes JP, JP, or that Centre Street, Centre Street.  It’s really nice.  Like I said, I can’t imagine being somewhere else.  It’s really a nice place to live.  I’ll tell them that.
MJ:    What are your favorite hang out spots in JP, or places that you can be found?
ND:    For me, at least, the Milky Way.
DD:    Yeah.
ND:    I like the Milky Way.
DD:    Well, during the summer time.
ND:    Yeah.  The Milky Way.  Walking around the pond.  Going to my mom’s.  The hang out spots like, Costello’s, Jinnie Johnston’s.  To eat, I like going to El Oriental De Cuba.  Down here — Yelly’s Coffee Shop.  Yeah, I’m all over, actually.
MJ:    How about you?
DD:    Everywhere.
MJ:    Besides Mike’s.
DD:    Besides Mike’s?  Just pretty much basically anywhere in Centre Street, from the Milky Way to get my ice cream or whatever, or your local little Foot Locker –
ND:    Oh yeah, JP Licks?
DD:    Yeah, JP Licks.  There’s different places.  I don’t know.  I can’t think of them right now.  When you think about it, it’s not that big.  I don’t know.  JP’s not that big.  You can see me in some spots.  I’ll be around the parks a lot.  Jamaica Pond is really, like, the nicest park.  When it’s spring and summer time, that’s really the one spot you really want to be at, because it’s –
ND:    You’ll go to a football game sometimes –
DD:    The football games –
ND:    Doyle’s.
DD:    English High.  Doyle’s.  Oh yeah, Doyle’s is –
(laughter)

DD:    Yeah, you can’t forget about Doyle’s.  Doyle’s is like, really good. Basically just driving around, too, around Jamaica Plain, is just really nice sometimes, when it’s really hot and nice.  That’s pretty much it.  That’s when I think of spots.  Pretty much the whole Jamaica Plain.
MJ:    You’ve seen JP change a lot.  What do you think, right now, are the most pressing issues facing the community, or things that are affecting you, and the people that you know?
ND:    I would say maybe the prices of homes.
DD:    Yeah.
ND:    They’re a bit high.
DD:    Too high.
ND:    Just a bit.  But you know what?  Because JP is such a great neighborhood to move in, people want to move here, so they kind of jack up the prices a little because are willing to pay that.  You know, rent can be a bit too high, and it doesn’t give everybody a chance to live in JP.  Another pressing issue?  I don’t think JP has that many issues, at all.  Not for me at least.
DD:    Not like the past.
ND:    I just think that — Yeah, I don’t think it was as violent as it was before, or compared to other neighborhoods.  But, yeah, I don’t think that JP has any major issues.  I don’t think it has any — it’s friendly to everybody.  To races, to genders, to everybody I guess.
DD:    Yeah, like she said, there’s not too many problems.  Probably like, the prices, and the whole trolley thing.  What’s the point to bring it back when you have buses.  It’s going cause, maybe, traffic.  Maybe, because sometimes you read in the Gazette sometimes, there’s always little minor baby things, like little car theft — robbery, something like that.  That’s the only problem I see.  It’s not bad.  It depends during the time of the year.  Like, during the summer time, it gets pretty high, and then during the cold time, like winter, or whatever –
ND:    It gets too cold.
DD:    Too cold to break the window.
(laughter)

ND:    The doors get stuck.  You can’t open it.
DD:    It’s too cold, and I don’t want to break a window, so I’ll wait until summer time.  I think that’s the only problem I see.  Just that.  But other than those things, there’s nothing major — bad happening in JP.
ND:    It’s important that we communicate, and are able to accept everybody.  I think that’s what JP does.  It accepts everybody, and that’s why everybody wants to come here from different walks of like.  Like, my parents, when they first came to this country, they came to JP, and they were welcome.  They loved it, and they stayed here.  And we actually, when we moved — we just moved from different areas of JP.  I think that just staying the way it is, being accepting of everybody and as long as it’s going on that path, I think it’s just going to get better.
MJ:    If you have one day to spend in JP, what would you do?  Like, how would you day go?
ND:    Well, it depends, if it’s during the winter.
DD:    Yeah, it depends.
ND:    Or during the summer.
DD:    Yeah, is it nice outside.
ND:    Because during the winter, I would probably go to James Gate, and just sit by the fire, and have a glass of wine — spend my day like that.  During the summer, I’d probably be out around my neighborhood, in Eggleston Square, having a Pincho and trying to flag down the ice cream truck for an ice cream.
DD:    More like chase down.
MJ:    Pincho…
ND:    They’re pork.  Yum.
DD:    Oh yeah.  I’d go to Eggleston Square and getting a nice pizza.
ND:    Oh, Eggleston House of Pizza.
DD:    Pizza or a steak bomb.  That’s the best.  That’s also my day.
ND:    We like to eat.
(laughter)

DD:    That’s how I’ll spend my day.  I’ll have my steak bomb.
ND:    All day.
DD:    All day.  That’s it, and just have that.  Breakfast, lunch and dinner.
ND:    Pretty much.  Pretty much.
DD:    That’s pretty much.  That’s how I’ll spend my day.  Winter or summer.  Or in the summer time, you’ll walk around eating.
ND:    With the pizza in the (inaudible).
DD:    I’ll just walk around eating.  That’s good, see.
ND:    There you go.
DD:    That sounds like a good day.  You got pretty much a lot of so many different foods around JP that you’ll want to go to different spots, and there’s always on particular spots that you like a lot, so you always like to go there, and if you have to spend a whole –
ND:    You just go there.
MJ:    What is JP to you in three words?
DD:    I heart JP.
(laughter)
ND:    I heart JP.  JP is home, first and foremost.  JP is warmth.  JP is –
DD:    Cool.
ND:    Cool.
DD:    I would say JP is awesome.  JP is home, and JP is –
ND:    Love.
DD:    Is love.  It is love.
ND:    There you go, those three words.
DD:    JP my world.
ND:    Viva JP.
DD:    Viva JP.
ND:    We were going to come in with t-shirts like that.
MJ:    That would have been cute.
ND:    I know.
DD:    That would have been cheesy.
(laughter).
DD:    That would have been cheesy.  But no, we love JP.  I love JP.

Carla Ryder & Chris Roussin

Carla Ryder, 38 originally from Braintree Ma
Chris Roussin 36 originally from Pittsfield Ma

Carla: I moved here, bought a place in 2000, December of 2000 so I’ve been here for seven years now. Then when we got married, Chris moved over from the Fenway in 2002.

How did you meet
Carla: It’s a long story.
Chris: Yea well we’re both musicians so we met largely through playing in bands. Our bands were playing in the same venues.

Carla: Down at Lupos in providence.

Chris: Yea Lupos in Providence is where we first met.
Carla: Yea where we first met and then we parted ways and then met again walking down the street in Boston two years later. And then parted ways and met again walking down the street in Boston like fours years after that. The third time we got each other’s information.
Chris: And we actually went on a date. The other times we just chatted on the street before a show.

Chris: I played in an early alternative punk band. I’ve been in two bands, my first band was based in New York City, and my next band was based down here in Boston. Played a lot of different places.

Carla: In the 90s I was in a band called the Mudhens in Boston, and then went on my own and started my own band in 2000 and I’ve been with them since. It’s under my name so it’s the Carla Ryder band. And I just started running a toddler music class called “Rock the Baby” up on Centre Street.

Do you ever collaborate musically?
Carla: We do a little bit. We write some together and we play some at home – not necessarily out. I’m a singer and writer.
Chris: I’m a singer and writer too and you don’t need two of those in the same band. We’re smart enough to stay separate.

Chris: I’m finishing up my PHD at Boston College, it’s been a long road. It’s in organizational behavior; I study social psychology and group dynamics in workplace settings. So I’m finishing that up now and I’m looking for a job at a university around here.

Carla: I’m a speech pathologist in the Boston Public Schools so I work at an elementary school in Mattapan called the Mattahunt.

How would you describe Jamaica Plain to someone who’s never been here?
Chris: We do this all the time. We say it’s totally cool, totally diverse, lots of arts, lots of culture. It’s kind of a genuine place. Very different from most neighborhoods that you’ll find. Unspoiled -
Carla: – Sort of.
Chris: Sort of. It’s liberal – but not entirely.
Carla: Lots of musicians and artists and lots of liberal minded folk. Very socially progressive which is nice. We found a nice network of academic folks since Chris has been in his program and since I’ve had the baby. Lots of good restaurants.

Favorite hang outs?
Carla: Pre-baby it was Milky Way a lot. My band played there, plays there. The Brendan Beehan, we still go to a lot of these places. We love going to Oriental de Cuba, JP Licks, and JP sushi.
Chris: We shop at harvest even though it’s incredibly expensive, but we’re loyal.
Carla: and the Miami, we like going there.
Chris: I’m one of those people that’s around during the day, I work at the Junebug café. When I say I work there I mean I bring my work there and do it in there. You know, coffee shops, I hit that circuit. I’m one of the people that kind of walks around town during the day because that’s my schedule.
Carla: JP has some great resources for people with kids. I love that about it, you know Spontaneous Celebrations has some great activities, toddler drumming, lots of opportunities for music and art and play groups. Curtis Hall has a playgroup for toddlers.
Baby: I love you mama.
Carla: I love you too [kisses her on the forehead].
Chris: Yea this community is amazing. I mean we live in a tiny apartment and I’m constantly like building shelves to hang stuff, you know to hang bikes, we hang everything. So our apartment’s tricked out like an RV just so we can stay in it because we like the community so much.

During the 7 years that you’ve lived here have you seen any changes in the community? And how would you like to see the community change?

Chris: I’m of two minds on that. I’d like to see the cultural integrity of the community remain intact, even though I might not be part of the original definition of that. So you know like all the wonderful culture right on this end of town – restaurants, community, music, feel – you want that to stay, but you see that potentially leaving as property values change, and dynamics change and culture changes and all that.
Carla: I’ve seen and I’ve known a lot of people actually – which is kind of a bummer – getting priced out of their apartments and priced out of their homes in Jamaica Plain and that’s what I don’t like about how it’s changing. But it’s kind of cool when a rundown building on your street gets turned into, you know, a groovy shop or a bakery, that’s kind of nice.

Jamaica Plain in three words?

Carla: I’d say Family-orientated. Liberal. Diverse.
Carla: Do you want to do three?
Chris: No that works. We can do three as a family. I’m supporting my wife on those three words.

Chris: We love JP.
Carla: We don’t want to leave.
Chris: We don’t want to leave, yea.
Carla: We don’t know where we’ll go, like there’s nowhere else. I can’t think of where we’d go if, and when, we have to leave. We’ll probably have to leave because I don’t think we can afford a bigger house here. But I don’t know where we’d go, it’s gonna be a huge sacrifice when we do leave.

Chris:
“No Better Place.” There’s my three words.

Alex Tisdale

Alex Tisdale Interview

Age: 22
Years living in JP: 3
Originally from: Carlsbad, California
Occupation: Sales clerk @ The Video Underground

Why did you decide to live in Jamaica Plain?
I had this friend in Florida and she goes to Smith College and she called me up and she said “Listen I’m in New England and I love it, you have to come and spend the summer with me.” And I was like “Cool, alright, I’ll go.” … So I packed up my stuff up into two laundry baskets, I just had a laundry basket of clothes and I had a laundry basket of pillows and bedding, it sounds ridiculous but that was it. So I got in my car and I picked her up and we drove here and she found this apartment on Sheridan St. and we subleted it for the summer. I really liked living here and I just never went back.

What do you like about JP?
I like it because it is like a city, like I can go out and get Ethiopian food and go do fun things, but then its nice here, not suburby but very community oriented, people know each other and there’s lots of local businesses. And there’s a lot of women small business owners which is good. I love the small business thing and trees everywhere. It’s like the best of both worlds, you live with a bunch of your friends and it’s pretty, but it’s also like, I live in Boston, that’s a real city. I never did that before, so its fun.

What changes have you seen in the community during the time that you’ve lived here?
I’ve noticed in the past couple months that a lot of the small businesses have been shutting down. A lot of the rents just got raised and I know a lot of places right now are thinking about it, or having to close, and that really sucks. Like Doolittle’s just closed, and that was a little pet grooming place, it’s very small, and they were doing really well, like they were booked out for months, they were the busiest they’ve ever been, but they had to close because the rents just got raised.

What is the most pressing issue in JP?
People are worried that it’s not going to be as affordable. Right now it’s a reasonable place to live, like people can afford to have a small business or an apartment even if they’re not making a ton of money and if that all gets pushed out by condos or bigger businesses that sucks.

What would you change about JP to improve the community?
There’s a lot of little things I would change. Like Doolittle’s not to go out of business, that kindof sucked. Oh, I know one thing I would change: JP licks to pay its employees fairly. $7.50, you can’t live on that! I worked there for a year. I had three jobs, that’s crazy! You shouldn’t have three jobs to live, that’s nuts.

What is your favorite spot in JP?
That should be easy because I never leave JP [laughs]. I’m going to the pond right now, because my roommate just sent me a picture of the albino squirrel running around. I’ve never seen it so I was psyched. She sent me the picture, I was walking here, and she was like “I know where it hangs out, we’re going to go get it.” And I was like “What do you mean?” and she was like, “I know where it lives,” and I was like, “what do you mean you know where it lives?” and she was like “Alex, I know where it hangs out. I’ve been going to the pond everyday and I know where it is.” I was like “cool, alright.” And she said, “Call me when you get out of there, we’re gonna go.”

But I don’t know, my favorite spot in JP is always my house. I would say the Video Underground, but now I work there so it’s too obvious. I guess there, the pond, my room.

JP in three words.
I live here!

Amaurys Abreu

Amaurys Abreu

Age: 32
Years Living in JP: 29 (I was born in the Bronx and then I came here like at 3 years old).

Where are you originally from?
South Bronx. Boogie Down Bronx. Birthplace of HipHop.

What Brought you to JP?
Parents. They just moved over there. The Bronx was a war zone so they came over here.

What do you like about living in Jamaica Plain?
There’s diverse type of people so I think it prepares you for the real world. I mean, the only thing there wasn’t much of growing up was white people [laughs] but now we got some of that. It was always lesbians, homosexuals, heterosexuals, Latinos, African Americans, Caribbean people, everything really, like a little bit of everything. Also like people are tryina be a little more progressive thinking. At least they’re trying to be progressive thinking. And its accessible to the city. There are Dominican restaurants.

What’s your favorite spot in Jamaica Plain?
Jamaica pond, probably. JP pond. Just walking the pond. It’s very beautiful to drive by.
JP has a lot of beautiful places: the Arboretum, Anderson Park. I’m a nature boy so I like to enjoy, you know, Mother Nature. JP pond is beautiful, I don’t think there is any other place besides maybe like the public gardens that is as beautiful.

Throughout the 29 years that you’ve lived here, what changes have you seen in the community?
Well I think that as Boston as a whole has changed, I feel that my particular community was marginalized a great percentage as far as not having access to the city. I think JP is just like a microcosm of everything else. The only thing I would say that JP has changed more than the entire world really changing is that there’s more of a mixture in certain neighborhoods. Before it could’ve been just like a Dominican or Latino area but now just like people are not afraid to go into those areas, it just seemed like people used to be afraid. Like I said, it seems like the whole world has changed you know with the Internet, people have more access to information, we have recycling now… but those are all things which happened within the bigger bubble.

In your opinion what is the most pressing issue facing the community?
Well at least as far as “my” community in JP – cuz there are different JPs, I can’t compare Jamaica Plain on the other side of Jamaica Pond, with those big mansions, you know comparatively they’re mansions to the area that I live in, um and I think the biggest issue that my community deals with in JP is uh first of all not standing up to demand and organize what they need and change come from a community of oppressed people African American, Native American and people of that mixture so I just feel that my community needs to organize more and get really hard work done.

My community in JP is basically a reflection of every other community probably in the continent of America really. The only thing that we’re supposed to have more services here that we’re in the United States supposedly. But um I would just say more of an organizational structure and like a goal to actually fight the legacy of the Diaspora – the African Diaspora and the Native American, uh, land taken I guess – basically people that have been historically deprived by one person or another person are still in a situation but they need to start understanding that they are in that situation and organize to kind of do it in a structured way like you know the people of the Jewish descent you know have the JCC and they have community they are very evolved and very organized and like we need to start doing that and doing that not to only like Black and Hispanic people but also anyone that really needs like a helping hand. I think that like you can’t just say “oh just us” you know what I’m saying Anybody that needs help you know you have to reflect positive vibes off that.

I would like to see that more towards Eggleston Square, I know they’re making probably a community center here in Hyde Square but uh I like the concept of like little community centers all over the place. Just for the kids, I mean that’s just another issue where kids are out hanging out in front of their house and people wanna call the cops on them, further like criminalizing them, you know what I mean. Like personally I’m 32 years old and um cops still you know harass me and uh I might have like a little bit more knowledge on it but I could see them being teenagers and not really knowing their rights being victimized really and uh feeling that “ok these folks are against me so I’m going to work against that” you know kind of making them, making them be like criminals really… but I could talk about that all day I guess. But those are the most pressing issues I would say.

If you could change something about Jamaica Plain, what would you change?
Like I said I would make at least like more community centers like smaller community centers where kids can go, and uh not only kids really just like informational centers. There are a lot of old people that could be learning yoga, you know what I mean, older people that could be learning how to get on the internet, you know what I mean, learning English or learning French, whatever they really want to learn, you know what I mean like I would be willing to volunteer but there’s nowhere really where you can even sit down and have a meeting really without paying. Like for you supposedly to have a meeting at the YMCA, like supposedly they charge you like $25 an hour you know what I mean, but how is that like helping the community? Then they wonder what’s wrong, but its like when you try to organize something its so hard. So I think the city should have per capita like a certain meeting like a meeting area you know what I mean? That’s just my thing.

JP in three words?
City with Sazón.

City with sazón. We’re part of the city with the sazón. JP has historically been like home to like graffiti crews, hip hop crews, like artists… like, we forced people here to have the Dominican festival. The city wasn’t letting us have the festival, we closed this park down! Like we closed it down, like I mean just partied, like they couldn’t do nothing to us you know what I’m saying. And at the same time, like every little part of JP has their own flavor, like the lesbian community, like that’s good they have their community you know, like that’s their flavor too. You know everybody’s got their flavor, everyone gets along, so I say that’s the part of the city with sazón.

How are you connected to the community, what’s your involvement in the community?

I have a little record label, Malcrio Entertainment, a recording studio, Eggleston square. Political hip-hop, hip-hop in Spanish, support everything, support all genres.
Kind of try to organize the youth really, like just talk to them as people.
Um right now trying to get something like career coaching in my neighborhood uh so the kids can get that coaching, and hopefully councilor Tobin will push it and uh at least a couple of kids will be helped you know one by one I guess. That’s about it.

Malcriao entertainment – watch for the cd! Malcriao clothing – buy a shirt! Malcriao.com

Malcriao basically is short for “mal criado,” which means you’re not raised right, but really where I get it from is Cesar Chavez, the socialist worker or the community worker or the union worker really. His newspaper was called “El Malcriado,” where he reported abuse and informed people, so that’s kind of what my music does, tryna inform people, also entertain, so it’s Malcriao entertainment. So hopefully you guys will support the rebellion, join the rebellion [laughs].

Evelyn Reyes

Evelyn Reyes

I’m first generation American. My mother came to the US when she was 19 from the Dominican Republic. My brother and I were born in Brooklyn, New York and we moved to Jamaica Plain in 1975.

I am one of the hosts and producer of Boston Latino TV. Digna Gerena a Puerto Rican woman, is the executive producer, and we are entering 5th year of being on the air. We are a public access show but we put all our segments on YouTube. So if we tape something today, in 2 or 3 days Digna will edit it really, really fast and put it on YouTube, and then our show runs weekly on Saturdays on Channel 23. Our mission is to engage viewers in thought provoking topics with the Latino point of view. In Jamaica Plain we covered when El Oriental burned down- when he had his grand opening we were there, and we interviewed Nobel. We’ve covered the JP worlds fair on Centre Street, several of our friends were in bands and they were playing in the festival, and we covered that. We do some stuff in Jamaica Plain, but we try to cover all the cities in Boston, so we do Dorchester, the South End, you know wherever there’s something Latino going, on we try to be there.

There’s been a lot of changes, people wise, as far as who lives here, the way Jamaica plain looks. I remember Eggleston Station, which is not there anymore, I remember when they put in the orange line down over by where Jackson square is. There used to be this big, black bridge and it would get full of water underneath, and you couldn’t walk under there when it rained. And uh Centre Street has gone through a lot of changes, there are a lot more small businesses then there were before. The penny candy store is gone, Woolthworth is gone. Woolworth used to be where the big Footlocker is over by JP Licks up Centre Street. The penny candy store was a big thing for me. My bus stop- when I went to school- was in front of the penny candy store, so that is completely gone. Several businesses are completely gone. There used to be a beauty parlor next door to Pimentel Market, that was where my mother and I would get our hair done, and that’s completely gone. Dominican women go every week [laughs]. Rolos is like the national culture. We’re very hair conscious.

I love to go to Mangos, I love to dance salsa and merengue so I’ll go to Mangos on the weekends when I can. I love El Oriental de Cuba, I get my café con leche there. I used to work in Tropical Market, which is now called Camilo Market. Tropical Market used to be on Chestnut ave and that’s where my family is. My mother owns a house on Chestnut avenue and Tropical Market used to be right across the street from my house, so I used to work there when I was a teenager, so I’ll try to go in there every so often to get little things that I need. I also go to JP Seafood Café which is further up Centre street. And my new favorite spot is Salmagundi, the hat store on Centre Street. And I go to the Footlight Club as well to catch some of the shows that they do there. There’s a Latino theatre group called Escena Latina and sometimes they put shows on at the Footlight Club.

Property value has gone way up, same as the lady before me way saying. The property value has gone so far up that the people that have lived here for a really long time, if they haven’t purchased something, you know, in the 80s when it was really cheap, now it is very difficult for them to purchase. My mom bought her home in 81/82 and she paid all of $23,000 for a three family house in Jamaica Plain and that’s a down payment these days. So I tell her, “Don’t sell it, you’re not going to sell it, we’re staying there forever and ever and ever.” She gets letters in the mail from people that are part of the gentrification of Jamaica Plain that want to buy her house, offering her money. And I’m like “No!” Rip rip rip, “Throw it in the garbage, we’re not selling.” So that’s a big change in Jamaica Plain, a lot of the wealthier people are coming in and buying up the properties that, you know, the not-so-wealthy people that have lived here for a long time can’t afford. It changes the flavor of the community because when lot of the same kind of people move in it sort of becomes very bland – not bland, but just. excitement is more when you have different people, when everyone brings their culture, their food, their music, how they relax, their style, it adds flavor to a community. When its all the same kind of people its kind of like, you look over here you see the same thing, you look over here, you see the same thing, and in Jamaica Plain in my experience it’s never been that way. There are Syrian people on the street that I grew up in, there are some Asian people, there are some Ethiopian people. I grew up with Italian families all around me, so I’ve been eatin pizzales since I was a little girl and you know in the Dominican Republic nobody eats pizzales because it’s an Italian thing. We grew up having mixed cultures on our street, and that has added a lot to my life, and my brother’s life, as far as enrichment and knowing about other cultures.

What changes would you like to see in your community?

That’s kind of a difficult question for me cuz I kindof like JP the way it is. You know, I like the tiny little shops, the mom and pop places, I don’t want those places to go away but if big business moves in they’re going to squeeze out the little guy and that’s a problem. What I guess I would like is more support to the small businesses so that they can maintain, and expand, and move with the growing technology so it’s beneficial for them to stay there, and beneficial to the residents. So no I don’t want it to change!

JP in three words?

Eclectic … family-oriented … & diverse.

I love JP. If somebody says to me, that lives in Massachusetts, “Where are you from?” I say “JP.” and then they go, “JP?” And then I say “Oh, you’re not from Boston, so you don’t know: it’s Jamaica Plain.” So yea, I love JP. I recently bought the little JP sticker that they have at one of the shops on Centre Street and I stuck it on my calendar cuz I’m so happy to be from JP.

Rick Berlin

Rick Berlin

My name is Rick Berlin.  I’m 63, and I was born in Iowa.  Back in the eighties, I lived in Newton Highlands, and a friend of mine and I were looking for a place to live.  We found an ad on a board, and moved down to, I believe it was Williams Street.  That was back in the eighties.  Then I moved to a place near Doyle’s, where I work, and then another place near Doyle’s.  Then I left town, but I kept working at Doyle’s.  I went back and I live on Centre Street — right up the street.  I’ve been working at Doyle’s for 18, and I lived here before that, so I think it’s 24 — a third of my life.  I’m an artist primarily, which means that, really first and foremost, a song writer, and that’s mostly what I do.

Jamaica Plain has a long history of activism, and at the same time it’s sort of talking about things and not getting things done.  It’s kind of a blend of energy and divisiveness intellectually, but I think it’s a great place.  It’s one of the few places that people can move and almost immediately begin to say it feels like home.  H-O-M-E.  I don’t know why except that all of the buildings are different.  Most of the houses are different.  All of the faces are different.  The t-shirts are different.  The clothes are different but people don’t hide as quickly as they do in other northeastern towns.  Certainly downtown Boston, or even Cambridge, or Davis Square.  People don’t cower.  I think they’re more willing to invite you to your house to help you shovel out if it’s snowing.  I think there’s a tremendous desire for empathy here, even as there are problems.  My friend Todd Drogy and I decided to make a film about Jamaica Plain as if it might be different in an instructive way then most small communities in the country — that it has a history of that.  People try to get along here, even with all of the problems.  The guy on NPR, who, at Harvard, and for the last 30 years made a study of diversity in communities, and found out to his astonishment the diversity had negative reverberations in most communities.  More walls were built economically, culturally, orientations and everything.  While he was on the air, somebody called in from Jamaica Plain and said, you know, I live in Jamaica Plain, it’s not like that here.  He said, you know, Jamaica Plain is an exception.  Our project, Jamaica Plain Spoken, hopes to understand what that exception is.  Even with all of the cracks.  We have a long way to go.  There’s a pride here that’s not fake.  There’s an ugliness and a beauty that coexists that I really adore.  I love this place.  I love it.  I really love it.  I’m really happy when I’m coming back from somewhere else.

A friend of mine, who grew up in Brooklyn, said it was the Brooklyn of Boston.  I would say that you don’t know what it is until you land here, and hang out with somebody that lives here — maybe three different kinds of people.  Walk around, hang out and see what you think.  I think it’s very, very special.  I think it’s unusual.  I think it’s like The Shire in a lot of ways.  I’m idealistic about it.  There’s danger, and there’s help.  There’s a lot of rich people that are making is pretty but pushing a lot of people out that have grown out here, so there’s antagonism.  I have friends that were moving into a house and someone said they were having a party tomorrow — come over, and they’d go.  So it’s a proliferation of friendship.  I go to the Brendan Behan a lot and everybody gets along.  So the network of friends, and the support from that, is really special.  There’s something very unusual here.  I stand on my roof, and it’s The Bronx on one side, and it’s Province Town on the other.  It’s Florence Italy on another direction.  It’s crazy.  I love walking up the street and hearing four languages, here in this little ‘burb.  I don’t think I could tell you what it is.  You’d have to feel it yourself, but I don’t think it would take you long.

MJ:    Tell me about one of your favorite hangouts in JP.
RB:    The Brendan Behan.  I’m there after work almost every night.  I’ve never had a corner bar or pub that I wanted to go to always.  I found my apartment.  I found a lot of my new friends there.  Todd and I met there before the Jamaica Plain Spoken got started there.  I found jobs for friends there.  It’s a talking bar.  It’s not a who can you score.  It’s not predatory.  It’s got all this writers on the wall, and I think they look down in their drunken stupor and encourage conversation.  I think it’s a talking bar, and it’s very small, and that’s my favorite place in JP.

MJ:    What are the most pressing issues that you see in your community in JP?
RB:    The cliché would be gentrification and all of the ensuing advantages and disadvantages. I was talking to a friend of mine today, on the phone.  She said, do you rent or do you own.  I said, I could never own.  I only rent, and there’s a lot of places you can afford here, and there’s a lot that you can’t.  The good side of gentrification is that it’s made streets safer, and more beautiful, and the houses resurrected, and become a rich person’s park.  The negative side of it is that people who’ve lived here for generations can’t afford to live here anymore, and they move out and they’re pissed off.  I think that there’s some streets that are safer than others, but I think that people would like to make things safe.  They would like to get over their differences, and understand each other, and I think you need money to do that.  I think — I hope there’s less shouting here and more listening, but I’m not sure.  I’m not in the heart of those kinds of problems.  I have six friends who’ve been mugged.  I’ve never been mugged.  But then they have spontaneous celebrations.  We have the Hyde Square Task Force, who have institutions that are trying to bring something to kids that’s not fake and phony that surpasses the opportunities that crime affords.  Doyle’s, where I work, has every kind of person there.  The only kind of person that’s really not terrifically there are yuppies.  We’ve got blacks, and Hispanics, and blue collar people, and families, and sometimes they walk in like, I don’t know, and in ten minutes, they feel good there.  It’s been like that for years.  Not to say that it’s perfect, but I think more of that is good.  I don’t know.  Nothing is ever perfect, and it’s growing, and I think it’s going to survive with its’ differences rather than eliminate them.

MJ:    What changes would you like to see in Jamaica Plain?
RB:    People seeing themselves in others.  The parenthetical in our title is Jamaica Plain Spoken — This Is Un-gated Community in the 21st Century?  I’d like not to lock their doors and go away.  Rich people here have jobs down town.  They go to their jobs.  They come home, and they cook dinner.  They go to their jobs and then they come home.  They don’t interact.  But the festivals — The Wake of the Earth Festival — the parades.  All of that stuff will continue.  Ideally I would say more of the inclusive nature — politically, culturally, economically, and less of the isolationist direction.  These are just generalizations.  The cops are good.  I like the cops.  They’ll answer your questions in a good way.  All I know is that the best way to judge a situation are the people that you know, and the people that they know.  In my case, and yours, most of them are good people.  Maybe that’s the rule, and not the exception.  What we’ve learned making this documentary, there’s some extraordinary people here, and they all have open hearts.  They think, and they are caring.  They’re not so different in the big things, which are family, love, survival and self education in life.  I think there’s a premium on that here.  It’s not houses with lots of yards, and dogs barking.  There’s a lot dogs, but if a lesbian can live next door to a doctor, to a lawyer, to a huge Columbian family, which happens here all the time.  It’s pretty great.  More of that.  More of the best, less of the worst.
MJ:    How do you describe Jamaica Plain in three words?
RB:    Honest.  Self-aware.

Chris Hanson

Chris Hanson

My name is Chris Hanson, and I’m 36 years old.  I grew up in West Chester, New York.  I went to Clark University in Worcester, and that brought me up to Massachusetts, and now I’m in JP.  I’ve been here for a year and a half, and before that I was in Bedford, out in the woods, for about ten years.  I was really craving the city, and more community, so I knew that JP was where I wanted to come to.  I didn’t look anywhere else.  I went to school, and studied social work and psychology, and I did social work about six, seven years working with homeless and runaway teenagers.  A little bit of that out in Minneapolis, and some of that in Worcester, Massachusetts, and quickly burned, so then I became a massage therapist, which I’ve been doing now for 13 years.  I have a business out in Lexington, Massachusetts.  I also go to companies, and events and do chair massage anywhere in the Boston area.  So that’s what I do.  I’ve been here, I guess, since ‘98, choosing to live in this area for my adult life.  I never felt like I really had a community of people, and it was hard to meet people.  I hoped that being in a city would help that, so I moved to JP.  I joined the neighborhood association, and went to one woman’s event that they had, which I was really excited about.  I didn’t feel like I fit in that well.  It was more for older, married women, and they were having a break from their kids, and their husbands, and there really wasn’t anything for women after I thoroughly researched everything for women who identified as gay, or lesbian or bi.  So I learned about this meet-up website, and I just created an event to see what kind of interest there was, at my house.  We had 55 people say they were coming, and another 25 said maybe they were coming, so I was scared to have it at my house at that point.  That day, I was able to get Spontaneous Celebrations to give us their space.  We had it there, and we all brainstormed ideas, and that was just about a year ago — January. Then little, by little, people joined the group, and I think now we’re up to about 710 women.  We’ve had about 80 events this year.  It’s been a highlight of my life, just to be able to help woman in that way.  Certainly I’ve met a lot of people, and have new friends, and it’s been a lot of fun.  So we’re the JP Women’s Group, and we’re the Boston Women’s Group now, and we can be found at BostonWomensGroup.com, or JPWomensGroup.com.  The purpose is just for people to have a place to go, to feel like they have community, whether it be to make new friends, or see who might be single for dating, for volunteer events, for resources for each other.  We have an email list, so if someone needs a plumber, or a dog walker, we can be resources to each other.  I think especially for women who are just moving to the Boston area, and don’t know anyone, it’s been a great resource, and for women who may be just coming out, and realizing they’re gay, or wanting to just explore.  We’re open to that.  Then just to have fun events.  For me, my life is so busy, running my two businesses, that if I don’t have set events in my schedule, I don’t even end up doing to much that’s fun.  I know I’m going roller skating in February, and we had a bowling event, and now I’m on this bowling league, which I never thought I would be, but it’s fun every week, and it’s a gay bowling league, and a bunch of women from the group are in it.  So it serves a lot of purposes.  Women of all ages, probably women as young as 17, 18, and I think there’s probably women up to their 60s, and 70s in the group.

I guess what stood out for me is that it’s in the city, but there’s a lot of green areas, which I love.  I have a dog, Betty.  So we like to go walking.  I was told that it’s the area in city that has the most green areas, so that was appealing to me.  The neighborhood association that Joseph Porcelli started is wonderful, and I was really interested in that.  There’s a lot of police neighborhood associations that I’ve been a part of.  I love the diversity.  There is a way that it feels like people get along a little bit better in JP than other places I’ve lived.  I don’t know.  I’ve heard that also, but it feels like people respect each other a little bit more in their differences, and come together to make their community better. I was out in, really the suburbs where people have a lot more space between where they live, and don’t really get to know their neighbors.  Where I am now — I live over by Stony Brook — all the houses are really close, and there are so many different ages, and so many different backgrounds.  There’s Spanish people, and Black people, and Asian people, all together in my house.  There’s people who live in my house that don’t really speak English, but we respect each other’s differences and get translators when we need them. Yeah, it’s a good question. But maybe because of all the community events.  All the — what do they call them — they have a world fair, and all these annual big fairs that they have, and their street parties, and music, and right in the park where I live, there was a really awesome party.  So those things, I think really bring people together.

I know there’s some streets that have these block parties so they get to know their neighbors.  I don’t have the time and energy to start that, but I’d love to see that — where I could really meet everybody on my street.  I think that’s really the key, is just people getting to know each other.  I’m not thrilled about the shoveling job they do in the park where I walk my dog.  That’s a concern to me, because it gets very icy, and people are falling a lot.  Crime, and shoveling.  I’d love to see a coffee shop, and actually heard that maybe City Feed is moving up to Centre Street, that might be a nice — Hopefully that will be a place where people can hang out, and have coffee.  JP Licks is great, but it’d be nice to have another option.  I don’t know — I’m very interesting in volunteering and having my women’s group volunteer, and I imagine there’s a lot of need within JP itself.  I don’t know a lot about what Joseph’s doing, but some sort of regular volunteer project for people in JP, whether it be at community servings, or something where the community comes together and helps out the rest of the community that needs it.

MJ:    How would you describe Jamaica Plain, in three words?
CH:    Well, I didn’t mention about my choice in moving here was because it’s where lesbian women congregate.  Women comes to mind, is one word.  Community, and diversity.

Joseph Porcelli

Joseph Porcelli

My name is Joseph Porcelli. I’m 31, and I’ve been in JP — it will be six years at the end of January. I had started a business that wasn’t doing well in the New Hampshire and Vermont area, and found a mentor who had a business here, and invited me to come work with her in Boston. So, where’s the coolest place to live? She moved to JP. That’s how I wound up here.

I think the first thing I love about JP is the people. You can walk anywhere, and strike up a conversation. I think that the people that are here, chose to be here, because they recognize how important it is to be part of a community. Not everybody may know how to engage the community, but they’re here because they want to be, I think. The folks that have been in JP for a long, long time, have done a lot of really hard work to get it to where it is right now. I think one of my favorite things is meeting the people that have been here for a long time, because, like, the stories. We walk up and down the street, and we don’t really have an appreciation for what happened, and how it got here. I like meeting the people that — this is their real neighborhood. And I’ve moved all over. I’ve lived in 25 neighborhoods my whole life, and this is the first place that I feel rooted where I feel accepted, and cherished, and I get that everywhere I go here.

So what’s up with the nametags is, I’ve learned that through the organizing I’ve done, is people don’t think that they have permission to talk to each other. So when people are wearing nametags, and they’re at an event pretty much means it’s OK to come an introduce yourself, and say hello. I wanted to know what would happen if I wore a nametag everyday for a year. I wanted to do nametag day in JP, but no one really wanted to do that with me. So I said, eh, I’m just going to do it anyway. I started wearing one last New Years Eve, and I’ve been wearing one every day since. It’s almost been a whole year. It’s been awesome. Actually, 19 thousand people have worn a nametag for a day, this year. We did nametag day at Fenway Park, and passed out 10 thousand nametags there. It’s been awesome. Everyone has really had a good time with it, and it’s really an ice breaker. It gives people permission to say hello. You don’t have to be at a function, or somewhere where we already have that permission. I’m hoping we’ll have people think about that. Good morning, good afternoon, how you doing, what’s up? Because that’s where community starts, is when we start talking, and acknowledging each other.

My favorite community spot is the rotary at Hyde Square, because you can sit there and watch the cars go around, and every single type of people is in the car, and it’s like, aw, that’s cool. My favorite community place for dinner and drinks is the Milky Way, just because they’ve been so supportive, and it’s just such an open community there, which I really like. My favorite cool place is — sorry I’m such a dork — there’s this street between Chilcott and Glen — I don’t know the name of it — by Franklin street, where the street ends, and there’s this little pathway. You walk through this garden onto this other street. I just think that’s cool. I don’t know why. There’s not just one thing about JP that people like. It offers so much. You can pop down to Yelly’s and get a great dinner for eight bucks. Like a big, big dinner. You can pop into the Milk Way, and get the best Calamari, or stop at the Popusa and get some great Chicharron, you know? Some Yucca Frita, mmm. ‘

This whole place is warm. That’s what I think it is. You go to Cambridge, and there’s some cool cats there, but it doesn’t have the feel. The best moment I’ve ever had in my entire life was in 2004. It was 3 a.m., after the Red Sox won, and everybody was out in Hyde Square. I don’t know how many people I hugged, but if I could recreate that again, I’d be ready to die — just to go through that one more time. That was just awesome. Everybody was high-fivin’ it, huggin’ and screaming. I was watching the game somewhere. We were would there for three hours, screaming. I remember I was sick the next day because I screamed so much. My head hurt, and messed my sinuses up.

I’ve read gentrification and stuff in school, but I’ve never seen it happen. My neighbor bought a building — an entire triple-decker in 2000, for two hundred, seventy thousand dollars. He flipped each floor for over 400 thousand. Now I’m in a position where I can’t afford to buy here, so that scares me a little bit. There’s a lot of folks that I know are getting kicked out. I’ve seen that happen. That scares me. I shrivel at that. I also struggle with, am I going to be able to stay here. I could rent for the rest of my life, probably. But that’s not going to leave me in the best financial position, because of the work I chose to do, I’m not taking home a [billie] a year.

I think this is why I support this project, because people will be able to see and listen to where people are coming from, and have an appreciation for that, because it really comes down to modifications in behavior. The basis of my work is getting people to talk to each other, and make eye contact. I know that when that happens, amazing things happen. That first is the see-er conversation, and then there’s the relating, and I think every community faces that. I think we have the tools and infrastructure to continue that work, but as gentrification sets in — I think if we were able to relate to each other, we would vote differently. People would chose to pressure elected official to create millions in dollars in preventative programs, and health and education for kids. We did our Halloween party on Boylston Street that we’ve done every year. This year we passed out 475 hotdogs. I was curious to see what would happen if we got a hotdog truck, and drove the city, and did instant hotdog parties — just all over, to get people to meet each other. I asked the kids, how do you think the hotdogs would make a difference, and some of the kids said we wouldn’t be hungry. That’s it. I don’t think a lot of people think about how hungry sets in for their neighbors around the city, which makes me sad. So to answer your question, distinctly. I would say that our biggest issue that we’re facing is people relating to each other, and after related each other, modifying our behaviors, and our priorities so that everyone has what they need. Housing, education, health, opportunities.
MJ: Describe Jamaica Plain in three words.
JP: Love, possibility, and fun.