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Liberty Place and the Gentrification Threat
Lydia Lowe, Chinese Progressive Association June, 2001
Boston Redevelopment Authority Public Hearing
Quicktime Film clips of public hearing January 2002
400 in Chinatown rally against building plan
Boston Globe, March 2, 2002
Film Clips: "Car Jam" rally
March 2, 2002
Films Clips: "Act Out" protest against Liberty Place
June 7, 2002
400 in Chinatown rally against building plan
By Jessica Van Sack, Globe Correspondent, 3/2/2002
Some were too weak to carry placards, so they ambled slowly among the other protesters. With furrowed brows and clenched fists, they yelled in Cantonese, ''Fight Liberty Place!'' They began trickling in yesterday morning, and by noon, they had taken hold of the Chinatown parcel they want
to keep from developers.
About 400 protesters, most of them elderly, stormed the intersection of Washington and Beach streets to show just how crowded the intersection would become if developer Charles E. Smith Residential Realty pursues plans to build a 30-story apartment complex in the heart of Boston's densest
neighborhood.
The proposed high-rise would dwarf surrounding row houses and sit on what is now a parking lot in the center of the neighborhood. The Boston Redevelopment Authority promised that 15 percent of the units would be set aside as affordable, with the rest renting at market rates.
Activists said yesterday the project will bring pollution and push up rents across the neighborhood. They contend the rent, estimated by protesters at $1,600 for a single-bedroom unit, far exceeds what Chinatown residents - whose average annual income is $12,500 - can afford. In addition, activists said its proposed height violates the Chinatown Master Plan, which caps buildings at 10 stories.
Protesters tried to demonstrate yesterday how the project would lock up area traffic by bringing in an estimated 350 additional vehicles and 1,700 car trips per day. Vehicles adorned with protest placards circled the block, and Boston police officers directing traffic said they had never seen the intersection so packed.
Henry Yee, co-chairman of the Chinatown Resident Association, said he has yet to encounter a Chinatown resident who supports the project. ''What will this bring us?'' Yee asked in Cantonese through a bullhorn, scowling. ''Air pollution. Traffic. We don't want them here.''
At age 73, Yee is retired, but, he said, his hardest work may have just begun. Yee has lived in Chinatown for 36 years. He said he couldn't bear to let his working-class community be driven out by an onslaught of high-rent development projects.
He said Chinatown's plight has caught the attention of national advocacy groups, who turned out yesterday to support the protest.
''All of us, we come from elsewhere, but we work hard. We work long hours, and none of us can afford this place,'' said Gerald Heng, chief executive officer of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, an advocacy group with 100,000 members in the Northeast.
Heng said he fears the high rents will have ripple effects, driving out low-income residents and watering down the community's ethnic concentration.
The gathering was the largest anti-development protest in Chinatown in recent years. Since 1997, Chinatown has seen a near-tripling in voter turnout, the result of younger Asian-Americans activists recruiting elders who grew up in a country where protests are prohibited.
Meredith Baumann, a spokeswoman for the Boston Redevelopment Authority, said her agency, which still must approve the Liberty Place project, takes note of such protests. She said neighborhood activists have raised "significant issues'' that are being given thoughtful consideration by the city. But she said an increase in the supply of rental units in the city may actually help bring rents down.
This story ran on page B1 of the Boston Globe on 3/2/2002.
© Copyright <http://www.boston.com/globe/search/copyright.html> 2002 Globe Newspaper Company