Event

Housing as History: Columbia Point and Commonwealth

Interviews

Listen to audio interviews with former residents of Commonwealth Denise Lydon, Rita Riordan, and Keith Willits as well as Stephen Tise architect of Commonwealth re-development, and Angie Irving, a former resident of Columbia Point.

Program Description

In 1979, after touring public housing sites with deplorable conditions, Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Paul Garrity ordered the Boston Housing Authority into receivership. Lewis H. (Harry) Spence was appointed as receiver. As Spence oversaw a massive redevelopment of the fourth largest housing authority in America, two very different housing models emerged: Columbia Point in Dorchester and Commonwealth in Brighton. Columbia Point was the largest public housing complex in New England and had once been a source of pride. However, a quarter century after it opened, it stood neglected, isolated, and mostly vacant. When it was redeveloped into the new community of Harbor Point, less than one-third of the resultant apartments were targeted to public housing residents. By contrast, Commonwealth remained 100% public housing. Nearly two-thirds of its original residents, many of whom had been deeply involved in the site’s redevelopment, were able to return to the site. This conversation will explore these outcomes, situating these redevelopments in the overall history of the Boston Housing Authority.

This program will be held at the MHS.

This program is made possible by the generosity of Mass Humanities and the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.