Five Boston Globe reporters, as well as a team of photographers, videographers, and data visualization specialists, spent the year focused on the Bowdoin-Geneva section of Dorchester, a neighborhood often identified with the violence that has erupted there with disconcerting regularity over the decades, despite repeated city efforts to quell it. The Globe rented an apartment on Mt. Ida Road, where two of the reporters, Meghan E. Irons and Akilah Johnson, lived from May to September, learning the rhythms of the neighborhood and the people who live there. The resulting stories chronicle a neighborhood’s efforts to survive its most turbulent season and begin to stop the cycle of mayhem. All of the events were either directly observed by the reporters or, where noted, recounted to the reporter by someone who directly observed it.
Introduction
Comments
This is a wonderful series. Thank you for highlighting the challenges, the voices, and the faces of this Boston neighborhood. It is in many ways hidden. Many people think of the nieghborhood as simply a violent place, a place where bad things happen. Rather it is a rich place, with a lot of history and character. Its problem deserve attention. And there should be more public and private investment there to fight crime and make the Bowdoin-Geneva it neighborhood of Boston a safer place for the people who live there.