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Franklin Park stadium could become year-round facility under proposed $20-million revamp

The Jamaica Plain Gazette reports on a proposal for White Stadium.

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Comments

Can't wait to hear the take on this from all the "what about Roxbury" people that complain any time work is done at a park in a neighborhood that isn't Roxbury or Dorchester.

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How many blocks away from Roxbury is the stadium? Two?

Or do you just like getting pre-emptively outraged about things that may not happen?

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I think you misunderstood. I want to know what this does to their viewpoint that the city only spends money on parks in rich neighborhoods.

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Oddly enough the majority of Franklin Park falls into Mattapan, according to BRA maps.

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at least in some cases.

I think 80% of BRA staff must live in or love JP. How else to explain the silly northern edge of JP as defined on their maps?

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This could dramatically transform that corner of the park and vastly improve the area through increased positive activities.

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Seriously, that stadium is completely useless. It's got a massive fence and is padlocked shut 99.9% of the time; I've never seen it open. There are plenty of people who would love to use it, but can't, because apparently it's holy ground that only a football team from a specific school can tread on.

There's that, and then there's the fact that every field in the city is prioritized for youth or youth-only. There's no reason for it. Field space is impossible to come by for adults (childless households far outnumber households with kids), particularly since, you know...they work day jobs? Day jobs that pay for property taxes? And single people pay more taxes than people with kids?

Always awesome to spend a chunk of my day paying for taxes that go towards maintaining fields which I'm not allowed to use when I get off work because Somebody Needs to Think Of The Children?

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In a city with no money to do anything, where is the $20 million coming from?

Never even knew there WAS a stadium in Franklin Park. In all my years in Boston I never once set foot in that park, other than to drive through as a shortcut between Dorchester and JP. The Arboretum seemed a lot safer.

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Try looking up some stats or ooooh--get really brave and take a walk. Franklins Park is incredibly safe and one of the hidden-in-plain-sight gems of Boston. Why you would brag about never having set foot there is beyond me.

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I agree. I just recently spent some time at Franklin Park myself and my reaction was "I can't believe I have never been in here before.".

It is larger than the Arboretum, quieter and more wooded and rough (as Olmstead intended). Lot of hidden place in there.

When we visited the stadium was open and there were a number of people running around the track.

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Is it de rigueur to call it "White Stadium" vs. its full name George Robert White Schoolboy Stadium or has it actually been renamed?

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Always heard it called White Stadium, when you could get there from Egelston station. Its in a tough neighborhood now I bet, with the walk from Stony Brook T.

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A tough neighborhood? I nearly choked on my sandwich. I guess it is kinda tough if you walk up Boylston from Stony Brook, but not if you go via Montebello Rd.

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Well when there was an Egelston station, you would walk up Columbus ave and cut through the woods I think. Now it would be up Boylston, cut over to School. Tough back then when you were alone, easy pickins ! I myself always considered it Roxbury, not JP though, from a geographic point of view, nothing nefarious intended. It was what it was. Green street = JP , Egelston street , the gateway to Roxbury, Dudley being the heart of it, MTA geographically now .

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I'm starting to wonder if the majority of people posting here have set foot in Boston in twenty years, or do they just drive through with their doors locked? Sheesh...

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I didn't find it particularly scary, one bit. I mean, you had families going to the Zoo, people playing golf across the street. Oh, I saw a bunch of people walking through the park, couples and people with dogs.

And park rangers.

Would I walk in there at night, in the dark wooded areas? Umm, no. But during the day? It was less creepy than the common on a hot recent summer day.

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Didn't think so.

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Or the Tip O'Neil tunnel rather than the Big Dig, I93, or the Central Artery?

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The Tip.

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No, but that doesn't sound funny like White Schoolboy Stadium.

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...refers to it both as "the White Stadium" and by the formal title. For the most part, though, they opt for the less cumbersome version.

(I've been calling it "the Red Stadium" just because the place has such an oddly Soviet feel to it...)

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be the home to the new Mattapan High Matadors?

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Menino also wants to spend several million creating a new entrance at the Johnson half of the BPL.

Go ahead and tax me for what is needed. Please use the money well (Boston schools notwithstanding). But changing a library front that is bland, sinking money (hard to believe that city will not pay something) into an unnecessary sports arena, or the other ideas such as relocating city hall to the water front tell me that what I and everyone else pays in taxes is now treated as though they are gifts given to city officials for them to spend on their pet projects.

The property tax rate has increased twice since the last recession. Obviously there is enough money going in. Perhaps now is the time to reduce the property tax rates.

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Sounds like Fish wants to keep Suffolk Construction on the short list for high rise construction projects throughout the city when Menino steps down in Jan. I wonder If there is a better location to spend that money and get more? Overall giving BPS students more after school activities to participate in sounds like a great idea to me :)

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This dude builds just about everything that is going up around the City because of the connections with City Hall. The same construction company the Mayor's kid works(ed)for. This proposal is just to open up some employment opportunities for the current City workers who are going to be looking for jobs in a few months.

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