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Taking a quadratic equation out of crime in Dorchester
By adamg on Sun, 12/30/2007 - 5:43pm
Larry Davidson of Dorchester reads about the use of the city's ShotSpotter system to direct police to a shooting and explains the application of the quadratic equation, which I bet you never thought you'd have to hear of again after that algebra class in high school.
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Comments
Another Dorchesteranian
Another Dorchesteranian complaining that the media always talks about murders happening in Dorchester. Ummm... that would be because so many murders happen in Dear Old Dot. What are they supposed to say - "Today someone was murdered in the nasty part of Dorchester, but not in the part where people generally are not murdered"? Sorry about your property values, but dead is dead.
Need more fine-grained neighborhoods?
In NYC, I hear that realtors are always inventing cute new names for neighborhoods that are coming up. For example, DUMBO for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.
Perhaps nice areas of Dorchester and other bad parts of Boston could be helped out with some creative neighborhood-naming?
What are the odds of that happening?
Boston has a history of taking a very literal view of each neighborhood/location and then slapping the definite article on the front for good measure. (This excludes places that were named after British towns, obviously, while the origins of "Jamaica Plain" remain open to debate)
Other than that:
It's the back bay of the...OK, name it The Back Bay.
There are fens around...OK, it's The Fenway.
We've got this long wharf here and...OK name it Long Wharf (albeit without the definite most of the time.)
Let's redevelop this district along the seaport...OK we're gonna refer to it as The Seaport District.
It's no-nonsense (seriously, "DUMBO"?) and straightforward. I'm not sure a lot of people would want to try the NYC approach here. There is always the risk of getting something too "creative" (read: highly-paid consultant comes up with ridiculous name that doesn't help). They're already trying to do it with Downtown Crossing now that a highly-paid consultant has found the "problem" they hired him to find.
wasn't Jamaica Plain named
wasn't Jamaica Plain named for its proximity to Jamaica POND?
Rum
No, Jamaica Plain (not plane) is named after the stuff they used to make so much of there - rum. Jamaica is where the sugar came from. Plain was slang back then for rum. So although it sounds like its named after some geographic feature, its not. Its just an area called rum.
As for Dot., there actually are many different areas with their own distinct name - Neponset, Ashmont Hill, Savin Hill, Jones Hill etc. - but there seem to be fewer distinct names for the neighborhoods (within Dot.) where most of the violence happens. I can understand why people who live in the nice areas of Dorchester get anoyed when a murder gets reported in "Dorchester" because then everyone starts to say "you live there!" and you have to spend 5 minutes explaining how Dorchester is a third of the city of Boston in size and population, there are many very nice areas etc. The Globe (to be referred to as the Glob in 2008) is a lazy paper and should get back to local reporting.
Not so simple
Read what the JP Historical Society has to say about it.
My Dorchester Suggestions
When I lived in Lower Mills, which is a section of Dorchester bordering Mattapan, I suggested that the general region be called either Matador or Dormat. Neither one caught one, though I can't imagine why not.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Is there an Upper Mills?
Whenever I visit or hear about Dot/Milton Lower Mills, I wonder if there is or once was an Upper Mills further up the Neponset.
Dorchester Upper Mills
If you Google "Dorchester Upper Mills" you'll get four hits, one of which is from the 1876 Clapp Memorial, from the Dot Historical Society's own Clapp family (Ebenezer, to be specific). Another link refers to it in 1910, specifying the corner of River Street and Blue Hill Ave. as its location.
That would be Mattapan
That would be Mattapan today.
Go here: http://maps.bpl.org/id/10717/
select [Full Screen], let the map load, and look at the bottom of the map.
Dorchester once went all the way over to near Cleary Square in today's Hyde Park,
Property Values
In reply to the interesting comment by MarkB (a Jamaica Plainian), I'm not sure what a "Dorchesteranian" is, but I do need to respond to your "Sorry about your property values." That's not my worry. Zip Code 02124 is a lot like JP: we don't have to worry about property values. If anything, our property values are too high, thus increasing our taxes and making homes unaffordable. According to CNN/Money's famous study of Hottest Zip Codes, 02124 had one of the fastest growing median property values among metro regions throughout the country. So, Mark, don't bother feeling sorry for us on that account. Even in the current year with its well-known depressed real-estate values, we see condos here regularly selling for close to half a million dollars and houses selling for close to a million. (For instance, a house on Alban St. recently sold for $900,000.) This is ridiculous for the inner city!
For readers who don't live nearby, I should point out that there are many different neighborhoods within Dorchester. You will find high property values in Ashmont Hill, Carruth St., and Melville Park. (No, I don't live in any of those. But yes, my neighborhood is as safe as they are.) People need to know that Dorchester represents almost 20% of Boston's population, and only some parts of it are dangerous. For instance, of the 66 homicides this year in the City of Boston, only 10 took place in police district C-11, which encompasses many of Dorchester's neighborhoods, including my own. (And yes, Mark, only 3 took place in JP's E-13, so you can still win.)
Yes, I know that not all of
Yes, I know that not all of Dorchester is the same. That doesnt' change the fact that a majority of Boston's murders happen in Dorchester these days. You need to do a secession from Dot like Mission Hill has removed itself from Roxbury. Until then, when someone is murdered at Franklin Field, that's your home town, baby.
I kind of like it the way that it is
If you mention Dorchester and get an
"Oh that HORRIBLE DANGEROUS place" reaction,
then you know you're dealing with an
uninformed nitwit.
If the response is "What part of Dorchester?"
then you have the potential for a decent conversation.
Kind of let's you cut to the chase.