1 Nassau Street, Chinatown, Boston
On August, 2004, a ribbon-cutting ceremony took place to celebrate the opening of The Metropolitan, a mixed-income and mixed-use development with 251 residential units and both community and commercial space.
Among those in attendance were many Chinatown community members and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino.
What made the opening especially noteworthy was the community struggle out of which the development grew. It began in 1993 when the Boston Redevelopment Authority accepted a two-million dollar proposal from Tufts University Medical School and New England Medical Center (NEMC) to build a 451-car, eight-story parking garage on a small piece of land known as Parcel C. The BRA created the parcel in the 1970s by expropriating and demolishing the homes of several Chinse residents and granting Tufts and NEMC the right to buy the land. Community efforts to block NEMC expansion in the 1980s resulted in a BRA pledge to preserve the parcel for a community center.
However BRA’s later reneging on its promise outraged community members already reeling from the displacement of more than 700 residents due to institutional expansion and urban renewal starting in the 1950s. NEMC’s planned 1993 addition of a large parking garage next door to what was Chinatown’s only day care center and an adjoining playground was not welcome news, particularly in a tiny neighborhood already hemmed in by two highways and stricken with serious air pollution problems.
The opposition came together in the form of the Coalition to Protect Parcel C for Chinatown. Their bilingual (Cantonese and English) organizing effort included rallies, legal advocacy, letter writing, petition gathering, alliance building on the environmental justice front, and the holding of a community referendum that showed an overwhelming rejection of the proposed garage. After 18 months of community pressure, New England Medical Center gave in and withdrew its proposal. At the same time, the City of Boston committed to preserve Parcel C for residential housing.
Of the 133 rental units in The Metropolitan, 46 are for low-income households and 13 are reserved to assist the homeless. Also housed in the development is the Chinese Progressive Association, a grassroots community organization that played a key role in the Parcel C struggle.
Image: Parcel C protest, 1993. Courtesy of Northeastern University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections Department.