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© 2021 The Somerville Times. All rights reserved.
(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries and letters to the Editor of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)
By Jack Connolly
Jackconnolly422@gmail.com
Heard the latest?
The Stop & Shop grocery store Bfresh is closing soon, mid-October; “Not meeting financial expectations” was the press report.
Street talk is that there’s been a lot of shoplifting going on in there, as well as in the CVS store just up the block; Maybe Bfresh’s parent company, Stop and Shop, decided Davis Sq. is not the place to be anymore. Dunkin’ Donuts has already left Davis Sq.
The cocktail supply shop ‘Boston Shaker’ on Holland Street has already closed.
You probably have noticed the empty Holland St. storefront where Rockin’ Bob’s guitar shop once lived.
How about the empty commercial space nearby where Johnny D’s Uptown lounge existed for many years?
Word has it that a cannabis shop is trying to open at that location. We already have three cannabis shops that are open already in Davis; Might be a tough go for one more. What about the old smoke shop on Elm St: Closed for what, over a year? How about the uplifted bricks out in front that people stumble over every day?
What about the empty out-of-service and closed graffitied gas station on Highland Ave., and the empty RiteAid pharmacy nearby on Highland and Grove St.?
Anybody like the “artwork” on the Eversource transfer station building on Willow Ave. next to the Community Path?
How many more people will trip on the loose bricks between Mike’s Restaurant and the old smoke shop (now closed)?
How many more used syringes are going to be found in front of the ice cream store in the Davis Sq. Plaza?
When will the trash around the MBTA subway light shaft next to the 7/11 get picked up?
Who’ s getting after the MBTA to clean up the busway and fix the bike racks laying around unable to rack any bikes?
Those are just a few of the unanswered questions and broken fixtures throughout Davis Sq. deteriorating day by day, week by week.
Looks like the City of Somerville, with almost a third of a billion dollar annual budget, is giving Davis Sq., and the Davis Sq. neighborhood, a good leaving alone.
Jack Connolly is a native Somervillian, a Davis Sq. resident and insurance agent: He is also a former Somerville Ward Six and At Large Alderman (known now as City Councilor).
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Because I live a block outside, I love Davis Sq but see all you see.
So I pick up the litter, the syringes, the tubes, the trash, as I walk along. I talk to some of the regulars on the street. No big thing. I do business with locals, and do very well!
Our fair City has a whole lot of responsibilities. We are the community, and we can do the small things that make Davis the great place it still is, the better it can be.
Something has to change, I live on the other side of JP Licks and things have gotten worse in the 1.5 years I have lived in Davis, I can only imagine the change over the past 10 years. We need to stop enabling many of these people with substance problems and just giving “slap on the wrists” or doing nothing for those who steal from businesses, especially small businesses! We need to offer more resources and move many of these “treatment centers” and smoke shops to more remote areas and not to neighborhoods with families and businesses.
Thanks for calling this out, Jack. I was a resident of Somerville for over 20 years and recently moved away primarily due to what appeared to be a lack of will to clean up the square. I know many families in the same predicament who did the same. For a long time, I loved Somerville, and Davis Square was a big part of that. It regressed to the point that I gave up trying to appeal to city hall to clean things up. Davis Square attracts all the wrong sorts – Lets call a spade a spade. Allowing the square to be a haven of drug use and homeless is not a winning formula. People have issues. I understand that. Allowing them to take over what should be a safe hub of the community is a disgrace. In the recent mayoral race, the candidates that ran all had the same policies – Bike lanes, speed bumps and more bike lanes. Sprinkle on top a desire to create safe spaces for people to inject drugs. Bringing your kid for ice cream and watching rampant drug deals happing right in the square outside the ice cream shop. Sorry – No thanks. Cycling by at 7 am and watching a woman urinate right in the middle of the square – No thanks. Rampant impromptu homeless camps – No thanks. The other single issue policy that all those candidates shared – Affordable housing. You know how to make housing affordable in Somerville – Keep turning a blind eye. Pretty soon nobody making any coin will want to stay around, and you’ll have all the cheap housing you need. With the T barely functional (not sure I can blame Somerville for that one), the reasons to stay around and the hope that something whole be done was mugs game. These are solvable problems with real leadership, but unfortunately that appears to be a hope too far. I hope the square gets cleaned up, but I just do not see the will there to do so. So it was time to move on to a place that takes residents concerns seriously. Pity.
I love Davis square. It’s probably my favorite area in Somerville. It feels vibrant, there’s tons of places to eat, and little green spaces too. The only downside is how expensive it is. I wish they built more housing in the area so that maybe someday I could afford to live nearby.
It is true in Central and Harvard Sq. too. It is making people leave the state. And the remaining workers will end up paying the bill for it.
You got my vote Jack!
Maybe the safe injection sight something to do with it ?
Safe injection site? Where would that be? In the windmills of your mind? LOL
The B-Fresh is closing because it was terribly managed. Surly employees, managers who don’t manage, shelves stocked with terrible goods at sky-high prices.
I’m an occasional cigar smoker. I stopped bothering with the smoke shop years before it closed because it was actually a Keno and Lottery outlet and nothing more. The few cigars it had were impossible to buy because the single employee was too busy selling lottery and keno tickets to even ask what I wanted.
Many of the shops you mention (Johnny D’s and the space that replaced it, Rockin’ Bob’s, etc) closed because sky-high rents make it impossible for small and independent businesses to survive. The same is true of the vacant Rite-Aid and nearby gas station. It appears to me that Davis Square is following the same path as Harvard and Kenmore Square.
Your rant offers no suggestions or proposals for what the city should do differently. Johnny D’s, the Rite-Aid, and the gas station all closed long before any bike lanes started happening.
My take is that, in fact, the bike lanes, bikes, and al-fresco dining has enormously improved day-to-day life in Davis Square.
Tossing innuendo at city government isn’t a constructive response to the issues driving the decline of Davis Square. Snarky comments about bikes and bike lanes are particularly offensive.