He wouldn’t move, so the front loader had to. A bulldozer charged until its blade was under his feet. When the heavy equipment arrived in 1969, Joe got out in front. SCAT often met at the home of Joe and Delores LaPiana, a block from the proposed interstate. The city administration opposed and sought to undermine SCAT’s efforts.

Neighbors formed Somerville Citizens for Adequate Transportation (SCAT) to oppose these plans. State officials sat on evidence developed by Cambridge-based consultants Bolt, Beranek and Newman showing that the expressway would flood the neighborhood with pollution up to ten times federally allowable limits. Then, the Commonwealth drew up plans for I-93 that would rip out the heart of East Somerville and isolate Assembly Square.

The city came to rely increasingly on state aid to meet its budget, and residential taxes crept up. Between those two dates, most of Somerville’s factories closed.ĭevelopers, who often had personal relationships with city officials, converted many of the city’s abandoned factories to residential uses, which produce only 60% of the tax revenues, but twice the costs of commercial uses.

Ford closed its plant in 1958 and First National closed in 1976, each laying off more than a thousand workers. First, deindustrialization hit Somerville early. Then, two events forever changed Assembly Square and Somerville. The city’s 170 manufacturing concerns generated ample property tax revenue. Naughty children would encourage their peers to pronounce “Somerville Beach” while holding the tips of their tongues. Residents picnicked along the Mystic River. Streets lined with homes and businesses integrated Assembly Square with East Somerville.Įffective public transit made Assembly Square’s thousands of jobs easily accessible. A beautiful rail station built at the Southwest tip of the site in 1901 served streetcars and an elevated line. When built in 1897, this “Fellsway” became the Northwest border of Assembly Square. The Olmstead firm, designers of Boston’s Emerald Necklace, planned a beautiful tree-lined boulevard connecting Broadway (now Foss) Park to the Mystic River. The next year, First National Stores built a warehouse complex running from what is now Circuit City to Lowes Theater. In 1926, Ford built an assembly plant, from which the square took its name. Over the next century and a half, the site would host thriving businesses, manufacturing machine tools, confections, clothing, ceramics, and appliances, and distributing petroleum, dry goods, groceries, structural steel and other products. Tidelands were filled and factories, built. The Assembly Square area’s proximity to, first the canal terminus, and after 1842, the Boston and Maine Railroad, made it a center for industry and commerce. In 1803, the Middlesex Canal connected Lowell with Charlestown, spurring development of a textile industry along the Merrimack River. Nine other shipyards would eventually locate nearby. He launched the first sea-going vessel built in Massachusetts in 1631. When Governor Winthrop built a home nearby, what is now Assembly Square was a salt marsh. But it has a long history as a vibrant economic center. What I will share with you in this series is only information that comes from documentary evidence, or the testimony of those willing to be quoted for attribution, or from at least two independent sources who are unwilling to be quoted.Ĭity residents under the age of forty mostly know Assembly Square as a vast tract of underused land. But much that I do know has never been made public. There is much about the history of the Assembly Square conflict that I don’t know or understand. George Santayana, who once lived not far from here, famously said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Choices made at similar crossroads in the past were informed more by rhetoric, personal relationships, and calculations of political advantage than by solid evidence and careful analysis. Developed foolishly, Assembly Square could gridlock Route 28, worsen Somerville’s highest-in-the-Commonwealth rate of excess heart-attack and lung-cancer deaths, and be a permanent drain on city finances.Ī recent Massachusetts Land Court decision creates another opportunity for the city to choose which course to pursue. One reason is that the stakes are so high.ĭeveloped to its full potential, Assembly Square could double Somerville’s tax base, more than double its jobs base, and provide us with thirty acres of waterfront parkland. Over the last seven years, no other issue in our city has been as enduring and acrimonious as that of Assembly Square redevelopment policy. “Assembly Square, the Back Story” was a series of columns by William Shelton that appeared in the Somerville News between Apand August 15, 2006.

Home depot somerville