The Old Colony Housing Project is a 16.7-acre public
housing project
Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is usually owned by a government authorities, government authority, either central or local. Although the common goal of public housing is to provide affordable housing, the d ...
located in
South Boston, Massachusetts
South Boston is a densely populated neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, located south and east of the Fort Point Channel and abutting Dorchester Bay. South Boston, colloquially known as Southie, has undergone several demographic transformati ...
. First built in 1940 as a cluster of 22 three-story brick buildings housing 873 low-income units, it is one of the
Boston Housing Authority's oldest developments.
Location
Old Colony is roughly a triangle, bordered by East 8th Street, Dorchester Street, Old Colony Avenue and Columbia Road. It adjoins a traffic circle to the southwest, and Babe Ruth Park, a youth park with baseball fields, to the south.
Across the street from Old Colony, on the rotary to the southwest, is where
James "Whitey" Bulger owned a liquor store and headquartered his organized crime ring.
He grew up in the nearby
Old Harbor Village housing project, later renamed the Mary Ellen McCormack housing project. The liquor store, formerly South Boston Liquor Mart, later became Kippy's Wine and Spirits and as of 2017 is Rotary Liquors.
Prominent residents
* U.S. Representative
Stephen F. Lynch
Stephen Francis Lynch (born March 31, 1955) is an American businessman, attorney and politician who has served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts since 2001. He is a Democrat representing Massachusetts's 8th co ...
*
Michael Patrick MacDonald, grew up there and later chronicled his Old Colony experiences in his memoir ''All Souls: A Family Story From Southie''.
*
Joseph M. Tierney
Joseph M. Tierney (January 1, 1941 – December 13, 2009) was an American politician who served as a member of the Boston City Council from 1972 to 1987. He was the President of the City Council in 1977, 1979, and from 1983 to 1985. He was a cand ...
, the late Boston City Councilor and father of actress
Maura Tierney of ''
ER'' and ''
NewsRadio'' fame.
[
* Kevin Weeks, Winter Hill Gang, mobster and bodyguard of Whitey Bulger
]
Redevelopment
Old Colony is currently in the middle of a three-phase redevelopment that is moving most of its tenants from the original large multi-family complexes to mixed housing in newly constructed townhouse rows and apartment buildings that will replace the 1940s structures. Phase I, which replaced rows of brick buildings containing 164 units with 116 new affordable townhouse units along Old Colony Avenue and Columbia Road, commenced in late 2010 and was finished in March 2012.[ Phase II, which was partially financed by a $22 million HOPE VI Revitalization grant from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, was completed in 2014. The groundbreaking for Phase III, which will replace 250 original housing units with 305 new housing units, was held on February 14, 2019.
]
References
{{Reflist
External links
Boston Housing Authority page for Old Colony Housing
Public housing in Boston