Maverick Square is a section of the

neighborhood A neighbourhood (Commonwealth English) or neighborhood (American English) is a geographically localized community within a larger town, city, suburb or rural area, sometimes consisting of a single street and the buildings lining it. Neigh ...

East Boston East Boston, nicknamed Eastie, is a Neighborhoods in Boston, neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States, which was annexed by the city of Boston in 1836. Neighboring communities include Winthrop, Massachusetts, Winthrop, Revere, Mas ...

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

, Massachusetts, United States. It is East Boston's oldest commercial center. At the heart of the square is Maverick Station, which is part of the Blue Line of the MBTA. The square is named after Samuel Maverick, one of the earliest colonists of the

Massachusetts Bay Colony The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1628–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around Massachusetts Bay, one of the several colonies later reorganized as the Province of M ...

. Maverick Square occupies land that was originally part of Noddle's Island. In 1833, General William H. Sumner and other investors formed the East Boston Company to develop the island for residential and industrial use; steam ferry service began from Maverick Square to Rowe's Wharf on the mainland of Boston. To encourage tourism, the Company built a wharf and the Maverick House, an 80-room luxury hotel (1835). In 1840, the Cunard transatlantic mail service established its terminus at the East Boston wharf. The waterfront became a hub of shipbuilding in the 1850's, with various industries and warehouses along the water's edge, while Maverick Square became the commercial and banking center. Historic buildings around Maverick Square include the 1835-1837 Fettyplace-Thorndike House (47 Maverick Square), the 1835 Joshua Pollard House (33 Maverick Square), and the 1841 Woodbury Building (191-201 Sumner Street). In 2010, a revitalization of Maverick Square began. The nearby Maverick public housing project – once a source of urban blight that gave the area the reputation as the most

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definiti ...

-ridden in the neighborhood – has been redeveloped by Trinity Financial and the East Boston Community Development Corporation. The razing of crime-ridden high-rises, reintroduction of the urban street grid removed in the 1940s, and construction of individual homes with privates access, combined with mixed-income home ownership, contribute to the area's revitalization.

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