Located @ 130 Dartmouth Street, this is a mixed community. 25% low-income, 50% middle-income, and 25% market-value housing. The management company has changed four times in the last three years. You can imagine the confusion. The 2br market-value units have experienced a $370 monthly rent increase over the last three years and are anticipating another increase @ $120/month.

The location is great, but some of the people that "hang-out" in the vicinity of the building come across as dangerous. The plaza between the high-rise and Needless Mark-ups is constantly infested with Skate-boarders (clunk-clunk), Haarii-Krishnas (sp') singing their "lovely" songs and banging their "wonderful" drumsets, overly-loud Motorcycles, yelling-and-screaming kids, juvenile delinquents, and 24/7 snowblowers during the winter. The busy Dartmouth Street seems to be traversed only by idiotic honking motorists and emergency vehicles in a hurry.

A calm nights sleep is available at most twice a week.

Fake fire-alarms are the norm at least twice a month, blaring through the building at least an hour or two (or until they figured out how to turn it off by having pressed every available button on the console).

The advertised security guards are a joke (one cannot expect any more when they are at best paid somewhat above minimum wage).

The community features are geared toward the low-income residents (i.e., subsidized day-care, meetings where they complain about paying an extra $35 a month on top of their exuberantly low rent, etc.).

The laundry included in the building is accessable from 8 am to 10 pm. If you move in, don't use on the weekends or after 5pm (the cleaning-crew doesn't stop by, and for some odd reasons some tenants do not feel obligated to keep common areas clean).

The elevators in the high-rise building are broken at least once a month (and I don't think have passed inspection since the erection of the building in 1982). Since they were carpeted, some tenants in the building deem it neccessary to deposit their saliva on the walls and/or carpet.

The courtyard should not be accessed by law-abiding citizens after the hours of 8 pm (or whenever it gets dark).

Some positive features:
location (Back-Bay T & Amtrack across the street, green-line a 2 minute walk, Starbucks a 1 minute walk, Copley Mall outside, Convenience store & Restaurant downstairs, Newbury Str. a stone-throw away)
unit sizes are adequate
water-pressure is excellent
dishwashers, disposals are working
central heating & a/c
RCN is available for high-speed internet access

Enough.

User Responses
From: thomasm	Date: 09/15/2007
I find this article interesting and disturbing as I am studying the history of Tent City and important persons involved in its erection. I am currently researching neighborhood destabilization and gentrification (urban removal) in Boston, Massachusetts. This article is written from a negative standpoint, and is a venting session from someone who seems well-off, and deeply in need of some education on urban settings and the people who reside in urban settings, neighborhood destabilization, and gentrification. I hope this person has moved from Tent City and into a suburb because to complain and not take positive action that will benefit not only self but others is just another lone complaint.

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