The Boston Street Crossing project for formerly homeless individuals redeveloped two former decrepit buildings along Boston Street. Phase 1 opened in March at 43 Boston Street (12 units) in Gallows Hill, in an old tenement steps from the Proctor’s Ledge Witchcraft Trials and Great Salem Fire Memorials. Up Boston Street, Phase 2 at 179 Boston Street (14 units) opened in early October, remodeling an elegant Second Empire house atop a Gallows Hill ridge overlooking Peabody. Both now contain studio apartments with private baths and kitchenettes, versus shared bath and no kitchen facilities in their previous incarnation as SRO boarding houses.
Phase 2 Grand Opening
Phase 2 Interior
Boston Street Crossing is operated by the non-profit Harborlight Community Partners, with on-site counseling from Lifebridge of Salem to provide needed supportive services.
Phase 2 before renovation. Greatly improved
Glad to see these open, as supportive housing for the repeatedly homeless is desperately needed in Salem. Hell, a homeless women died of exposure atop a ridge just last month in Gallows Hill Park. The Gallows Hill neighborhood is better for having these homes among us.
Now to make the opening of Boston Street Crossing even better, Phase 1 now sports on its east brick wall a grand new mural.
Such vibrant murals have become common in The Point neighborhood on the other side of Salem, but this is the first one for the Gallows Hill neighborhood. Given the two bodegas that also opened on Boston Street recently (for those not from NYC, bodega = Hispanic mini-mart), these openings are perhaps indicative of improved ethnic diversification of the once thoroughly Irish-Catholic enclave of Gallows Hill.
Streets of Gallows Hill 