Stone Place

Around the turn of the 20th century, the Boston Rubber Shoe Factory #2 was the city’s largest employer and taxpayer. At the turn of the 21st century, city officials dreamed of once again making the rambling property into one of the city’s largest taxpayers—only this time, it would be as a residence. Under the city’s new inclusionary zoning ordinance, it would also add 27 units to Melrose’s subsidized housing inventory.

The property was originally in the hands of a local developer called Stone Place Limited Partnership, which first unveiled its site plan before the Planning Board in 2008. Their plans included restoring the original 1883 factory building, the iconic smokestack, and another substantial structure, 37 Washington Street. Other structures would be demolished and replaced with new buildings.

To accomplish this ambitious vision, the Planning Board created a new overlay zoning district for the site, and the developer negotiated a novel tax deferral plan with the city so that they would be eligible for additional federal tax credits. In 2009, the Board of Aldermen approved this scheme, which then required assent from the General Court, which was granted in 2010. At just that moment, however, the developer withdrew from the project for financial reasons.

The site was then taken up by Wood Partners, one of the nation’s largest private development firms. They largely kept to the original plan, but called for the demolition of 37 Washington and, somewhat later, the demolition of the smokestack. The Historical Commission successfully lobbied for the preservation of the smokestack, but conceded the demolition of 37 Washington Street, a subject we have previously discussed here: https://melrosehistcomm.blogspot.com/2021/05/lost-melrose-volume-seven.html?m=0.

In 2016, construction on the site was finally finished. As had been promised from the very start, 27 affordable units were designated out of 300 total, by far the largest addition to Melrose’s subsidized housing inventory created under the inclusionary zoning ordinance to date.

Oak Grove Village

In the 1980s, housing production in Melrose came to a virtual standstill. For about twenty years, the number of new residences created in a single year could typically be counted on one hand. In 2001, Pembroke Realty, the real estate arm of Fidelity Investments, proposed building nearly 600 new apartments along the border of Melrose and Malden. A bitter struggle over the development ensued, the results of which would determine the course of affordable housing production in the city to this very day.

Fidelity had owned the 15-acre parcel for years. The mutual fund giant had come close to building a new global headquarters on the site in 1990, after which time the property languished.

In 2001, two factors made the place ripe for development. First, the principles of “smart growth” had recently gained traction, which posited dense development adjacent to transit as an ideal. The proposal was not in fact very dense, but it was directly across from Oak Grove station. Second, Melrose was running a $3.5 million annual deficit, and the development promised to bring in about $1 million in tax revenue each year.

An opposition group, the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Development (CARD), organized to stop the development. City government put up a united front in favor of the project. In July 2002, the Planning Board voted 7-1 to permit construction. CARD then sued to stop the development, alleging that the Planning Board had violated the open meetings law.

In the end, CARD and the city settled out of court, in an agreement that saw a slight reduction in the number of units built. What did not change was the number of affordable units. Pembroke voluntarily agreed to set aside 14 affordable units in perpetuity. They also agreed to contribute $200,000 to the city’s affordable housing fund.

These negotiations convinced the Board of Aldermen to adopt an inclusionary zoning ordinance, which would make the creation of affordable housing a legal requirement rather than an optional form of mitigation for any future development of more than five units. Ever since, that ordinance has been virtually the only way that new affordable housing has been created in the city.

The Cefalo Complex

Between 1967 and 1977, Melrose went from having no deed-restricted affordable senior housing units to having over 600. The addition of the five buildings that housed these apartments had caused minimal disruption to their neighborhoods, yet when the Cefalo family tried to build a sixth such complex at 245 West Wyoming Avenue in the late 1970s, they came up against widespread resistance, triggering the first Chapter 40b struggle in Melrose history.

By that time, the Cefalo name was an institution in the city. Giuseppe Cefalo had immigrated from Naples, Italy in 1912, and had found work at Casey’s Florist on Maple Street. After a few years, he decided to enter the business for himself, founding the Melrose Florist Company in 1923 at 245 West Wyoming. His son, Joseph T. Cefalo, continued the family business, and also served Melrose as an alderman and on the zoning board.

The family was devastated when Cefalo died at age 53 in 1973. After a few years, they decided to end the florist business and construct a senior housing complex on the property, which would be named in honor of their father. The housing would be financed under the new federal Section Eight program, which had been founded in 1974 not as a voucher system, as it is known today, but as a fund for building new affordable housing.

 In 1977, Joseph T. Cefalo, jr. filed an application to build a seven-story complex, but encountered stiff opposition from both the city and neighbors. In the end, every relevant body in city government came out against the project, with the exception of the Melrose Council on Aging. Denied permitting by the very zoning board on which his father had once served, Cefalo invoked Chapter 40b, the state law passed in 1969 to expedite the permitting process for affordable housing. After years of negotiations, Cefalo received permits to build a scaled-down, 107-unit complex. At just that moment, however, the Reagan administration cut the Section Eight funding on which the investment relied, delaying the project further. The Joseph T. Cefalo Memorial Complex finally opened its doors in 1983, nearly seven years after the initial application was filed.

Vietnamese Refugees

This week, people across the globe have watched the evacuation of Afghanistan with horror, with many comparing it to the fall of Saigon on April 30th, 1975. Melrosians watching that event 46 years ago were equally dismayed, and some took action to do something about it.

Within a month, the Melrose Clergy Club had formed a Vietnam Refugee Committee, which made plans to raise money and find local host families for the displaced. James McIntyre of First Congregational Church, the committee chair, wrote “We firmly believe that these South Vietnamese are our brothers and sisters, and that our love and concern should extend to them in their hour of need.

Over the next several weeks, Melrosians prepared for the refugees’ arrival. They purchased food, solicited donations for everything from toiletries to furniture, and worked to set up jobs and apartments for the newcomers. Once the families began to arrive in July, some volunteered to teach English to the children and take them on field trips, while others drove the adults to job interviews.

The families themselves had to overcome the trauma of losing everything, including skilled jobs in their home country. Pham The Dzan had been an air force supply officer before his family moved in with the Pulsfords of 166 Green Street. Dao Tan Bach had been a navy Lieutenant Commander. Tran Nam had lost both his job as a TV anchorman and his wife, mother to his five children. Brothers Ha Viet Giang and Nguyen Van Hung, who moved in with the Boyers of 33 Oakland Street, had run a printing service; they had lost everything when their luggage had fallen into the Pacific as they struggled to escape Hanoi in a US Navy cruiser.

By August the four families had all arrived in Melrose, a small part of the estimated 150,000 South Vietnamese refugees coming to America at the time. In large part they found a welcoming community, although the sentiment was not unanimous, as some questioned whether the newcomers were being given preferential treatment. Regardless, their experience might best be summed up by the words of a poem written by 15-year-old Pham Thuy Hanh.

Pham Thuy Hanh’s Poem

(sung to the tune of “Que Sera Sera” by Doris Day)

When I was just a little girl,

I asked my mother what will I be.

Will I be pretty? Will I be rich?

Here’s what she said to me:

Que sera, sera

Whatever will be will be.

The future’s not ours to see.

Que sera, sera.

When I must flee the Communists,

I asked my father what will I be.

Will I be alive? Will I survive?

Here’s what he said to me:

Que sera, sera

Whatever will be will be.

The future’s not ours to see.

Que sera, sera.

When I ended up in Arkansas,

I asked the US government

Will I be welcome? Will I be safe?

Here’s what they said to me:

Surely you will.

You will be welcome and safe.

We will do our best to help.

Things will be O.K.

Now I am living in Melrose.

I ask my sponsors what can I do.

Can I go to school? Can I have friends?

Here’s what they say to me:

Surely you can.

You can go to school, my dear.

Then you’ll have a lot of friends.

Don’t worry, my dear.

The McCarthy Apartments

Hundreds of people turned out for the grand opening of the Christopher McCarthy Apartments in October of 1977. Three years in the making, the 150-unit building was Melrose’s second public housing complex. Like the Steele House, it was built and maintained with funds from the state’s Chapter 667 program. Also like the Steele House, its construction was riddled with flaws.

The McCarthy Apartments had been a dream of Melrose resident Christopher McCarthy, a life-long employee of the Department of Community Affairs who was one of the state’s leading advocates for senior housing. Lending his expertise to Melrose’s fledgling housing authority, he helped them to secure funding for both senior housing projects. He died before the second was finished, and it was named in his honor.

As with the Steele House, the DCA advised Melrose on hiring architects and contractors for the project. They recommended a Harvard-educated architect who was already working on a senior housing project in Whitman; he was later fired from the Whitman job, and his Harvard credentials turned out to be forged. This architect in turn hired a mechanical engineer who would soon be indicted for embezzling $50,000 from the Somerville housing authority.

The results were disastrous. One report from the DCA’s on-site clerk noted “this is the worst example of placing concrete that I have ever seen.” Richard Mallon, chair of the housing authority, later said “It was an unwatched shop. There was an opening. It seems everyone took advantage of it.”

In less than two years, the building had to be evacuated. Problems included a faulty fire sprinkler system, a leaking roof, improperly installed carpeting, unsafe mortar diluted with sand, and a lack of steel reinforcing rods throughout. Melrose Housing Commission member Frances Burke summed it up: “it seems to me a disaster zone.”

Following months of repairs, the McCarthy Apartments were once again declared safe, and have housed thousands of people in the years since. But the gross mismanagement involved in the building’s construction had a long-term impact on Melrose history. The city never again opted to construct a public housing development.

The Steele House

The Steele House at 1 Nason Drive is the second-largest affordable housing complex in Melrose, with 155 units. It is also the only standing building in Melrose whose very existence was declared illegal.

In the 1960s, Melrose was the only city in Massachusetts that had failed to form a housing authority, and so was ineligible to receive state or federal funds to create public housing. In 1968, the Board of Aldermen finally caved to public pressure and voted to create a housing authority for the specific purpose of building senior housing.

Perhaps because the city had waited for so long to create senior housing, they moved all too quickly to make amends. The city opted to apply for funds through the state’s Chapter 667 program, which paid for the construction costs of senior and disabled housing up front and would subsidize rents for residents in perpetuity thereafter.

In 1969, the housing authority settled on constructing a 9-story building on a site between Greenwood Street and the railroad tracks, and pushed the project through the Zoning Board over the objections of neighbors in order not to lose recently granted state funding. The housing authority then hired a contractor and an architectural firm on the advice of state officials.

The Steele House opened in 1971. A year later, a lawsuit that had been filed by abutters made its way to the SJC, which ruled unanimously that the zoning board had overstepped its authority by granting variances for the structure. Rather than order the building torn down, the court ordered that Melrose change its zoning for the site.

In 1979, the walls of the Steele House began to crack and buckle. The contractor hired in 1969 had done shoddy work, and the architectural firm had failed to oversee them. The walls had to be reconstructed. Melrose sued for damages, but the SJC again ruled against the city, arguing that they too had been negligent in their oversight.

The Steele House has now been open for 50 years, and has provided housing for thousands of residents. Yet the difficulties that attended its planning and construction hold a lesson on the importance of municipal due diligence.

2020 Census

One of the most important documents for understanding the historical trajectory of any community in the United States is the decennial census. Preliminary statistics from the 2020 US Census were released yesterday. Some highlights from the Melrose results in historical perspective:

Melrose’s population rose 10.5% over the past decade, from 26,983 to 29,817. This is a dramatic reversal of a half-century of demographic stagnation, but it is still well below Melrose’s population high of 33,180 in 1970.

All population growth can be attributed to the arrival of people of color, as the total white population of the city continues to decline slowly. The city is now 79.6% white, down from 91.15% ten years ago. This is by far the most racially diverse the city ever has been.

Black people now make up just over 3% of the city’s population, which is the highest percentage recorded since 1765, when the number was just under 5%. While Black population has grown year over year since 1950, when the census recorded just 24 Black residents in Melrose, it is worth noting that Black population growth was slower between 2010 and 2020 than it was in the decade prior.

The Asian-American population in Melrose more than doubled in the past ten years. The census only began to separate out statistics on Asian-American people in its aggregate data in 1990, so it is currently impossible to get a complete picture of Asian-American population trajectory over time in Melrose, but population growth has been accelerating over the past three decades. In 1990, Melrose’s Asian-American population stood at 321.

The Latino population likewise more than doubled in the past decade. “Spanish origin” first appeared as a discrete category in the census of 1980, when Melrose reported a population of 165. Since then, Latino population growth has been steady.

In short, the results from the census show a trajectory of greater racial diversity and overall population growth in the next ten years.

The graphic below was taken from the Boston Globe; for full census data on every city and town in Massachusetts, please visit their website.