Photo from You Are Your Best Thing: A Toni Morrison Tribute Reading at the Egleston Square Peace Garden, October 2019, an event organized by Boston Writers of Color, GrubStreet, Brown Girl Book Lover, Traces Remain Collective, and Egleston Square Main Street.
For more than 20 years, thousands of youth, residents, merchants, and community organizations cared for this piece of Egleston Square by making it into a DIY park.
An event space
Annual events such as the Frederick Douglass 4th of July Reading, the Love Your Block Cleanup, and the Egleston Square Christmas Tree all share the stage in a little parcel of land.
A green space
Humble daffodils, fragrant lavender, and trees that have shaded thousands of residents provide a breath of fresh air along one of the busiest thoroughfares in Boston.
A flashpoint for activism
The Egleston Square Peace Garden both reflects the realities of a city in transition as well as a launchpad for social change to a better tomorrow.
From the Archives
11/27/1990: Jamaica Plain's X-Men created a mural in Egleston Square with political slogans and memorials to dead members, joining in with community members to gather for the wake of Hector Morales.
From 1998 - 2021, the Egleston Square Peace Garden (also known in the neighborhood as "el parque" or just "the little park") was a community-maintained green space at the corner of Washington and School Streets in Boston’s Egleston Square, “that great neighborhood where Jamaica Plain and Roxbury shake hands.”
This park was founded in 1998 by students of Greater Egleston Community High School and ESAC Boston, a community organization, as a memorial to young people who lost their lives too soon. Before that, it was a vacant, littered lot with a billboard.
The founders of the park were young residents of Egleston Square and other neighborhoods in Roxbury and Jamaica Plain. It was a cross-generational effort to promote peace and safety in Egleston.
The parcel is owned by the outdoor advertising company Clear Channel Outdoor, who has a billboard there that has been permitted since 1980. Clear Channel fenced up the property in November of 2021. As of January 2023, they are now in conversations with the City of Boston about transferring ownership of the property and restoring it for community use as a park!
About the Friends of the Egleston Square Peace Garden
Friends of the Egleston Square Peace Garden is a group of volunteers and community partner organizations who care and advocate on behalf of all who love the Peace Garden.
This includes
People who currently or formerly live/work in or near Egleston Square
This website is maintained by volunteers from Friends of the Egleston Square Peace Garden and sponsored by Egleston Square Main Street. Beatriz Zapater, first principal of Greater Egleston High School, contributed to the history above.
