A new Starbucks has opened facing the Fort Point Channel on Congress Street across from the Children’s Museum. And with that, it is official: the Seaport has been gentrified. The search for the next hot neighborhood must begin now, because the Seaport has jumped the shark.
Hyperbolic, perhaps, but nonetheless true. The neighborhood’s conversion from the gritty artist community of Fort Point to the shiny office tower haven of the Seaport is all but complete.
A recent meeting of the Friends of Fort Point Channel took place at the Boston Tea Party Museum, which in some ways is the perfect representation of the neighborhood’s dual identity. Built on the site of a burned-out shack, the museum is an innovative way to bring Boston’s ancient history to a new audience. It very literally bridges the gap between the new and the old, sitting adjacent to the Congress Street bridge.
Where better for the longtime residents of Fort Point, some of whom bought their apartments more than 40 years ago, to mingle with today’s population of recently transplanted startup bros, many of whom are only in the area for 40 hours a week?
Most of the neighborhood’s longtime residents are at peace with the changes that time has wrought. The pictures they paint (literally, and with words) of Fort Point in the 1980s are not something that can be repeated in a family newspaper – it is sufficient to say that artistic enclaves have never been terribly peaceful places. Now, however, the neighborhood bustles not with late-night fireworks and dance parties on the docks, but with the hum of heavy construction equipment and gossip about which major tenant will next make the docks their home.
The offices of The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman, have been headquartered in Fort Point for more than 20 years. The company claims the longest tenancy in the humble former industrial building at 280 Summer St. – and, at nearly 145 years old, is one of the oldest businesses in the entire neighborhood. History is forming right now outside our windows in the former parking lots of the Seaport, in the grassy span of the Lawn on D, in the restaurants and bars that have sprung up to house, feed and entertain the thousands of new daytime residents.
Such is the nature of progress; nothing changes and nothing stays the same. The struggle is particularly sharp in Boston, cradle of the American Revolution, Hub of the Universe and the site of our country’s most significant historical moments. The city would like to think of itself as forward-thinking, honoring the past but not living in it, and with that comes a desire and drive for innovation and growth.
Follow The Artists
Though the Seaport may be the “newest” neighborhood, others in the city are seeing a similar transformation. The Combat Zone is merely a memory and Downtown Crossing is suddenly hip. The Financial District is no longer a ghost town after the stock market has closed for the day. The North End is teeming with tourists and Southie is overrun with developers. Luxury condos are available on once-dangerous streets in every corner of the city.
There’s a saying in real estate that if you want to find the next neighborhood ripe for gentrification, you follow the artists. Those who colonized Fort Point increasingly cannot afford to live there (indeed, who can?) and must move on if they are to survive. But where to go? The outer reaches of the Green Line are infested with students and their parents’ money. Somerville no longer offers relief from skyrocketing rents. Developers are even building luxury condos in Chelsea, for the love of God!
Word on the street, however, is that the artists are turning up in East Boston. Eastie has had some development since the recession ended and more is in the works, but it’s nowhere near the stratospheric heights of the Seaport. Rents are still somewhat reasonable and space is still somewhat available. Isolated by its infrastructure, it retains character and a sense of place. This is the time to look to the east – once the water taxis and ferries are truly up and running, Eastie will quickly begin to look like Southie.
Then the artists will move again, and the developers will follow.
