A dilapidated house that once loomed ominously on the edge of the Boys and Girls Clubs campus at 20 Deer St. was demolished on Monday morning. The two-family dwelling house— which had sat vacant for the last 20 years— was seized by the city in 2015 for failure to pay back taxes.
The property was conveyed to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Dorchester (BGCD) after a community process. The demolition of the building makes way for an expanded parking lot to serve the club’s McLaughlin Youth Center and the main clubhouse on Deer Street.
Bob Scannell, the president and CEO of the BGCD, said that the additional parking will help alleviate an acute shortage of spots needed to handle up to 125 vehicles over the course of a day.
“We’d like to expand our footprint here,” he added. “Our membership is continually growing so we are always looking to expand and to improve the neighborhood.”
Wrecking crews made short work of the two-unit blue hulk of a house that once sat at the corner of Deer and Melvinside. The property’s value was last recorded at $286,200, according to the city’ assessing department, but the residence had a troubled history. At one point, it was occupied by squatters who took advantage of overgrown shrubs and grass to skulk in and out of the abandoned structure. And the small backyard that abuts the youth club’s existing parking lot, often filled with trash and debris, was a constant source of trouble.
“It’s been a real blight on the neighborhood,” Scannell said. “We’ve looked at whether we could use that space. Years dragged on and it went into tax arrears and the city put it out to bid. We laid out what we’d do with it and the community was 100 percent behind us,” he added. “Everyone wanted to see this property come down. It makes an immediate improvement and puts it to use for the kids in the community.”
Scannell expects that the site will be largely cleared — and the large hole that was once the home’s basement will be filled— within the next week.
The cost of the project— which was not something that Scannell and his team budgeted for this year— was largely absorbed by donors.
“We had a handful of friends step up and make it possible for us,” said Scannell. “It would have been a missed opportunity if we didn’t have some friends come to our aid.”
The Deer Street lot — which is roughly 2,200 square feet in size— will be the latest addition to a campus that has grown in fits and starts over the last four decades.
The main clubhouse at 35 Deer St.— which houses a pool and gymnasium, classroom space, and a games room— opened in 1974 and quickly filled to capacity.
In 2000, under Scannell’s leadership, the club expanded to include a four-story teen center named for Paul R. McLaughlin, a Suffolk County prosecutor who was murdered in 1995.
A pivotal moment in the club’s growth came in the mid-1990s when it acquired another troubled property on Melvinside Terrace— a nine unit apartment building that had become so notorious that it was targeted for enforcement by a city task force charged with eliminating drug dens. That property— which stood next to the Deer Street home that was bulldozed on Monday— was conveyed to the BGCD for a dollar under the Menino administration.
The McLaughlin Center houses a busy child care center, arts space, and a floor dedicated to teen activities, including a recording studio. A youth center n Columbia Point— the Denny Center— was brought under the organization’s umbrella in 2003. All told, the BGCD family cares for more than 6,000 kids and teens throughout the year.
