Cleared of cars, Dot Ave opened to people on Saturday

Open Streets

Pedestrians, scooters, and subways. What’s missing? Cars. Dorchester Avenue went car-free on Saturday, Sept. 24, for the first-ever Open Streets festival.

A 2.1 mile stretch of Dorchester Avenue was “open to people” but not cars on Saturday morning as thousands turned out for the last in a series of Open Street Boston events organized by the city of Boston this year. The pedestrian zone— between Freeport Street and Gallivan Boulevard— is an expansion of a similar effort that shuts down Back Bay’s Newbury Street, first piloted in 2016. Earlier events were held this summer in Jamaica Plain and on Blue Hill Avenue. And, Fields Corner’s Little Saigon cultural district also hosted a shorter-duration ‘Night Market’ event that closed off the avenue to vehicles in July. Mayor Wu has said her administration will “carefully analyze” the response and feedback from community members, and “download on what went well and what didn’t work so well.”

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Tina Chery took a break and cruised the Ave in a pedi-cab.

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Vivian Ortiz, the Bike Mayor of Mattapan, chatted about bike riding with folks at Open Streets.

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Temmy Gomes, who works in Human Resources at the Fields Corner Target store, took a break to paint a “lovely” message.

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Steven Diaz took his time making a chicken on a sunny day.

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Ummm, Mom, can we go now? Lethu Le relaxes on a folding chair in the middle of Dorchester Avenue on Saturday, Sept. 24, during the Open Streets festival while her children didn’t know what to make of it. She said she enjoyed just relaxing on the normally busy street.

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Avery Thomas holds up Soona Thomas as they dance up Dorchester Avenue on Saturday to the music of Dorchester’s DJ WhySham.

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Khang Nguyen and several volunteers from the Vietnamese-American Community of Massachusetts serving up traditional treats.

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Jessica Carvalho and Michael Cawley in front of the Open Streets balloon sculpture. Cawley, incidentally, was once a Dorchester Reporter delivery boy back in the day.

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Jonathan Penney and Caitlin Romasco introduce their daughter, Simone Penney, to a Mochi donut at Pho Hoa.

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Tam Le, of Pho Hoa, and Victoria Nguyen, of Anh Hong at Pho Hoa, line up drink specialties as they prepared to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Pho Hoa Restaurant on Saturday.

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Tri Duong paints a flower on the forearm of Kady Tran.

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Logan Nguyen took charge of slowing down cars on Adams Street.

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Salima Vo and Amy Duong, of Fields Corner, enjoyed walking their dog in the middle of the street on Saturday.

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Matthew Petersen, of Transit Matters, went on a coffee run for his friends on a tall bike.

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Sarah Riddel promoted the Fields Corner Business Lab, noting that it has expanded to the second and third floor of the Lenane Building.

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Joel Richards takes the first crack in smashing the vehicle at Town Field. Richards sold chances to bash the vehicle to raise money for an effort to paint murals around Dorchester Avenue.

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Teddy Snyder-Norman and Sophia Snyder (right) enjoy walking along Fields Corner.

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Coach Chris from ADSL spun some tunes at Town Field.

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Michael LaRocca had a blast going up and down Dorchester Avenue in his wheelchair without having to worry about any vehicles.

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Ryan Nguyen heads south on his bike along Dorchester Avenue. Next stop – Ashmont.

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Photographer Mike Ritter (right) and assistant Diuene Novembre took photos all day for the Beautiful Dot photo project.

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Family on the Ave. Lulu and Teddy Michel enjoyed the ride along Dorchester Avenue with their parents, Joel, and Julie Michel.

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