That’s a wrap on 2025. Here’s a look back at some of the major news events and stories in and around Dorchester this past year.
Wu defeats Kraft and Trump; Baker falls short – Michelle Wu set a new bar for electoral beat-downs last year with her 49-point shellacking of chief opponent Josh Kraft in the September preliminary election. So profound was the defeat that Kraft quite sensibly exited the race within hours, leaving Wu’s name to appear sans foe in the November final election.
Kraft was well-financed, around every corner with digital and television ads, and offered a sharp critique of Wu’s “listening” skills that borrowed liberally from foes of her White Stadium and bike/bus lanes policies. But the first-time candidate, newly settled in the North End, struggled from his Day One launch in Grove Hall to find a consistent groove beyond Wu’s most entrenched enemies.
Once Kraft pulled the chute, the contest for at-large council was the consolation prize for those still tuned into the election’s second half. Dorchester’s Frank Baker, once a safe bet for re-election to his District 3 office, outraised the field and mounted an aggressive push to win one of the four citywide seats. But on Nov. 5, incumbent Henry Santana snagged the fourth and final slot by a comfy 16,000-vote margin. Meanwhile, Rev. Miniard Culpepper emerged from an 11-person field to fill a vacancy in District 7 left when former Councillor Tania Fernandes Anderson resigned following her conviction on federal corruption charges.
Post-mortem on the Carney – A 33-member commission appointed to frame-out possible re-uses for the 12-acre Carney Hospital campus— left abandoned after a state-facilitated closure in August 2024— published a 61-page report in April. The report chronicled the dire public safety risks and disparities that worsened due to the Steward/state decision to shutter the community hospital and outlined — in broad strokes— the acceptable re-uses, prioritizing the restoration of health care uses.
The site, however, remains in the private hands of New York-based Apollo Management Group. In October, The Reporter broke the news that Apollo has delegated the redevelopment planning to Tom O’Brien of HYM Investment Group, which has teamed with Rev. Jeffrey Brown’s My City at Peace (MyCAP) outfit to devise a “what’s next” proposal for the site. Over a two-month period at the close of the year, O’Brien and Brown huddled with civic leaders and abutters repeatedly. Both declared that they envision a mix of housing and other services on the site but were emphatic that they are committed to finding a health care delivery provider to be the anchor of the former Carney site. The expectation is that the HYM-MyCAP team will offer a concrete proposal for community review in the first half of 2026.
Morrissey Commission ends its work– maybe –A state-run commission that spent roughly 18 months reviewing engineering options for modernizing Morrissey Boulevard delivered a final report to the Legislature in October, four months after the members of the commission voted to approve a draft of the document in June. The project, which could take ten years or more to complete and could cost more than $300 million by some estimates, has no clear funding mechanism in place.
Elements of the plan detailed in the commission’s report include new traffic signals and bike lanes, along with coastal resiliency measures aimed at minimizing tidal flooding events. It does not explicitly deal with either the rotary at Kosciuszko Circle or the Beades Bridge, the drawspan that allows maritime access to Savin Hill Cove. In December, state transportation officials held a public meeting to discuss a potential replacement of the bridge possibly with a fixed span, for a project eyed for 2028 at the earliest.
Greenway connection opened in July – A long-awaited missing link in the Neponset Greenway trail opened in July to rave reviews. The connection between Tenean Beach and Morrissey Boulveard, under construction for the last two years, features a raised, boardwalk-style route with new vistas of Dorchester Bay next to the iconic Corita Kent-designed gas tank at Commercial Point.
The Whitey Bulger/Savin Hill kerfuffle – Savin Hill Bar and Kitchen caused a stir in October when they added prominent portraits of notorious Boston mob figures James “Whitey” Bulger and Steven “The Rifleman” Flemmi as part of a TV show makeover led by Gordon Ramsay, the British celeb chef. Ramsay and his team thought the fact that a previous owner of the building was gunned down by Whitey’s gang in 1975 was a just a smashing tie-in for the restaurant’s re-do. Many customers and civic leaders felt otherwise and urged the owners to remove the mug-shot posters. After an initial Reporter story on the civic group’s discussion of the issue went viral— and engendered coverage from media outlets worldwide— the décor was, in fact, swapped out.
Dysfunction in the courts –A labor dispute involving attorneys who agree to act as low-cost defense counsel for criminal defendants caused major disruptions across the state, but especially at the Dorchester division of Boston Municipal Court. The bar advocates stopped taking on new case assignments in May and triggered a cascading crisis as judges were forced to release large numbers of defendants who could not afford private counsel. In October, the problem resulted in hundreds of dismissals, including some involving violent offenses and domestic violence cases. In at least one documented instance, an accused offender with a lengthy track record— Javonte Robinson, 29— has now been accused of murdering a man in a Mattapan stabbing in November. While the work stoppage has eased in other courtrooms, the backlog of cases and scarcity of public defenders continues to be a serious concern at Dorchester court, according to sources familiar with the day-to-day workings at the courthouse.
Pushback against the feds – Federal aggression directed at Boston and other US cities accelerated throughout the past year. Mayor Wu was obliged to testify under oath in front of a hostile, Republican-led committee in Washington in February. Wu deftly fended off menacing questions from GOP lawmakers, some of whom hinted at her potential arrest and alleged that Boston was unsafe on her watch. But it was Wu, fresh from receiving ashes on the Catholic holy day, who stole the show with a stirring defense of immigrants and the city’s history.
“This federal administration is making hard-working, tax-paying, God-fearing residents afraid to live their lives,” Wu said. “A city that’s scared is not a city that’s safe. A land ruled by fear is not the land of the free.
Resistance to Trump policies was evident, too, in city guidance about vaccines and other shifts prompted by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Boston public health officials have repeatedly rebuked Kennedy’s directives and urged Bostonians to ignore guidance from CDC officials installed by Kennedy and Trump.
Then, in November, a raid by ICE agents on an Allston car wash, resulting in the detention of nine migrant workers, created a new flashpoint locally. Seven of the nine have been released amid an outcry from advocates and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, who denounced the roundup of the workers and other Bostonians based on their race and ethnicity.
Pressley called the federal agents in question “nothing more than glorified bullies masquerading as public servants. They are ripping men, women, and children from our communities.”
A mixed bag for commercial ventures old and new – It was a tough year generally for commercial retail, particularly for chain stores. The year started with the abrupt closure of the Daily Table grocery store in Mattapan. In May, the chain closed all its locations in Massachusetts, including the original store on Washington Street in Codman Square. Two Walgreens pharmacies shut down in ’25: the Gallivan Boulevard location shut down on April 28 and the Codman store shuttered in September, further adding to the vacancy problem in the Square.
On the upside, the Dorchester Avenue business district welcomed an old fave in November when Cedar Grove Gardens-Ashmont opened in a storefront in the Treadmark building. Merry Go Rounds, a second-hand apparel store for kids, opened in June in St. Mark’s area. In Fields Corner, Acapella by X, a new restaurant and lounge promising a more upscale setting for diners, opened late in the year in what used to be Blarney Stone. At South Bay, pizza lovers found a new option with the opening of Connecticut-based Sally’s Apizza in the old Wahlburger’s space. Meanwhile, Papa John’s finally starting slinging slices from its space in Fields Corner.
Yeanie’s, a burger, fries, and shake joint with a 1950s-diner vibe, opened in February in what used to be Venice Pizza at the corner of Dot Ave and Savin Hill Ave.
The Dot Block apartments, which opened to residents in 2023, finally got a retail tenant in 2025 with the opening of the Dot Block Diner, which has become a popular destination since opening in July. And Gourmet Kreyol, a Haitian eatery that focuses on “fast-casual” take-out, opened on Blue Hill Avenue in Mattapan in May.
The most notable 2025 opening on the restaurant front was probably Milkweed on Morrissey, which made its debut in May and has since added a beer and wine license to its brunch options.
