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Above, a late-night crowd congregated on a Blue Hill Avenue sidewalk earlier this summer. Reporter file photo
Concerns about weekend street “takeovers” and loud parties in the vicinity of Franklin Park have largely fallen on deaf ears this summer, according to several leaders and neighbors who want more to be done to contain the disruptions.
Mike Kozu, who leads the community group Project RIGHT in Grove Hall, said that quality-of-life problems that follow festivals in the park on weekends in the area have become the number one concern for many residents.
“I think the organizers of the festivals need to step up and take more responsibility for what happens afterward as well as what happens during the parades and concerts,” Kozu told the Reporter. “It is astounding how you can be over here and it’s so loud and out of control, and then I drive by another part of Dorchester over by the YMCA, and it’s quiet and calm.”
Earlier this month, gatherings that followed the annual Dominican festival on Sun., Aug. 16, went on until the early morning hours of Monday on some neighboring streets, with large crowds congregating with loud music, drinking, smoking, and some reports of fighting. There are similar worries about the aftermath of this coming weekend’s annual Caribbean Carnival.
Councillor Brian Worrell says that while he and other neighbors who live along the Blue Hill Avenue corridor enjoy and support the parades and festivals, they have legitimate concerns.
Councillor Worrell spoke about public safety concerns during a press conference in Roxbury earlier this summer. Yawu Miller photo
“It’s what happens after the festivals,” he said. “That’s what we as a city need to be more focused on. For me, it’s always the same locations. The same amount of planning that goes into the actual parade needs to also be present to make sure everyone gets home safely and everyone in the neighborhood can enjoy their own neighborhood after 10 or 11 p.m. I think that planning that needs to be done is not just around the parade only.”
He added: “There doesn’t need to be a separate parade or festival outside the official one that’s happening on Centre Street in JP and up to the Park…I don’t understand [what’s happening], and it blows my mind actually.”
Mayor Michelle Wu’s office said in a statement that festivals, including the Dominican Festival, are cherished traditions “bringing together thousands of residents, families and visitors every year.
“Ahead of this year’s 40th anniversary [Dominican Festival] event, City teams and Boston Police coordinated closely with festival organizers on public safety, traffic, and emergency response plans, including starting and ending the event an hour earlier,” the statement noted. “There were no reported incidents at the parade, concert, or festival. We are grateful to Boston Police and first responders for their ongoing work to keep our residents safe.”
And yet, several neighbors who spoke to The Reporter feel that the after-parties and street gatherings that follow the festivals aren’t getting the response from city officials and law enforcement that they require.
“We all feel abandoned,” said a long-time resident of Grove Hall who asked for anonymity fearing retaliation from revelers. “The property taxes are going up and we’re supposed to be flexible, and no one is being flexible with us and frankly no one is listening to us. We’re just supposed to live here and be quiet about it.”
One neighbor who lives between Blue Hill Ave. and Columbia Road said police are overwhelmed with calls, but they have to prioritize more serious reports.
“We call 9-1-1 but unless you call to say someone was shot, you could wait two to three hours. We have a lot of elderly on our street, and we have neighbors with health problems, and this situation is not good for them… This never used to happen here like this. It’s just crazy and it’s out of hand now.”
One older couple has reportedly contended with music so loud outside their home it causes the husband’s pacemaker to malfunction, setting off his LifeAlert routinely and causing Boston EMS to respond. Their strategy is to leave town on most summer weekends.
Another neighbor in the H-Block neighborhood said even on weekends when there are no cultural festivals or parades, there are often street “takeovers” planned by revelers online.
“The people coming here are more coordinated and more strategic than our law enforcement. They listen to the police scanner and move accordingly,” she said.
As documented in previous Reporter articles, Boston Police routinely use barricades and posted officers to restrict access to Talbot Avenue and Old Road across from Franklin Park, two locations that have been problems in past years. Police Capt. Sean McCarthy told The Reporter that the deployment and road closures have been effective in reducing late-night trouble at those spots.
Another tactic that observers said was effective the last two years was relocating the early-morning J’Ouvert parade away from Talbot Avenue and over to Morton Street by the Shattuck Hospital. That situation has resulted in less stress for everyone, organizers noted last year.
Councillor Julia Mejia, who did not attend this month’s Dominican Festival and won’t be attending the Caribbean Carnival this weekend due to health concerns, said there needs to be some self-reflection by all parties.
She noted she was on “pins and needles” as a parent following the movements online of her daughter at the Dominican Festival.
“Parades, festivals and carnivals are not the issue – it’s a lack of cultural awareness and preparation,” she said in a statement posted to Facebook and provided by her office.
“We need the courage to be brutally honest about where we are. Our city is hurting. And while it is easy to point fingers when something goes wrong, accountability belongs to all of us parents, community leaders, elected officials, city agencies, law enforcement, and residents.”
She added: “We cannot police our way out of problems we have failed to invest our way out of.”
Following the Dominican Festival, videos surfaced of very large crowds occupying streets and playing very loud music into the early morning hours, despite promises that people would leave immediately after the festival ended at 9 p.m. Columbia Road, Old Road, Blue Hill Avenue and Seaver Streets – as well as pockets on Vesta Road, the gas station at American Legion Highway, and farther up into Grove Hall were all filled with revelers long after the festival had ended.
On Aug. 16, police shut down Talbot at 6 p.m. and confiscated some mobile speaker systems from those who refused to leave, a strategy applauded by neighbors around Talbot who told The Reporter that their neighborhood remained calm.
The same success wasn’t in place for Old Road, where crowds defied the closure and piled by the hundreds onto the street and partied well into Monday morning, neighbors said.
A video widely circulated of the takeover of Old Road on Aug. 16 and 17 showed hundreds of revelers in the street and scores of them climbing on a fire escape that is part of the old theatre now owned by Harvard Street Neighborhood Health Center.
A daytime view of Old Road at Columbia Road. Seth Daniel photo
Harvard Street CEO Charley Murphy said he is worried about the parties and particularly about people climbing the fire escape that night.
“Unfortunately, it’s a concern of ours most every weekend, but this past weekend (on Aug. 16) was particularly busy here,” he said. “That amount of activity was unusual, thankfully.
“It is concerning to me, though, because we own that building with the fire escape that people were climbing on. There’s obviously a safety concern when there are people like that clearly on the fire escape and we’ll have to see what we can do to block that off.”
He added that “the parties every weekend are a challenge for the health center if for nothing else because of the cleanup,” he said. “For last weekend (Aug. 16) it took two of our guys two hours to clean up Old Road and Ellington Street.”
Another longtime neighbor living between Blue Hill Avenue and Columbia Road participates in the festivals, but has noted younger crowds fail to understand their meaning.
“It’s celebrating one’s history and heritage,” she said. “The young kids come out and don’t understand what the celebration is about. They think it’s to drink and party all night. It’s not. It’s about learning about each other’s history and culture. They see it as a time to act a fool. We love to celebrate with every culture but at some point everyone needs to go home and cut it off.”
Copyright © 2026 Boston Neighborhood News, Inc. This content may not be re-published or re-used without written permission.
