The Gazette’s top headlines from this week in JP history:
5 years ago: 2010
“JP man charged with New Year’s hate crime”
A Jamaica Plain man, Herbert A. Malloy of Weld Hill St., was charged with a hate crime after allegedly attacking a local lesbian couple for holding hands and kissing on Weld Hill Street a few hours into the New Year. Later, Hattie Boseman, from the same address, was also charged in the crime.
According to Renee Algarin of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office, neither Malloy’s or Boseman’s case went to trial. They both served 18 months of probation with diversity training, 25 hours of community service, and were ordered to have no contact with the victims.
10 years ago: 2005
“Blessed Sacrament is now up for sale”
The Boston Archdiocese placed the shuttered Blessed Sacrament Church campus in Hyde Square for sale on Jan. 5, 2005, a move that was painful for local Catholics and raised fears of gentrification.
The eventual winning bidder was the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation and New Atlantic Development. While they redeveloped most of the campus, the church itself saw various failed proposals and then a high-end condo plan. Under renewed fears of gentrification, the Hyde Square Task Force purchased the church last year, but it remains vacant.
15 years ago: 2000
“Group eyes T land for ice rink”
Proponents of the Kelly Rink ice-skating facility eyed the Jackson Square redevelopment as providing a possible permanent home for the rink. Originally located on the Jamaicaway, the rink closed in 1989 and has long operated as a small, outdoor, “temporary” rink on Marbury Terrace near the Stony Brook T Station.
The Kelly Rink indeed became part of the Jackson Square Indoor Recreational Center, planned as part of the Jackson Square redevelopment. But construction has not yet begun.
20 years ago: 1995
“Strike three for rent control”
Massachusetts ended its rent control after supporters lost at the polls, the courts and in the legislatures. More than 3,000 JP residents were affected by the loss of rent control, which limited rent increases to 10 percent a year or to a cost-of-living rate. A requirement for landlords to demonstrate “just cause” in eviction proceedings before the rent equity board also ended.