Boston Globe: Sister Mary Veronica Park saved with the help of neighbors

Photo by David Ryan/Boston Globe

By Camille Bugayong of the Boston Globe

Sister Mary Veronica Park is a cherished corner of South Boston, rooted in the community since 1968, when it was named for a local woman who joined the Sisters of Notre Dame.

The shady spot at the corner of West Eighth, F, and Grime streets provides a quiet place for locals to sit and chat on its green benches.

Here, people have room to breathe and connect with one another, said resident Langdon White. 

“You’re not always talking to your neighbors anymore,” Langdon said recently by telephone. “We’re kind of an unusual part of the population these days, where we don’t just drive into our house and then never come out again until we go to work.”

The Archdiocese of Boston had owned the property, then a vacant lot near St. Augustine Church, since 1955. The church and a neighborhood committee collaborated to turn it into a so-called “vest pocket park,” the first of its kind in a non-urban renewal area of the city in 1968, the Globe reported.

It was named for Mary Greene, “a South Boston girl,” who joined the Catholic religious order of nuns in 1939 and died in 1960, the Globe reported.

Over the decades, residents came to care for the small park they looked after with pride.

“While the archdiocese owned the land, they had almost never done anything with the park,” said resident Vicky Shen.

When the archdiocese listed the property for sale in 2023, surprised residents formed the “Save Sister Mary Veronica Park Committee,” said Shen, the committee’s spokesperson.

Last month, the city formally acquired the 4,675-square-foot park from the archdiocese for just over $200,000, saving the park from any future development.

 It was a neighborhood committee in the late 1960s that turned the lot into a park, Shen said, and the newest generation of neighbors ultimately saved it.

 Every other week, one neighbor uses their own leaf blower to move leaves and debris away, Shen said. Another neighbor wheels the park’s trash cans to the curb every Wednesday for pickup.

 The park has five benches around its perimeter and is surrounded by tall trees with Dorchester Avenue is just a few blocks away.

South Boston has the second-lowest tree cover in the city, making every foot of green space “precious,” said Donna Brown, president of the South Boston Neighborhood Development Corporation.

“It has touched newcomers to South Boston as well as long-term residents because it is a rare open space in a really dense part of the neighborhood, and that’s why it means so much to people,” Brown said. 

Brown said people walk their dogs in the park, kids ride their bikes, and neighbors talk. That’s why it was essential to save.

“It was really just neighbors talking to neighbors and then trying to figure out what we could do as citizens to get visibility and try to do something to prevent the sale of it to a developer,” Shen said.

At a public hearing on July 28, the Boston Parks and Recreation Commission voted to approve the purchase of the park, the city said in a statement.

The property was placed under a Conservation Restriction held by the South Boston Neighborhood Development Corporation, which ensures the space will not be converted to another use, Brown said.

“It was really inspiring and made you realize that a neighborhood and a community matter,” Shen said. “It was saved because people who live in the community came together to try to fight for something important to us.”