Photo: Kyle Bray/WBZ NewsRadio
BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — Codman Burial Ground in Dorchester started a construction project that has been in the planning stages for years.
This plan started to form when Lead Pastor of the Second Church of Dorchester Rev. Dr. Victor Price was unable to see the burial ground at all through the thick vegetation that had been building up for decades.
He said that it was a sacred place that consisted of so many people who have shaped Dorchester into what it is today.
“There are gems in Dorchester, diamonds in the rough, and this is one of the diamonds. We need to unearth that,” Rev. Price said. “This burial ground houses people or have people who carry the same name as streets in the community.”
Names such as Codman, Talbot and Gleason have been given to the names of streets and squares in their memory, and the reverend wanted to honor that memory and pay tribute to these people.
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According to the Codman Burial Ground website, Price, along with a committee consisting of personnel from the Second Church of Dorchester, The Boston Project and the cemetery itself, partnered with Goode Landscaping to not only revitalize the angelwing-shaped burial ground, but also create social spaces within it to make the space more community oriented.
“We said, ok, we can blend the sacred space with a social space, so it’s like taking holy places and adding social spaces to holy places,” Rev. Price said.
The social spaces will include a walking path, a playground, an amphitheater, and space for food trucks. The sacred spaces will include resources to help teach about those who are buried at Codman.
The project was given a budget of $350,000 according to the burial ground website and the Goode Landscaping website, and work on the first phase of the project is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
WBZ NewsRadio’s Kyle Bray (@KyleBrayWBZ) reports.