The city council has scheduled a public hearing on renaming Arlington Street Extension to Walnut Street at its Monday, Oct. 7 meeting.
“During our last council session, the council received a request to rename this street (to) celebrate the historically thriving Black neighborhood that existed in this area before the Great Fire of 1973,” stated City Manager Fidel Maltez.
Over the past few months, Maltez said the city has worked with members of the Chelsea Black Community on the request. He said the city has developed a plaque that will be placed on the street to honor the name change.
“Our local ordinances require that a public hearing be held to rename a public road,” Maltez said.
In May, Stacey Smith, a fifth generation Chelsea resident and member of Chelsea Black Community, addressed the city council requesting the city make the street name change back to Walnut Street from Arlington Street Extension.
Changing back the street name would help highlight some of the long history of the Black population in the city, Smith said in May.
“Blacks have been in our community since we settled in 1624,” said Smith. “Our founding father Maverick was one of Massachusetts’ first slaveholders and had folks enslaved here. If you go through the 17th century, you had other families who were also slaveholders.”
Over the years, Walnut Street became a center of Black life, history, and culture in Chelsea, Smith said.
“My father came from 13 children, and his father came from 10 to 12 children,” said Smith. “There are hundreds from my family who can say they originated down in the Walnut Street area.”
The area did not burn in the fire of 1908, Smith said. But after the Great Fire of 1973, Smith said many of the families were forced to leave the area due to damages or other unknown reasons.
In a letter to the city council, Smith related how her father was saddened that the street he grew up on was no longer known as Walnut Street.
“He reminded me of the times when he used to have to go to his grandparents to cut wood for them or times his father would have gatherings,” Smith wrote. “Block parties, birthday parties, you name it and it happened on Walnut Street.”
Those stories from the family led Smith to do more research on Walnut Street and bring attention to the issue, she said.