The GSD Tourism Club led a walking tour of Jamaica Plain on Saturday, September 8, as this year’s first “getouttagund” program. Participants explored transportation nodes, ethnic and gentrified neighborhoods and local businesses that represent the diversity and rapidly changing nature of this lively community.
Led by Claire Ricker (MUP ’13), the walk began with a transit-oriented development under construction in Jackson Square and moved through the Latin Quarter and Hyde Square. It continued past the Victorian boathouse at Jamaica Pond into an increasingly gentrified area, where the recently-opened Whole Foods Market has stirred controversy. The tour concluded by returning to the Stony Brook T stop and walking up the Southwest Corridor.
Ricker summed up the day, “From a $250 million transportation project, to the fabled albino squirrel, I feel like we covered most, if not all, the bases.”
Getouttagund is a popular initiative of the Tourism Club aimed at drawing GSD students out of Gund and into the cities of Cambridge, Somerville, and Boston. Previous trips included the Harbor Islands and Roxbury. The tours are a clever way for the club to achieve its objective to spark connections and debate about the social, economic, cultural, policy and planning issues related to tourism. Club officers are Alice Brown, Mike Healey, Holly Masek and Josh Westerhold (all MUP ’13), and the club advisor is Judith Grant Long (associate professor of urban planning).