Ribbon cut for New England's first affordable apartment building aimed at LGBTQ seniors

City and state officials joined with the LGBTQ community in Hyde Park today to formally open the new Pryde apartment building, with 74 "LGBTQ-affirming" apartments, the first such affordable building in New England, on the anniversary of the Stonewall riot and 20 years after Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage.

Tenants, people 62 and older who make between 30% and 100% of the Boston area median income - $36,690 to $103,900 for one person - will soon begin moving into the former William Barton Rogers Middle School at Everett Street and Harvard Avenue, across from the BPL's Hyde Park branch. Although the apartments are aimed at members of the LGBTQ community, anybody could apply for them.

Gretchen Van Ness, a local civil-rights attorney and executive director of LGBTQ Senior Housing, said the new tenants will include a 65-year-old veteran who spent the past four years in veterans housing, where "he had not made a single friend," a senior lesbian who lives alone and who could never before figure out how to apply for a lower-cost apartment and another woman who was thrilled to learn she could bring her pets with her.

Now, they are "truly free to be their complete, authentic selves," LGBTQ Senior Housing co-foundinger Aileen Montour said.

"It looks beautiful, you all!" Mayor Wu said of the work of local architect Philippe Saad. Saad, a founding member of the group that pushed for and then oversaw the project - LGBTQ Senior Housing - combined the conversion of classrooms into modern apartments and community spaces while maintaining some of the original touches of the William Barton Rogers school, such as its tiling in one hallway and friezes showing people in Greek or Roman attire in a renovated auditorium.

In the revamped auditorium:

And the building outside:

Wu called the ribbon cutting "one of the most important celebrations we could experience here in the city" and said the Pryde will become "the place the rest of the country has their eyes on." She noted the rights the community has increasingly won: "So much of that progress we owe to our LGBTQ+ seniors" and projects such as the Pryde are one way to repay them, she said.

Saad and Wu cutting the ceremonial ribbon:

City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune, whose younger and older sisters attended the school, said today was a happy day for her, but cautioned the sort of bigots who doused the fences around the building with homophobic graffiti in 2022 that she and other allies have will "ride at dawn" if anybody tries anymore nonsense there. "When they come for one of us, they come for all of us," she said, paraphrasing David Ortiz's famous words after the 2013 Marathon bombings: "This is our expletive city!"

"I have never been more proud to call myself a Hyde Parker," state Rep. Rob Consalvo (D-14th Suffolk) said. Consalvo helped push the project along, first as a BPS aide who helped convince then Mayor Marty Walsh to start the process of handing over the decaying, abandoned school to LGBTQ Senior Housing, later as a member of the House housing committee.

The group won millions in grants and financing packages from city, state and federal programs to help pay for two years of construction by Pennrose, a Philadelphia-based developer that specializes in mixed-income projects like the Pryde. Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll said that while the Pryde is the first such apartment building in the state, it won't be the last.

Art by Hyde Park residents lines one corridor:

In addition to apartments, the new building includes a community center and office and display space the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, Company A, whose members uphold and re-enact the history of the first Black regiment in the Civil War, which trained in Hyde Park.

Among the 200 or so people on hand for the ceremony, members of the 54th Massachusetts group: