Venerable charity reason to celebrate

3 November 2004

If the presidential election - too exhausting and too mean- spirited - has left you in despair, take a stroll tomorrow, around midmorning, to the end of Chandler Street in Boston's South End. On a small parcel of land, right where the road butts up against the chasm of the Massachusetts Turnpike, you'll find a passel of local dignitaries and activists, gathered to break ground for a new park.

It seems no big deal. This city has hundreds of parks after all, and, really, what's a children's playground matter when compared to the great issues of war and peace?

The driving force behind the new park is a nonprofit organization with the clumsy name of Ellis Memorial & Eldredge House. Ellis is probably better known for the Ellis Antiques Show, an event that annually raises about $150,000. But Ellis Memorial itself has been around longer than many of the antiques at the show - next year it will mark 120 years since its founding.

The organization traces its roots to 1885 and that era's settlement-house movement. Settlement houses were a quasi-religious and sometimes controversial effort to improve the social welfare of the poor. Invented in England and rapidly adopted by U.S. cities, they aimed to do more than simply distribute alms. Instead, mostly upper- and middle-class women, many forswearing marriage and children, would move into a community, living side-by-side with the subjects of their charity, advocating for them and providing services rarely available from the government. (The close relationships of many of these women became known as "Boston marriages," an early precursor to the "Massachusetts marriages" that today so deeply trouble traditionalists.) Boston alone had dozens of settlement houses.

Ellis was the first. Founded by activist Ida Etheridge and named after local patron Rufus Ellis, minister of the First Church of Boston, the club started off serving newsboys. It thrived, buying its own building at 66 Berkeley St. in 1924 (a property it still owns) and expanding its array of services.

Yet as important as settlement houses were, they fit uncomfortably with modern conceptions of social welfare. Services to the needy have become more complex, more professionalized and, significantly, more the responsibility of the public sector. Settlement houses in Boston survived with difficulty, transforming themselves into social service agencies and oftentimes narrowing their mission or broadening their geographic scope. Ellis went through some tough times as well, but since the 1980s and with the hiring of CEO Leo Delaney, it has rebounded. Today, with a budget of $2.3 million and a staff of 51, it cares mostly for children and seniors, delivering services such as kindergarten, after-school programs and adult day care.

More than just conceptions of social welfare have changed, however, especially in the South End. The immigrant communities Ellis once served have moved on, replaced by different communities - browner and blacker than before - with different needs. The South End has also changed. Once a neighborhood of blue-collar workers, it now competes with silk-stocking communities like Beacon Hill and Back Bay in its desirability, trendiness and real estate prices. The area is still diverse, yet more stratified. Although it has much housing designated as affordable, the rest is bid up by the wealthy, meaning that families of middle-class means find it ever harder to stay.

And then there is Columbus Center, a soon-to-be-built megaproject that will transform Ellis' section of the South End in ways that are hard to imagine. Projected to cost $500 million, and with 1.3 million square feet of hotels, office space and new housing, the development will sit astride the Massachusetts Turnpike, stretching from Clarendon Street into Chinatown. All of that money and construction coming into such a small area mean something; exactly what, though, no one is sure.

These changes pose challenges to Ellis as it seeks to figure out its place in a neighborhood that itself is in transition. There is a sense among many on its board - and I am one of them - that Ellis needs to look back a bit more to its roots, becoming something more than just a service provider. The new playground, funded mostly with private donations, is one example of its effort to move in that direction. And when Columbus Center is completed, Ellis will occupy 8,500 square feet of that space, allowing it dramatically to expand its reach.

It's a still-evolving story. Yet Ellis Memorial is hardly unique. Visit any neighborhood in Boston and you'll find similar groups with people of similar commitment, each struggling to make their communities just a little bit better.

True, a playground may not seem like much. Yet, for many, it is a big deal. Great issues and bitter elections come and go, but often the most important stuff of everyday life lies in the details.