Grove Hall
The neighborhood of Grove Hall, to the east of Franklin Park from Seaver Street and Blue Hill Avenue, has experienced a rebirth in the past decade. A new shopping area "The Mecca" hosts a large supermarket, drug store, and donut shop. One of the best places to eat is Flames, boasting fabulous ribs and island fare. To reach the Grove Hall business district, walk out of the park from the front of the Zoo and head north on Blue Hill Avenue.
Closer to the park, the pizza shops along Blue Hill Avenue are all good ones. Stash's has ample seating, Rino's further to the south often donates pies to FPC youth programs - be sure to let them know you read about their shop on the website. Da Hot Spot across from Harvard Street Health Center on Blue Hill Avenue serves fabulous homemade Caribbean meals. The owner ran track in Franklin Park in his younger days.
Grove Hall is home to many vital community institutions and groups. Project Right has long advocated for local schools and youth opportunities and helped bring "the Bubble" a community center with basketball courts to the neighborhood. The Jeremiah Burke High School is being renovated and will include a state-of-the-art library and many other communtiy facilities when it is completed. FPC has used the Burke's beautiful old art-deco auditorium as a rain location for Playhouse in the Park events in past years. Freedom House, founded by Otto and Muriel Snowden in 1949, remains an important community center and activist organization on Crawford Street across from the current Grove Hall Library building.
Walking the streets a few blocks from the park, you'll see grand old Victorian homes and synagogues now converted to churches. Grove Hall was a primarily Jewish neighborhood until the 1950s and 60s. Directly across the street from the park, a landmark building, the former Mishkan Tefila Temple and one-time home to Elma Lewis' School of Fine Arts, is now the United House of Prayer for All People. They have a great cafeteria open to the public serving delicious hot lunches for reasonable prices. You can't miss the broad staircase and stone lions marking the church.