Winter Hill, Somerville, Massachusetts

Winter Hill is a neighborhood in Somerville, Massachusetts. Located roughly north of Highland Avenue and west of the McGrath Highway, Winter Hill is home to a mix of restored homes and run down Triple Deckers, replete with china gnomes and bathtub Virgin Marys. Once known as the home base of Irish gangsters Whitey Bulger (currently on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list), James "Buddy" McLean, Howie Winter and the notorious Winter Hill Gang, Winter Hill is now, like much of the rest of Somerville, experiencing gentrification and a resulting rise in property values and rents. Despite these changes, the area continues to hang onto its neighborhood flavor and is home to a large community of Irish, Italians, Brazilians, Portuguese, Cape Verdeans, and other ethnic groups.

The Theater Coop, one of the Boston area's few new repertory live theaters, is located between Foss Park and the local supermarket. There is also a community pottery studio called Mudflat in East Somerville, adjacent to Winter Hill, and a collective of stained glass artists called Daniel Maher Stained Glass.

Winter Hill also has many old Somerville favorites such as The Paddock restaurant on Pearl Street, Mama Lisa's, Leone's, and Primo's pizza establishments, the Winter Hill Bakery, and Maria's Italian Cold Cuts. Soccer is a popular pastime, and it is not uncommon to see leagues complete with matching uniforms, as well as many of the new immigrants from Brazil and Latin America in shirts-against-skins games, playing in Foss park next to Interstate 93, at the base of Winter Hill. The park also has a large, colorful mural painted behind the public swimming pool.

A planned extension of the Green Line to the Winter Hill area is currently in planning phases, specifically with stations at Medford Street (Gilman Square) and Lowell Street, though estimated completion has been pushed back to 2014. The route of the Green Line Extension has been broadly defined but not finalized. [ Green Line Extension * [http://www.greenlineextension.org] ]

Notes

Bibliography

*Haskell, Albert L., [http://www.ci.somerville.ma.us/CoS_Content/documents/HaskellsHistoricalGuideBook.pdf Haskell's Historical Guide Book of Somerville, Massachusetts]

External links

* [http://www.congregationallibrary.org/resources/archives/efg-bwhcc Somerville, Massachusetts. Broadway Winter Hill Congregational Church. Records, 1864-2002]
* [http://www.somerville.k12.ma.us/education/school/school.php?sectionid=98 Winter Hill Community School]
* [http://mbyca.org/Yacht_Clubs.htm Winter Hill Yacht Club]
* [http://www.mysticview.org/mw-6010mys_rv2.htm Mystic River tour and Winter Hill Yacht Club]
* [http://mudflat.org/ Mudflat Pottery Studio]