Dancing Dragon

With exuberant geometry above and joyful community gathering below, Dancing Dragon affirms the cultural identity of Boston’s Chinatown and acknowledges the local history of civic activism.

Highway construction in the 1960s dismantled a tight-knit community by displacing hundreds of predominantly immigrant households along Hudson Street. The resultant urban scar was only recently repaired: In 2015 and 2017, decades of work by community champions delivered two affordable housing projects along the narrow strip of land between Hudson Street and the highway. Connecting these projects, a small greenspace sat as an undervalued amenity for the residents of the adjacent buildings.  The Asian Community Development Corporation’s (ACDC) Hudson Street Stoop program seeks to activate this greenspace with public art and rekindle the neighborly ‘front stoop’ culture that once characterized Hudson Street.

For the latest iteration of the Hudson Street Stoop program, the ACDC and local residents commissioned a piece by artists Katherine Chin and Parke MacDowell. PAYETTE and our long-time collaborators at Beyond Walls joined with the artists, the ACDC, and a host of supporters to execute Dancing Dragon. A series of community design sessions guided the development of the project. The piece was fabricated in PAYETTE’s Seaport FabLAB and installed in Chinatown in late 2023.

Community members were embedded in the process from inception to installation: from the artist selection to design sessions where every comment was communicated in both English and Mandarin, to a Community Paint Day which brought over 40 volunteers to the PAYETTE FabLab to paint their public art piece.

PAYETTE fabricated the complex steel structure at our FabLab. Our ability to execute our ideas empowers our collaborators.

The design of Dancing Dragon was calibrated with respect to installation logistics. Six shop-welded assemblies were mechanically fastened on site for fast and accurate erection. 

The team also designed and fabricated custom swings that predispose shared use and conversation.

Hundreds of residents and supporters attended a joyous Opening Celebration, featuring family activities, speeches and a Chinese Dragon Dance!

Image credits: Miguel Rubiera, Parke MacDowell, Lee Daniel Tran

Collaborators: This project was made possible with the support of a broad network of collaborators, including The Asian Community Development Corporation, Katherine Chin, Parke MacDowell, PAYETTE, Beyond Walls, Healthy Places by Design, John Hancock, Beyer Blinder Belle Foundation, Boston Global Investors, Perkins&Will, Utile, AARP Massachusetts, UMass Boston, City of Boston Age Strong Commission, the Mayor’s Office of Arts & Culture, John’s Landscape Service, Matt Construction, Concentric Fabrication, BPDA/EDIC, Lawrence Chan, Stantec, Lim Consultants, McPhail Associates, Tufts University, Bozzuto, Maloney Properties, and One Greenway. Many individual volunteers invested their time in community design meetings and work sessions. We are thankful to them and past and present Hudson Street residents for their contributions to the neighborhood.