From diners to diversity, taste it all in Allston

This is the first in an occasional series spotlighting Boston’s neighborhoods.

Silvana Furtado puckers her lips and sucks in air quickly while squeezing her eyes together as if she were slurping spaghetti.

“The word is spah-gett-ee,” says instructor Julie Mason. “Noodles – you put tomato sauce on them.”

“Ahh! I understand,” says 44-year-old Furtado, a Sao Paulo, Brazil native with a thick Portuguese accent. “And in China, they don’t cut them because they show long life?”

“Right!” Mason says.

Pronouncing and spelling the English language was last Thursday’s challenge at Allston’s Jackson Mann Elementary School, where English as a Second Language classes meet twice a week. The classes are one of Jackson Mann Community Center’s dozens of program offerings, which range from after-school programs to Alcoholics Anonymous support groups.

For many Boston University students who live right around the corner from the school, Allston-Brighton is a neighborhood filled with bars, restaurants and students. But Mason and others say ESL classes and struggles like Furtado’s might be just as representative.

More than just a close-knit borough of Boston, Mason says Allston-Brighton is also a multicultural mixing zone.

“I enjoy meeting people from all over the world,” Mason said. “They all know each other here, and they all have the same struggles. And they still come here after work to help their families and eventually their countries.”

BONDING OVER BREAKFAST

Down at The Breakfast Club diner on Allston’s Western Avenue, Ramon Karian performs a job much different from Mason – by 6 a.m., when the diner Karian co-owns opens, he is already cracking eggs and buttering toast.

The diner is traditional, to say the least – its neon road sign and ’50s-style chrome exterior finish are complemented by leather-covered bar stools at a grill-side bar, only feet from where Karian cooks breakfast. The Breakfast Club is one of several traditional diners (like Steve’s Diner and Grecian Yearnings, both on Harvard Avenue) in the area.

Karian is relatively new to the neighborhood, but the residents’ strong sense of community has made an impression on him nonetheless.

“There is a huge sense of community here that is strong and close knit,” Karian said. “Sometimes it gets overcast by Brighton that gets more attention due to its nightlife and bars. But I’ve been here almost two years now, and being involved in community, whether it be the schools or the church and the talking to the customers that come in – they love it! It’s always had a bad rap, but it’s really coming along.”

Frank Donero, a Boston native who grew up two blocks from BU and has eaten at The Breakfast Club for more than 30 years, agreed with Karian as he ate eggs, bacon and two triangles of toast.

“I think Allston is doing great,” Donero said. “It’s more diverse now. It has changed gradually over the years and has brought in new businesses. It’s doing real well, and I’m for it all.”

TRANSFORMING

THE STREETS

Allston used to be a neighborhood of “stockyards, slaughterhouses and meatpacking,” Boston’s city government website reads. But today, it is residential and full of small shops, cozy ethnic restaurants and local bars.

And as the neighborhood develops socially and economically, the Allston-Brighton Community Development Corporation and John Woods, a director of housing development, are trying to ensure the neighborhood continues to be a pleasant place to live.

Woods is working to make housing affordable for everyone by informing city and state offices about the disparity of incomes between full-time residents and students who rent on a yearly basis.

Although the neighborhood’s standard of living has dramatically increased in the past decade, Allston and Brighton developers still face the challenge of successfully integrating BU and Boston College students into a neighborhood of families. Many of the streets between Commonwealth Avenue and Cambridge Street house just as many students as families.

“Students in Allston and Brighton have been a long-term problem. And whether it’s getting worse or better, we’re not sure,” Woods said. “Things do seem to be getting better – the high prices of units have driven students away from expensive units and the traditional sort of families and long-term residents still make A-B a strong place.”

Making Allston-Brighton an attractive place to live has not been easy, said City Councilor Jerry McDermott. McDermott, a Boston native, described how suburban sprawl and better public schools outside city limits once motivated families to leave the neighborhood.

“Families fled to the suburbs to avoid the Boston Public Schools and busing crisis. The Boston Public Schools, for years, were underperforming,” McDermott said. Institutional encroachment from BU, BC and Harvard didn’t help, he added. “Students and young professionals can pay higher rent, and the neighborhood hasn’t lended itself to be family friendly.”

An initiative to overhaul Commonwealth Avenue is one of many projects designed to attract newcomers, he said. The project to beautify Commonwealth Avenue, which stretches on the B-line into the heart of Allston, is still in infancy and just beginning to catch Boston’s attention.

“We’ve collaborated with the city to clean up the main thoroughfare, and we want to do what we can to beautify it – trash barrels, horticulturalists, trees, shrubs,” McDermott said.

TRYING TO CROSS

PARTY LINES

But not all Allston-Brighton residents agree that a sense of community is flourishing in Boston’s northwest corner. School of Management senior and Ashford Street resident Erica Stritch said cohesion between Allston’s college and non-college residents is nonexistent. She identified the split as a racial one, exacerbated by housing woes.

“I would say that it is basically the college students versus the Hispanics, who are trying to push us out,” Stritch said. “It’s all about low-income housing – that is what they’re looking for, and they have town meetings to attack BU.”

However, College of Arts and Sciences freshman Nick Howes identified a limited sense of neighborhood camaraderie.

“I think everyone uses the same bars and restaurants – there are some places that both students and residents cycle through,” Howes said. “But I don’t think there is much of a sense of community as in small town sense.”

Katherine Miller, a 2003 CAS graduate who still lives in Allston, characterized Allston and Brighton as separate communities.

“They’re both very different places – Allston is very dirty and nasty, and Brighton is the cleaner, grown up version of Allston,” she said. “It’s not like living on Bay State – on Bay State everyone knows everyone – but in Allston I don’t know everyone in my building. I still like it a lot though.”