Everett

Everett is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, located directly north of Boston across the Mystic River. among the most densely populated municipalities in New England, Everett sits within the inner core of the Greater Boston metropolitan area and has long served as an industrial, residential, and commercial hub for the region. The city covers approximately 3.4 square miles and is bordered by Malden, Somerville, Chelsea, and Revere. Its proximity to Boston, combined with its relatively affordable housing stock compared to neighboring communities, has shaped Everett into a dynamic and rapidly changing urban environment in the twenty-first century.

History

The land now known as Everett was originally inhabited by the Massachusett people, the Indigenous nation whose territory encompassed much of the coastal and inland areas surrounding what is today Boston Harbor. European settlement of the area began in the seventeenth century, when the region was incorporated as part of Charlestown. The territory was later annexed to Malden before eventually being set off as its own independent town.

Everett was officially incorporated as a separate town in 1870, and it was named in honor of Edward Everett, the Massachusetts statesman, orator, and diplomat who had died in 1865. Edward Everett was a towering figure in American public life during the nineteenth century, serving as Governor of Massachusetts, U.S. Senator, Secretary of State under President Millard Fillmore, and president of Harvard College. He is perhaps best remembered today as the keynote speaker at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg in November 1863, delivering a two-hour oration that preceded Abraham Lincoln's brief but enduring Gettysburg Address. A biography examining Everett's legacy and his role as a defender of the Union appeared decades after his death, drawing renewed attention to his contributions to American political history.

Everett was incorporated as a city in 1893, making it one of the smaller cities by area in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries brought significant industrial growth to Everett, with chemical plants, oil refineries, and manufacturing facilities taking root along the waterfront. The city's working-class population expanded rapidly during this era, fueled largely by waves of immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, including substantial communities of Italian, Portuguese, and Greek origin.

Geography and Neighborhoods

Everett occupies a compact urban landscape defined by dense residential streets, commercial corridors, and a significant waterfront district along the Mystic River to the south and the Chelsea Creek area to the east. Despite its small total area, the city contains several distinct neighborhoods with their own identities and histories.

The central portion of the city, near Broadway and Main Street, forms the commercial core of Everett, with retail shops, restaurants, and municipal services clustered in close proximity. The Lower Broadway corridor has historically served as the primary commercial artery connecting Everett to neighboring Malden to the north and to the Assembly Row development in Somerville to the south.

The waterfront areas of Everett underwent significant transformation in the early twenty-first century. The opening of Encore Boston Harbor, a resort casino developed by Wynn Resorts, on the Mystic River waterfront in 2019 represented the most dramatic single investment in the city's modern history. The development transformed a formerly industrial brownfield site into a luxury destination and fundamentally altered the city's economic profile and tax base.

Neighborhoods in Everett include Glendale, the area around Second Street, the neighborhoods surrounding Everett Square, and the residential districts in the northern and western portions of the city that border Malden. The city's residential fabric is characterized primarily by triple-deckers, two-family homes, and smaller apartment buildings typical of inner-ring Boston suburbs.

Demographics and Population

Everett has experienced significant demographic transformation over the past several decades. The city, which had long been home to working-class families of European immigrant descent, began attracting new immigrant populations in the 1980s and 1990s. By the early twenty-first century, Everett had become among the most diverse cities in Massachusetts by percentage of foreign-born residents.

Large communities of Brazilian, Haitian, Salvadoran, Guatemalan, and West African origin have established themselves in Everett, making the city a focal point for immigrant life in the Greater Boston region. This demographic shift has reshaped local businesses, houses of worship, schools, and civic institutions. Multiple languages are spoken throughout the city, and local government has made efforts to expand multilingual services to meet the needs of its diverse population.

The population of Everett has grown in recent decades, reversing a mid-twentieth-century decline that affected many older industrial cities in the Northeast. Increased housing demand driven by proximity to Boston and the redevelopment of the waterfront have contributed to population growth and rising property values.

Economy

Everett's economy has historically been rooted in heavy industry. Chemical manufacturing, petroleum storage and refining, and materials processing dominated the employment landscape for much of the twentieth century. Several large industrial facilities operated along the waterfront, taking advantage of the city's access to deep-water shipping channels.

The decline of heavy manufacturing in the latter half of the twentieth century left significant portions of the waterfront underutilized and contaminated. Environmental remediation of brownfield sites became a priority as the city began pursuing economic redevelopment strategies.

The arrival of Encore Boston Harbor changed the economic trajectory of Everett significantly. The casino resort brought thousands of jobs to the city, generated substantial tax revenue, and stimulated ancillary commercial development in the surrounding area. The project also prompted broader discussions about waterfront access, community benefits, and the long-term vision for Everett's Mystic River shoreline.

Beyond the casino, Everett's economy includes retail and service industries concentrated along Broadway and other commercial corridors, as well as a growing number of food and beverage businesses that have taken advantage of lower commercial rents compared to Boston and Cambridge. The city has attracted attention as a potential location for creative industries and small manufacturing operations as well.

Government and Politics

Everett operates under a mayor-council form of municipal government. The city has a mayor who serves as the chief executive and a city council that provides legislative oversight. Local elections in Everett have historically reflected the city's working-class roots, with politics often centering on neighborhood concerns, development projects, and city services.

The city is represented in the Massachusetts State Legislature by members of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and Massachusetts State Senate. At the federal level, Everett falls within a congressional district that includes portions of the northern Boston suburbs.

Everett's city government has dealt with a range of challenges common to densely populated urban communities, including managing rapid development, addressing traffic and infrastructure concerns, and balancing the interests of long-established residents with newer arrivals.

Education

The Everett Public Schools system operates the city's public kindergarten through twelfth grade educational institutions. The district serves a student population that reflects the city's considerable linguistic and cultural diversity, with English language learner programs playing a significant role in the district's educational offerings.

Everett High School is the city's sole public high school and has a long history in the community. The school's athletic programs, particularly in football, have earned recognition at the state level over many decades.

The city is served by several parochial and private schools in addition to public institutions. Residents have access to the broader array of higher education institutions available throughout the Greater Boston area, including Boston itself and neighboring communities such as Medford, home to Tufts University.

Transportation

Everett is connected to Boston and the broader regional transportation network by multiple means. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) provides bus service throughout the city, connecting residents to rapid transit stations in neighboring communities. The MBTA Orange Line station at Malden Center and the MBTA Blue Line provide access points for commuters traveling to and from Everett.

Major roadways passing through or near Everett include Route 16, Route 99, and Interstate 93, which runs along the city's eastern edge. The Tobin Bridge carries traffic over the Mystic River to Chelsea and connects to Route 1, providing an important vehicular link between Everett and points north and south.

The city has been engaged in ongoing discussions about improving transit access, particularly in light of the development of Encore Boston Harbor and the increased traffic that the casino resort has generated. Proposals for ferry service along the Mystic River and enhanced bus rapid transit have been part of those conversations.

Culture and Community Life

Everett's cultural life reflects the diversity of its population. The city hosts a variety of community events, religious festivals, and neighborhood celebrations that draw from the traditions of its many constituent communities. Brazilian Independence Day celebrations, Haitian cultural events, and traditional festivals associated with the city's older Italian and Portuguese communities are among the annual observances that mark the civic calendar.

Local arts and entertainment options in Everett have expanded in recent years. The presence of Encore Boston Harbor has brought performance venues and dining options to the waterfront, while independent restaurants and community spaces have multiplied throughout the city's neighborhoods.

The theme of community and friendship — the bonds that hold urban neighborhoods together across differences of language, background, and circumstance — is central to life in a city like Everett. The value of close personal relationships in sustaining communities has been explored in many cultural contexts, including in conversations about how friendships, not only romantic partnerships, shape meaningful lives.

Notable Connections

The name Everett appears across American history and culture in ways that reflect the broad influence of the Massachusetts statesman for whom this city was named. Edward Everett's legacy as an advocate for national unity during the crisis of the Civil War era has been revisited by historians and biographers seeking to recover figures whose reputations faded after their deaths.

The name has also been carried by figures in American letters and the arts. Percival Everett, the novelist and academic, won the National Book Award for Fiction for his novel James, a retelling of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of the enslaved character Jim. While Percival Everett shares only a surname with the Massachusetts city, the prominence of the Everett name in American public life reflects the lasting imprint that Edward Everett made on the national imagination.

See Also

• Greater Boston
• Middlesex County, Massachusetts
• Encore Boston Harbor
• Mystic River
• Malden, Massachusetts