A storyteller's story

68Blocks: Life, Death, Hope

In audio, multimedia, print, video on January 27, 2012 at 9:53 pm

68 Blocks

I was part of a team of Boston Globe reporters, photographers, videographers, and data visualization specialists, who spent 2012 focused on the Bowdoin-Geneva section of Dorchester, a neighborhood often identified with the violence that erupts with disconcerting regularity and not with the people who live there. The Globe rented an apartment in the neighborhood, where reporter Meghan E. Irons and myself, lived from May to September. The result was 68 Blocks: Life, Death, Hope, a beautiful, interactive tableau chronicling life during one of the neighborhood’s most turbulent seasons, the summer.

Role: Reporter, writer, researcher, videographer

Awards: Journalistic innovation first-place win from the National Headliner Awards; Unity Award from the Radio Television Digital News Association; Honorable Mention multimedia, 2013 competition for Casey Medals for Meritorious Journalism; NABJ Salute to Excellence Finalist; 2013 Dart Award Finalist.

Postscript: I have returned to Bowdoin-Geneva several times since the series published, witnessing the rebirth of a blighted lot, a mother’s worst fear realized, and a young man who defeated the odds.

  1. Akilah, thank you for sending me the Hanna Swift story, Globe2-15-13. Joanne Grant

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