BOSTON -- In the fall of 2010, congregants from dozens of Boston-area churches and synagogues marched to the site in Mattapan where a 2-year-old boy and his mother were murdered in September. Two others were also killed in what police described as the worst shooting rampage in Boston since 2005.

These homicides, as well as other murders in recent months have largely taken place in urban neighborhoods abutting Blue Hill Avenue, the street that connects Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan and Milton. Violence has given this street a tragic notoriety, but it's also a place with a deep history, and a present filled with complexity and alive with growth.

In this series, we take a closer look at Blue Hill Avenue.

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