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Curbed Boston Cup Final: JP vs. Eastie!

By Tom Acitelli@tomacitelli Dec 30, 2013, 1:00pm EST

After more than a week of buzzy, busy voting, the final in our annual contest to name the Hub's Neighborhood of the Year is set: No. 6 Jamaica Plain vs. No. 8 East Boston. This is the first time in the Curbed Boston Cup's three-year history that two mid-range seeds have met in the finals, so crystal-balling which might win is especially difficult (e.g., neither was handicapped to make it this far).
East Boston's 2013 might be summed up in three words: casino, casino, casino. Indeed, the heated debated over whether to build a gambling palace at Suffolk Downs swept the neighborhood, ending (or so it seemed) in a resounding No vote in early November amid the collapse of the plan put forth by would-be operator Caesars. There was also sizable new development in the neighborhood, too, including the big-time Portside at Pier One, part of the re-galvanizing of Eastie's waterfront.
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Jamaica Plain has had quite the 2013 development- and sales-wise. One nugget, courtesy of our David Bates in September: The neighborhood had only one sale in the $700K to $799K range in the first eight and a half months of 2012; through the same period in 2013, it had 13. Now, developments! There was the ribbon-cutting just recently for 225 Centre Street, the first piece in the 14-property Jackson Square puzzle. There was also the ruthlessly transit-friendly Commons at Forest Hills, which will add hundreds of apartments to an area already seeing a fair amount of residential development. And there was, of course, all the rigamarole on South Huntington Avenue, some of which carried over from 2012. Remember that year?