page_title: Chelsea, Massachusetts
section_title: A changing population
hierarchical_section_title: Chelsea, Massachusetts / History / A changing population
caption_attribution_description: English: Chelsea Fire - Aerial View
context_page_description: Chelsea is a city in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, United States, directly across the Mystic River from the city of Boston. As of the 2010 census, Chelsea had a population of 35,177. It is also the second most densely populated city in Massachusetts behind Somerville. With a total area of just 2.21 square miles, Chelsea is the smallest city in Massachusetts in terms of total area.
  Chelsea is a diverse, working-class community that contains a high level of industrial activity. It is one of only three Massachusetts cities in which the majority of the population identifies as Hispanic or Latino, alongside Lawrence and Holyoke. After flirting with bankruptcy in the 1990s, the once-struggling industrial city has reversed a prolonged decline and in recent years has enjoyed sustained economic growth. Thanks to its relative affordability and close proximity to Boston, Chelsea has added more than 1,200 homes since 2005, mostly loft-style apartments and condominiums suitable for small families or young professionals. There has also been significant office, retail and restaurant development throughout the city.
context_section_description: According to local historical records, Nathan Morse, the first Jewish resident of Chelsea, arrived in 1864, and by 1890 there were only 82 Jews living in the city. However, Chelsea was a major destination for the "great wave" of Russian and Eastern European immigrants, especially Russian Jews, who came to the United States after 1890. By 1910 the number of Jews had grown to 11,225, nearly one third of the entire population of the city. In the 1930s there were about 20,000 Jewish residents in Chelsea out of a total population of almost 46,000. Given the area of the city, Chelsea may well have had the most Jewish residents per square mile of any city outside of New York City.
  On April 12, 1908, nearly half the city was destroyed in the first of two great fires that would devastate Chelsea in the 20th century. The fire left 18,000 people, 56 percent of the population, homeless. Despite the magnitude of the destruction, it would only take the city about two and a half years to rebuild and five years to surpass the extent of 1908's infrastructure. The city was also laid out differently after the fire, with wider streets and more access for emergency vehicles. Many of the city's residents left and never returned, which opened the door for many immigrants living in Boston to "move up" to Chelsea. To immigrants living in crowded tenements in Boston's West End, East and South Ends, Chelsea was the next stop on their path of economic upward mobility.
  By 1919 Chelsea's population had reached the record level of 52,662, with foreign-born residents comprising 46 percent of the population. Fully transitioned from a suburb to an industrial city, the waterfront flourished, with shipbuilding, lumberyards, metalworks and paint companies lined Marginal Street.
  During the 1930s the first exodus of Jews from Chelsea to the suburbs began. As the community prospered and grew, many wanted to seek new opportunities in the more affluent communities of Newton and Brookline. By the 1950s the Jewish population had decreased to about 8,000 and more people began to establish roots in the seaside towns of Swampscott and Marblehead, Massachusetts.
  After World War II, Chelsea began a long, slow decline; between 1940 and 1980, the population declined by 38 percent. Chelsea, however, lost more population than other urban areas after the 1950s because of the elevated expressway built to connect the North Shore to Boston, via the Mystic River Bridge (later renamed for Boston Mayor Maurice J. Tobin). Hundreds of homes were lost to make way for the expressway as it cut the city in half. The resulting out-migration took with it many small, local businesses. Historic homes were abandoned, along with industrial buildings, brownfields, salt piles and gas storage tanks dotting the cityscape.
  In 1973, disaster struck again when the Second Great Chelsea Fire burned 18 city blocks, leaving nearly a fifth of the city in ashes. Both fires originated in Chelsea's "rag shop district," cluttered streets filled with junk shops hawking scraps, metal, and combustible items. Wood-frame buildings and three- to six-family houses were built tightly together, and quickly caught fire.
  A major shift took place in the early 1970s as Chelsea became a center for Latino immigration. Racial conflict and tension became a regular part of life in Chelsea. Although the Hispanic population continued to grow, the city did not hire its first Spanish-speaking police officer until 1992. By the early 1990s, Chelsea was both the poorest and most dangerous city in Massachusetts.
  By 1990, Chelsea had collapsed economically and socially. Crime was rampant, not least among the police and local government officials. The population drain made way for more immigrants, but depleted the city's tax base. The cost of running the city and maintaining its infrastructure did not decrease correspondingly so, in 1991, the city suffered fiscal collapse.
  The Commonwealth of Massachusetts enacted special legislation to place Chelsea into receivership. For the first time since the Great Depression, a Massachusetts cit
caption: Chelsea, MA
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