Every big date on Roslindale Square's late-fall calendar happens in or next to Adams Park. The Saturday farmers market sets up there. The tree lighting happens there. The Holiday Market is one short block away on Birch Street Plaza. This fall, the Boston Transportation Department is also due to show its first drawings of how the streets around the park could change, including Washington Street along the park's edge.
So the season and the street plan overlap. The next few weeks of markets, carols and Small Business Saturday shopping play out on the same blocks the city is studying. That makes this holiday stretch a good time to see the Square as it works now, before any of those drawings turn into a project.
The park both stories share
Roslindale Village Main Street runs its Summer Farmers Market in Adams Park every Saturday from June to November, 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., rain or shine. The market runs 25 weeks and draws about 3,000 visitors a week. The same park hosts the Tree Lighting after Small Business Saturday.
The city's Roslindale Square Transportation Action Plan is studying whether Washington Street can become two-way along Adams Park. It is also looking at ways to reconfigure the intersection where Belgrade Avenue meets Robert and Corinth Streets. The ideas come from the Roslindale Square Squares + Streets plan, which the BPDA Board adopted on February 13, 2025.
The park holds the Square's biggest gatherings. It is also the space the city's main street question wraps around.
The calendar, in order
With Thanksgiving on November 26 this year, the RVMS schedule works out to these dates:
- Remaining farmers market Saturdays, through November 21. The market runs from the first Saturday of June through the Saturday before Thanksgiving, so November 21 is the last one of 2026.
- Small Business Saturday, November 28. RVMS holds it on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. The day has a local origin. The first Small Business Saturday, in 2010, was created by American Express with Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Roslindale Village Main Street.
- Tree Lighting in Adams Park, November 28. It follows the afternoon of shopping, with ornament decorating, carols, a visit from Santa and the reindog parade for dogs dressed in holiday outfits.
- RVMS Holiday Market, Sunday, December 6. It runs 3 to 7 p.m. on Birch Street Plaza and at the Emerald Society, rain or shine, on the first Sunday of December. RVMS says it draws about 1,000 shoppers.
A normal market Saturday brings about three times as many people as the Holiday Market, and all of them gather around the stretch of Washington Street the city is studying.
October tried the Square without cars
The city ran a first test on October 18. Boston called Open Streets Roslindale the first such event in the neighborhood. It closed the Square between Belgrade Avenue and Washington Street to cars from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and the program ran 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. with live music, food trucks and children's activities.
Local businesses and groups signed up before the day. The city's list included The Square Root, Midnight Morning, R'Legaci, Time Loop Collectibles & Games, WalkUP Roslindale, Massachusetts Peace Action, UMass Boston, the City of Boston Disabilities Commission and the Boston Medical Center Clinical Research Network.
Open Streets lasted one day and made no permanent change. Still, it used the same ground as the street study. For one Sunday, the streets the transportation department is drawing up concepts for were opened to people on foot.
What the city is studying, and when it reports
The transportation department's timeline has milestones in 2025 and 2026. Here is where each one stands:
| Milestone | Timing on the city's project page |
|---|---|
| Background research on existing plans and street conditions | 2025 |
| Targeted conversations with residents, with outreach partner Openbox | March 2025 |
| Interactive project website and first public meeting | May 2025 |
| Community update | May 2026 |
| Second public meeting, first draft concept designs | "Mid to late Fall" 2026 |
| Final report with preliminary engineering feasibility analysis | By the end of 2026 |
| Possible project advancement | Beginning in 2027 |
The final report is set to include cost estimates, traffic modeling and conceptual drawings. The city also says the study might refine, revise or drop some of the recommendations, and that it will hold several more rounds of public input before it builds anything or moves to construction design. A two-way Washington Street along Adams Park is an idea under study. The city has not decided on it.
The timing lines up with the calendar. The draft-concept meeting falls in the same mid-to-late fall window as the last farmers markets and the tree lighting, and the final report is due around when the Holiday Market wraps up.
The storefronts on the walk between events
The shops around the park have changed this year too, and some of them sit right on the blocks under study.
Birch Street, home of the Holiday Market, lost a retail counter in June. Universal Hub reported that Elyse Purbaugh would end retail sales at Weesh's Birch Street shop at the end of June 2026 and keep the custom-cake business. Universal Hub's report quoted her announcement:
What I do love? Creating custom cakes, dessert grazes, and delivering 400 poptarts for a big event.
Universal Hub also noted that the closing would leave Roslindale Square, once known for how many bakeries it had, with one: Fornax on Corinth Street. Corinth Street is one of the streets in the Belgrade/Robert/Corinth intersection the city is studying, so the Square's last bakery is right at the second corner in the plan.
On Washington Street, the Boston Licensing Board approved La Hacienda's plan in February to take over the Napper Tandy's building and liquor license at 4195 Washington St., as Universal Hub reported. No opening date has been announced.
Where the drawings show up
The city's project page gives the draft-concept meeting only a mid-to-late-fall window. The transportation department posts updates through an email list signup on its project page, and earlier materials are on the project's interactive website. If the meeting falls in the window the city describes, the first drawings of a two-way Washington Street along Adams Park will come out in the weeks when the park holds its last market Saturdays and the tree lighting. The final feasibility report, with cost estimates and traffic modeling, is due by December 31.
Plans for a neighborhood square can affect how nearby homeowners think about their own timing, especially when a public meeting is due this fall and a final report by the end of the year. If you own near Roslindale Square and want to know how your home stands this season, Mike Reece and The Reece Team can prepare a clear, data-backed valuation, and we'll keep watching the Adams Park study for you. Get Your Home Valuation.
