Boston breaks ground on $194 million Josiah Quincy School in Chinatown

BOSTON — July 22, 2026 — Boston breaks ground on a $194 million Josiah Quincy School building in Chinatown after more than 20 years of planning. Mayor Michelle Wu, Boston Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Brenda Caselius, and Massachusetts School Building Authority Executive Director Jack McCarthy headlined the July 22 ceremony, which drew elected officials including City Councilor Ed Flynn and State Senator Joe Boncori. The MSBA will reimburse up to $52 million of the projected cost; the city's initial MSBA application dates to 2012. The new facility will include a 435-seat auditorium, a 125-seat black box theater, a 10,000-square-foot gymnasium, and consolidated classrooms for the school's preschool-through-grade-12 population, which is roughly 85 percent low-income. Principal Richard Chang, who delivered the ceremony's most detailed remarks, traced the site's 20-year land search directly to mid-20th-century highway projects — the Central Artery and the Massachusetts Turnpike extension — that he said forcibly reduced Chinatown's land base and displaced its families.