The Elliot Sewing Machine Company is a Boston institution, of a variety not to be found anymore. It is filled to the rafters with more than 4,000 sewing machines, including a couple dating to the early 1800s. Once, the company used to service all the city's factory machines, but since outsourcing moved those factories elsewhere, they are a whiz at selling and servicing home machines and sewing machines from cleaners and tailors and colleges.

_

_

This location was once the Hecht House. Originally founded in 1880 as the Hebrew Industrial School, a training school for immigrant girls. This organization followed the Jewish community as they migrated from the North End, to the West End and finally to Dorchester/ Mattapan. It was later named for Jewish activist Lina Hecht (1848-1920). At a time when nearly a third of the North End's population was Jewish, the school was established to train Jewish women in needlework skills. Anxious to teach their own youth, the Hebrew Ladies' Sewing Society donated cloth and sewing machines for classes in millinery, hand sewing, power sewing, and pattern cutting. The school became Hecht Neighborhood House in 1922 in the West End and moved to Mattapan/Dorchester in 1936 where it served the Jewish community for another thirty years. Merged with YMHA of Boston in 1958/59 to become YMHA-HECHT HOUSE. When the site moved, it became a home for orphan Jewish children, then a full service community center, serving first the Jewish and then the changing Dorchester/ Roxbury/ Mattapan community. Women all over the community saved pennies to fund the children’s home and then all the recreational and educational activities at the community center. Today it is known as the Lena Park Housing Development Corporation. Lena Park's mission is to provide integrated programs and services which will strengthen families and build healthy communities for the residents of the City of Boston. Our vision is to be the premier provider of programs and services of excellence, building a stronger, healthier, more self-reliant community transforming the way families live, learn, and relate to each other and the larger community.