HISTORY OF THE BHA WEB SITE- BOYLANHEIGHTS.ORG

3/05

 

BoylanHeights.org, the BHA Web Site, premiered on July 20, 2003 at The Big Boylan Bash. The committee was the creation of BHA President Paul Meyer, who had been approached by several neighbors about starting up a neighborhood web site. In 2002 a committee started some work on the idea. In February 2003, with the encouragement of BHA President Paul Meyer, Chris Weedy, current chair of the Web Site Committee, convened a group of neighbors who started meeting and planning the content and format of the neighborhood web site. The committee was initially convened with neighbors who had indicated in the neighborhood directory that they had work experience in computers or web design. After months of work, in July 2003 at the Bash debut, Webmaster Jeff Groves displayed the new web site on a laptop.

 

The volunteer committee of neighbors soon broke down into 3 sub committees to work on special projects: programming, history, trivia. By 9/23/03 there were 1,479 hits and a Forum had been created.

 

By October 2003 historical information about each house in Boylan Heights was posted in a section called Historic Districts Description of Individual Houses. This information was taken from The National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form for Boylan Heights, a document used to assist in making Boylan Heights declared a historic district.

 

In November 2003  a History of Montfort Hall was posted. A picture of every house in Boylan Heights was posted in a “virtual tour” of Boylan Heights. Also in November 2003 a door-to-door survey was conducted by the Web Site Committee to determine how connected the neighborhood was to the Internet. The results indicated that 87% of those surveyed had Internet access - either at home or at work.

 

Over time the Photo Album has expanded tremendously. Initially it included Pets of Boylan Heights, Gardens of Boylan Heights, Recent Events, Archive Neighborhood Events, and Architectural Styles. Then Homes for Sale/Apts for Rent and Items For Sale were added. In summer 2004 Rentals Outside of Boylan Heights was added.

 

In April 2004, Meet Your Neighbor became a monthly posting, thereby providing a mechanism whereby neighbors can get to know each other.

 

In November 2004, Real Estate became a feature of the web site, including postings of Current Homes For Sale, Homes Sold in 2003 and 2004 as well as Realtors.

 

In February 2005 Apartments and Homes For Rent and Homes Sold in 2005 were added.

 

To date BoylanHeights.org has had 18,500+ hits.

 

Chris Weedy, Chair

Web Site Committee

BoylanHeights.org