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Boston's ritziest neighborhood unrecognizable after drug addicts take over, residents say

Tuesday, July 21, 2026•
3 min read
MDN Staff
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Boston's ritziest neighborhood unrecognizable after drug addicts take over, residents say

Copley Square farmers-market shoppers say they watched people digging for veins with needles in the open. Locals are asking Mayor Wu why enforcement collapsed just as tourists left.

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BOSTON — Back Bay, one of the city's wealthiest and most tourist-facing neighborhoods, has become unrecognizable to residents this summer as open drug use spreads across Copley Square and the front steps of the Boston Public Library.
"Why are you turning a blind eye to the open drug use happening in Copley Square and Boston Public Library?" the neighborhood activist account Back Bay SOS wrote in an Instagram post tagging Mayor Michelle Wu this week. "Is it because the tourists are gone?" The post went viral, racking up more than 2,500 likes, nearly 70 shares, and 1,400 saves.
One Back Bay resident who stopped at the Copley Square farmers market this weekend told Back Bay SOS that "literally there are multiple people trying to find veins with openly exposed needles out. This is out of control." Photos posted by Back Bay SOS showed a person passed out on the sidewalk outside a Boylston Street storefront, a wheelchair and bedding piled beside a cardboard donation box; brightly-colored syringe caps littering a nearby curb; and a group of visibly strung-out individuals gathered on the marble steps of the BPL's Central Library, feet from Trinity Church.

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A person passed out on the sidewalk outside a Boylston Street storefront in Boston's Back Bay, with a wheelchair, bedding, and a cardboard donation box scattered on the pavement.
A person passed out on the sidewalk outside a Boylston Street storefront in Boston's Back Bay. Photo: Instagram / @backbaysos.
A group gathered on the stone steps of the Boston Public Library's Central Library in Copley Square, one shirtless and others visibly strung out.
A group on the marble steps of the Boston Public Library's Central Library in Copley Square, feet from Trinity Church. Photo: Instagram / @backbaysos.
Dozens of brightly-colored syringe caps in orange, blue, and pink littering a Back Bay curb next to used needles and empty baggies.
Brightly-colored syringe caps littering a Back Bay curb next to used needles and empty baggies. Photo: Instagram / @backbaysos.
The neighborhood, home to Newbury Street's luxury retail, the Copley Plaza and Fairmont Copley hotels, and multi-million-dollar brownstones, has long served as Boston's ceremonial front door for out-of-town visitors. Locals say the scene has visibly deteriorated in recent weeks — coinciding, they note, with the drop-off in summer tourism.
Mass Daily News reported in June on a witness account of open drug use on the BPL's McKim steps, where a man visibly injected himself and another hurled a water bottle at library staff, and separately on the growing tent encampments across Boston Common and the Esplanade — both documented by the same Back Bay SOS account. Longer-running MDN coverage of the neighborhood's decline includes organized retail crews terrorizing Newbury Street's Lululemon and an active drug den under a Boston bridge.
Back Bay SOS's most recent post also tagged Governor Maura Healey, the BPL, Trinity Church, and multiple neighborhood associations, ending with the hashtag #mayorwuwhereareyou.

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Boston's ritziest neighborhood unrecognizable after drug addicts take over, residents say - Mass Daily News