Allan Rohan Crite documented the evolving lives of Roxbury and the South End based Black Bostonians nearly a century ago.

Now, his art and life are being honored throughout the city through the Friends of Crite Park’s efforts to renovate the Allan Rohan Crite Square into the new Crite Park.

Exhibitions of his work will open October 23 at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and at the Boston Athenaeum.

"I am a storyteller of the drama of man,” Crite said in a 1998 interview with the Harvard Extension School Alumni Bulletin. “This is my small contribution. To tell the African American experience in a local sense, of the neighborhood, and in a larger sense, of its part in the total human experience."

Crite, who was born in New Jersey in 1910, moved to Boston as a child and studied at Boston University, the Massachusetts School of Art, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts School, and Harvard University. While pursuing his own work, he spent time working as a Works Projects Administration artist and as an illustrator for the Boston Naval Shipyards.

He spent his life working with a variety of mediums from watercolor to lithography to oil, depicting the effects of urban renewal or “removal” of Black Bostonians during the twentieth century. Thus, providing continually relevant social and political commentary on the Black experience within the city and the Roxbury and the South End neighborhoods.

Crite identified himself as an “artist-reporter”. His early work depicted his fellow residents in Roxbury performing daily tasks such as taking the subway, going to school and spending time within the community.

At the time, he lived on Dilworth Street.

While his work in the 1930’s widely focused on taking record of daily events through his “neighborhood paintings” series, he began to concentrate on religion in the late 1930’s and 1940’s. He overlaid Christian iconography with Boston city life and would depict iconic religious figures as Black.

To celebrate this work and its effect on Black artists, alongside the upcoming art exhibits, the Crite Park is holding a block party on October 19.

According to Cheryl Dickinson from the Friends of Crite Park, the park is not currently open because the last phase of the project to plant trees, install art, put up a fence and shade will not occur until next year. There is a tentative plan to cut the ribbon on the park after its completion. However, the park wanted to celebrate Crite’s vision of community alongside the museums.

“One thing that's really important for the community is that we are in one of the most diverse parts of Boston,” Dickinson said. “We want people to get to know one another.”

The nine year long, volunteer project included cleaning up trash and the creation of an “outdoor living room space” to reflect the community’s desire for a usable space. The park is located on Columbus Avenue, a few doors down from where Crite lived until his death in 2007.