Blue Hills Parkway is a historic

parkway A parkway is a landscaped thoroughfare.''"parkway."''Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (14 Apr. 2007). The term is particularly used for a roadway in a park or ...

that runs in a straight line from a crossing of the

Neponset River The Neponset River is a river in eastern Massachusetts in the United States. Its headwaters are at the Neponset Reservoir in Foxborough, near Gillette Stadium. From there, the Neponset meanders generally northeast for about to its mouth at ...

, at the south border of

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

to the north edge of the

Blue Hills Reservation Blue Hills Reservation is a state park in Norfolk County, Massachusetts in the United States. Managed by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, it covers parts of Milton, Quincy, Braintree, Canton, Randolph, and Dedham. ...

Milton, Massachusetts Milton is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States and an affluent suburb of Boston. The population was 28,630 at the 2020 census. Milton is the birthplace of former U.S. President George H. W. Bush, and architect Buckminster Fuller. ...

. It was built in 1893 to a design by the noted landscape architect, Charles Eliot, who is perhaps best known for the esplanades along the

Charles River The Charles River ( Massachusett: ''Quinobequin)'' (sometimes called the River Charles or simply the Charles) is an river in eastern Massachusetts. It flows northeast from Hopkinton to Boston along a highly meandering route, that doubles b ...

. The parkway is a connecting road between the

and the

Neponset River Reservation Neponset River Reservation is a Massachusetts state reservation along the Neponset River in the towns of Milton and Dorchester, near where the river flows through an estuary into the Boston Harbor. It is adjacent to the Dorchester-Milton Lower ...

, and was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 2003. The parkway's northern terminus is a six-way intersection in southern

Mattapan Mattapan () is a neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts. Historically a section of neighboring Dorchester, Mattapan became a part of Boston when Dorchester was annexed in 1870. Mattapan is the original Native American name for the Dorchester ar ...

, a neighborhood in the far south of Boston. The junction includes River Street (which passes through the intersection), Cummins Highway, Blue Hill Avenue, and the access road for the Mattapan MBTA station. Both Blue Hill Avenue and the parkway are designated

Massachusetts Route 28 Route 28 is a nominally south–north state highway in the U.S. state of Massachusetts, running from the town of Eastham via Boston to the New Hampshire state line in Methuen. Following the route from its nominally southern end, Route 28 ...

at this intersection. The parkway almost immediately crosses the

and then into Milton. Brush Hill Road branches west, and Blue Hill Avenue branches to the southwest (designated

Massachusetts Route 138 Route 138 is a north–south state highway in Massachusetts. From the state line in Tiverton, Rhode Island to Milton, Route 138 runs as an extension of Rhode Island Route 138, which is itself an extension of Connecticut Route 138. Route 138' ...

), and a short distance later Brook Road carries the Route 28 designation off to the east. It passes through a residential area, crosses Pine Tree Brook, and soon reaches its southern terminus, a rotary intersection (this is not a rotary any longer, it is a regular 4-way intersection with overhead stoplights as of at least 2015) with Canton Street and Unquity Road (the latter being listed as part of the

Blue Hills Reservation Parkways The Blue Hills Reservation Parkways are a network of historic parkways in and around the Blue Hills Reservation, a Massachusetts state park south of Boston, Massachusetts. It consists of six roadways (in seven distinct segments) that provide c ...

). The parkway is about long. The parkway was laid out in 1894, and was one of the first connecting parkways designed by Eliot and the

Olmsted Brothers The Olmsted Brothers company was a landscape architectural firm in the United States, established in 1898 by brothers John Charles Olmsted (1852–1920) and Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. (1870–1957), sons of the landscape architect Frederick Law ...

. Land acquisition began in 1896, and construction took place in 1898. The Neponset River bridge was built 1901-03 Its major features include the Neponset River bridge, a granite-faced triple arch structure carrying six lanes of traffic. The complex of junctions on the south side is landscaped with a series of median islands and miters. The roadway is eight lanes in this area, allowing for turning lanes, and there is a c. 1823 granite mile marker in the grassy area on the west side of the roadway. South of the Truman Parkway interchange the road becomes six lanes, which reduce to five (two south and three north) after the Brook Road junction. The roadway for the southern stretch is canopied by trees that line the center median strip and the sides.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Parkways in Massachusetts Roads on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Transportation in Norfolk County, Massachusetts Streets in Boston National Register of Historic Places in Boston National Register of Historic Places in Milton, Massachusetts Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Parks on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts

See also

References