Jamaicaway (also known as The Jamaicaway) is a four-lane, undivided

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 ...

in the

Jamaica Plain Jamaica Plain is a neighborhood of in the City of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Settled by Puritans seeking farmland to the south, it was originally part of the former Town of Roxbury, now also a part of the City of Boston. The commun ...

neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts near the border of

Brookline Brookline may refer to: Places in the United States * Brookline, Massachusetts, a town near Boston * Brookline, Missouri * Brookline, New Hampshire * Brookline (Pittsburgh), a neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania * Brookline, Vermont See ...

History

Jamaicaway Bridge from the southwest, September 2022

Jamaicaway was designed by

Frederick Law Olmsted Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the USA. Olmsted was famous for co- ...

as part of

Emerald Necklace The Emerald Necklace consists of a chain of parks linked by parkways and waterways in Boston and Brookline, Massachusetts. It was designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, and gets its name from the way the planned chain appears ...

of green spaces extending from

Boston Common The Boston Common (also known as the Common) is a public park in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. It is the oldest city park in the United States. Boston Common consists of of land bounded by Tremont Street (139 Tremont St.), Park Street, Beacon ...

on Beacon Hill to Franklin Park in Roxbury. Jamaicaway connects

Riverway Riverway, also referred to as "the Riverway," is a parkway in Boston, Massachusetts. The parkway is a link in the Emerald Necklace system of parks and parkways designed by Frederick Law Olmsted in the 1890s. Starting at the Landmark Center end ...

in the north with

Arborway Arborway (also known as The Arborway) consists of a four-lane, divided parkway and a two lane residential street in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted in the 1890s as the south most ...

in the south. Designed with

carriage A carriage is a private four-wheeled vehicle for people and is most commonly horse-drawn. Second-hand private carriages were common public transport, the equivalent of modern cars used as taxis. Carriage suspensions are by leather strapping an ...

s in mind during an era when Jamaica Plain was a sparsely inhabited

streetcar suburb A streetcar suburb is a residential community whose growth and development was strongly shaped by the use of streetcar lines as a primary means of transportation. Such suburbs developed in the United States in the years before the automobile, when ...

, Jamaicaway is now a well-traveled route for

motor vehicle A motor vehicle, also known as motorized vehicle or automotive vehicle, is a self-propelled land vehicle, commonly wheeled, that does not operate on Track (rail transport), rails (such as trains or trams) and is used for the transportation of pe ...

s. Adding to the volume of traffic is Jamaicaway's proximity to the

Longwood Medical and Academic Area The Longwood Medical and Academic Area (also known as Longwood Medical Area, LMA, or simply Longwood) is a medical campus in Boston, Massachusetts. Flanking Longwood Avenue, LMA is adjacent to the Fenway–Kenmore, Audubon Circle, and Mission H ...

and to main roads leading to Forest Hills,

West Roxbury West Roxbury is a neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts bordered by Roslindale and Jamaica Plain to the northeast, the town of Brookline to the north, the cities and towns of Newton and Needham to the northwest and the town of Dedham to the ...

and the densely populated suburbs of Norfolk County. The winding nature of the road, and its heavy use by commuters leads to many vehicle collisions. Many of the houses which line Jamaicaway are large and of architectural interest. The oldest houses were created by elite Bostonians for year-round or seasonal use. The person most mentioned in association with Jamaicaway today is probably

James Michael Curley James Michael Curley (November 20, 1874 – November 12, 1958) was an American Democratic politician from Boston, Massachusetts. He served four terms as mayor of Boston. He also served a single term as governor of Massachusetts, characterized ...

, the

Irish American , image = Irish ancestry in the USA 2018; Where Irish eyes are Smiling.png , image_caption = Irish Americans, % of population by state , caption = Notable Irish Americans , population = 36,115,472 (10.9%) alone ...

Mayor of Boston The mayor of Boston is the head of the municipal government in Boston, Massachusetts. Boston has a mayor–council government. Boston's mayoral elections are nonpartisan (as are all municipal elections in Boston), and elect a mayor to a four- ...

whose former house was long easy to spot, even after Curley's death, by the

shamrock A shamrock is a young sprig, used as a symbol of Ireland. Saint Patrick, Ireland's patron saint, is said to have used it as a metaphor for the Christian Holy Trinity. The name ''shamrock'' comes from Irish (), which is the diminutive of ...

design incised in its shutters.O'Connor, Thomas H. Bibles, ''Brahmins, and Bosses: A Short History of Boston.'' Trustees of the Public Library of the City of Boston, 1984.

Major intersections

The entire route is in

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 ...

, Suffolk County.

References

External links

Restoring Boston’s "Emerald Isles"Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic SiteThe Emerald Necklace Conservancy
{{Metropolitan Park System of Greater Boston Jamaica Plain, Boston Emerald Necklace Parkways in Massachusetts Streets in Boston