The Neponset Valley 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 ...
in southern
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 ...
and
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. ...
,
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. It is a connecting parkway in the Greater Boston area's network, providing a connection between 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 Dedh ...
,
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 the
Stony Brook Reservation. The parkway was constructed between 1898 and 1929 with design assistance from
Charles 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 ...
.
It 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 2005.
Description
The northern terminus of the parkway is at a junction with River Street, north of the
Readville
Readville is part of the Hyde Park neighborhood of Boston. Readville's ZIP Code is 02136. It was called Dedham Low Plains from 1655 until it was renamed after the mill owner James Read in 1847. It was part of Dedham until 1867. It is served by ...
neighborhood of Boston and just south of the Mill Pond Reservation, a city park. On the far side of the Mill Pond Reservation is the southern end of Turtle Pond Parkway, one of the
Stony Brook Reservation Parkways. It runs roughly east, as a two-lane road, until it meets a major railroad right-of-way, at which point it turns south. It makes a left turn to cross the railroad with Milton Street on the John Hart Bridge (a 1930s
WPA
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Computing
*Wi-Fi Protected Access, a wireless encryption standard
*Windows Product Activation, in Microsoft software licensing
* Wireless Public Alerting (Alert Ready), emergency alerts over LTE in Canada
* Windows Performance An ...
construction), just north of the
Readville MBTA station. It turns south, passing the station and then curves east again, crossing another branch of the railroad to enter Wolcott Square, a commercial area of Readville. From Wolcott Square it proceeds roughly southeast in a straight line, through a residential area, and widens to four lanes shortly before reaching the edge of the Neponset River Reservation and a junction with the southern terminus of the
Truman Parkway. It then crosses 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 ...
into Milton on
Paul's Bridge
Paul's Bridge is a stone bridge carrying the Neponset Valley Parkway over the Neponset River between Milton and southern Boston, Massachusetts. It was built in 1849 by Thomas Hollis, Jr., of Milton, but was later reconstructed using the origin ...
, an 1849 stone arch bridge which was rebuilt to widen it as part of the parkway construction. On the east side of the river it meets Milton Street and Brush Hill Road, briefly turning southwest before resuming its southeasterly course to its southern terminus at Blue Hill Avenue (
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 13 ...
).
History
The parkway was built in three stages, and was one of the Metropolitan District Commission's (MDC) early connecting parkways. The segment between Wolcott Square and Brush Hill Road was acquired first, as an existing municipal street formerly called Neponset Street. This section was acquired by the MDC's predecessor in 1898 and upgraded to its parkway standards; Paul's Bridge was rebuilt in 1932–33. The section north of this was originally planned to be a new roadway (and land was even acquired in 1901), but the MDC decided in 1924 to instead acquire the present alignment, which was then called Regent Street. The John Hart Bridge was acquired by the MDC in 1956, replacing an earlier grade crossing. The southern segment of the parkway was built as a new roadway in 1904.
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See also
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References
{{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts
Roads on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts
Parkways in Massachusetts
Transportation in Norfolk County, Massachusetts
Streets in Boston
Milton, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places in Milton, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places in Boston
Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts
Parks on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts