North Quincy is a neighborhood of

Quincy, Massachusetts Quincy ( ) is a coastal U.S. city in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the largest city in the county and a part of Greater Boston, Metropolitan Boston as one of Boston's immediate southern suburbs. Its population in 2020 was 1 ...

. It is separated from the city 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 ...

by 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 ...

, and borders the Quincy neighborhoods of

Squantum Squantum is a neighborhood of Quincy, Massachusetts, connected to the mainland by a causeway that crosses over a wetland area of the bay. Often thought of as a peninsula, Squantum proper is technically a barrier island as it is surrounded on all fou ...

, Montclair and Wollaston. It contains the smaller neighborhoods of Atlantic (sometimes used as a metonym for North Quincy) and Norfolk Downs, as well as much of

Wollaston Beach Wollaston Beach is the largest public beach in the Boston harbor. The beach is located parallel to Quincy Shore Drive in North Quincy, Massachusetts, which was constructed to provide access to the bay beach for Greater Boston. Wollaston beach ex ...

History

Originally referred to as Billings Plain, the area - once largely marshland and part of the

drainage - was utilized as training and parade grounds by local militia. It was subsequently home to a race track operated by the Jockey Club of Boston in the 19th century. Starting in the late 1970s, North Quincy has seen a large influx of

Chinese American Chinese Americans are Americans of Han Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans along with their ancestors trace lineage from ...

and Eastern Asian immigrants and is predominantly Asian today. The neighborhood was once home to a large

Navy A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral zone, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and ...

population, housed in a large development north of Quincy Shore Drive and intended to serve the Squantum naval air base. After NAS Squantum closed, the site continued to house Navy personnel and their families based at the

South Weymouth NAS Naval Air Station South Weymouth was an operational United States Navy airfield from 1942 to 1997 in South Weymouth, Massachusetts. It was first established as a regular Navy blimp base during World War II. During the postwar era the base became p ...

until that base's closure in 1997; it has since been converted to senior housing. The major employers in the neighborhood are

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts (BCBSMA) is a state licensed nonprofit private health insurance company under the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association with headquarters in Boston. The Boston location located on 133 Federal Street is curren ...

and

State Street Corporation State Street Corporation is an American financial services and bank holding company headquartered at One Lincoln Street in Boston with operations worldwide. It is the second-oldest continually operating United States bank; its predecessor, Un ...

, which have their operations centers on Newport Avenue adjacent to the rapid transit station.

Transportation

Starting in 1845, the

Old Colony Railroad The Old Colony Railroad (OC) was a major railroad system, mainly covering southeastern Massachusetts and parts of Rhode Island, which operated from 1845 to 1893. Old Colony trains ran from Boston to points such as Plymouth, Fall River, ...

began servicing the area. The

New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad , commonly known as The Consolidated, or simply as the New Haven, was a railroad that operated in the New England region of the United States from 1872 to December 31, 1968. Founded by the merger of ...

leased the system - which extended through the South Shore, Norfolk and Plymouth Counties - starting in 1893. The neighborhood had two Old Colony stations; the Norfolk Downs station, situated at the end of Billings Road, and Atlantic Station, at the end of Atlantic Street. The

Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway The Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway (Eastern Mass) was a streetcar and later bus company in eastern Massachusetts, serving northern and southern suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts. Its precursor company was the Bay State Street Railway, which ...

ran streetcar routes from Neponset Station in Boston along Hancock Street to Quincy Center and points south through the 1930s; a branch route went from Atlantic Station to Squantum. The North Quincy station of the MBTA's Red Line, situated across from North Quincy High School on Hancock and West Squantum Streets, opened in 1971. Several MBTA bus routes also serve the neighborhood; the 211 Squantum-Montclair route passes through North Quincy Station down East Squantum Street to Squantum, the 210 Quincy Center-Fields Corner route travels down Hancock Street and the 212 North Quincy-Quincy Center route travels down Billings Road. State Route 3A traverses the length of Hancock Street, crossing the Neponset River Bridge into

Education

The public schools serving North Quincy are F. W. Parker Elementary School and Atlantic Middle School. A second elementary school, Quincy Elementary School on Newbury Avenue, was closed in 1981 following the passage of

Proposition 2½ In logic and linguistics, a proposition is the meaning of a declarative sentence. In philosophy, " meaning" is understood to be a non-linguistic entity which is shared by all sentences with the same meaning. Equivalently, a proposition is the no ...

and converted to condominiums; the building was placed 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 1983.

North Quincy High School North Quincy High School (NQHS) is a public secondary school located in the North Quincy neighborhood of Quincy, Massachusetts, United States. The school serves grades 9 through 12, and has an enrollment of over 1,200 students. It is one of t ...

, between Hancock and Hunt Streets, is the high school of North Quincy and the surrounding neighborhoods. It underwent extensive renovation in 1970-72, expanding significantly and requiring the razing of Oliver Street. Further expansion involved razing many homes on Hunt Street to build parking lots and access to athletic fields. A since-closed annex was also built on Newbury Avenue. After its main building was repossessed by the city for construction purposes,

Quincy College Quincy College (QC) is a public community college in Quincy, Massachusetts. It is an open admission commuter school that offers associate degrees, bachelor degrees, and certificate programs. It was founded in 1958 and enrolls approximately 4,500 ...

moved most of its facilities to Newport Avenue near the subway station.Information About the Quincy Campuses
/ref> These have since closed, and the college consolidated downtown. A branch of the

Thomas Crane Public Library The Thomas Crane Public Library (TCPL) is a city library in Quincy, Massachusetts. It is noted for its architecture. It was funded by the Crane family as a memorial to Thomas Crane, a wealthy stone contractor who got his start in the Quincy quarri ...

is located on Hancock Street in Norfolk Downs near the MBTA station; a second neighborhood branch on Atlantic Street was also a casualty of Proposition and closed in 1980.

References

External links

* Quincy, Massachusetts official site: http://www.quincyma.gov/Living/neighborhoods.cfm
City information from MA Hometown Locator
{{authority control Chinatowns in the United States Neighborhoods in Massachusetts Populated places in Norfolk County, Massachusetts Quincy, Massachusetts Populated coastal places in Massachusetts