Morton Street, Metropolitan Park System of Greater Boston | |
Location | Morton St. between Arborway and Gallivan Boulevard, Boston, Massachusetts |
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Area | 13 acres (5.3 ha) |
Built | 1930 |
Built by | City of Boston Dept. of Public Works |
MPS | Metropolitan Park System of Greater Boston MPS |
NRHP reference No. | 04001572 [1] |
Added to NRHP | January 24, 2005 |
Morton Street is a street in southern Boston, Massachusetts. It extends from the southeastern end of the Arborway in Jamaica Plain to Washington Street in the Lower Mills Village of Dorchester. Most of the road is a connecting parkway, signed as part of Massachusetts Route 203, that provides access to Boston's Emerald Necklace of parks. That portion of the road was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. [1]
Morton Street's northwestern terminus is at the southern access road paralleling the Arborway a short distance east of the Forest Hills MBTA station in southern Jamaica Plain. It is narrow and one-way in the northwestern direction until the James B. Shea Memorial Circle, which is the southeastern terminus of the Arborway. Morton Street continues southeasterly from the circle as a four-lane divided parkway signed Massachusetts 203, flanked on the southwest by Forest Hills Cemetery and the northeast by Franklin Park. These are bounded by the American Legion Highway, with which Morton Street has a grade-separated interchange. It passes several smaller park areas until it reaches Harvard Street, after which it becomes much more urbanized.
As the road approaches Blue Hill Avenue, the central median tapers away. It is typically lined by closely spaced wood-frame residential construction, except at the major road junctions, which have commercial or mixed commercial-residential buildings. [2] Gallivan Boulevard continues the parkway setting in an easterly direction at an angled junction a short way southeast of the Morton Street MBTA station, and Morton Street continues as a four-lane road another half mile before reaching its end at Washington Street, just north of the Lower Mills Village center. The last section features slightly more generous spacing between the buildings lining the roadway.
Morton Street was probably built by either the city or the state in the 1930s. It and the connecting Arborway and Gallivan Boulevard were all maintained by the city until a financial crisis in the city prompted them to be turned over to the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC), predecessor to today's Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation. Even though its parkway section was not built by the MDC, it was built with sensitivity to the standards the MDC applied in the construction of many other parkways in the Greater Boston area. The parkway portion of the road (between Shea Circle and Gallivan Boulevard) is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. [2]
Forest Hills is an intermodal transfer station in Boston, Massachusetts. It serves the MBTA's rapid transit Orange Line, MBTA Commuter Rail's Needham Line, and is a major terminus for MBTA bus routes. It is located in Forest Hills, in the southern part of the Jamaica Plain neighborhood. Most Providence/Stoughton Line trains, and all Franklin Line and Amtrak Northeast Corridor trains, pass through the station without stopping.
Heath Street is an MBTA transit station in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the terminus of the Green Line E branch. It is located at the intersection of South Huntington Avenue and Heath Street on the border between the Mission Hill and Jamaica Plain neighborhoods. The station is accessible when served by the MBTA's newer low-floor trolley cars and buses.
The E branch is a light rail line in Boston, Massachusetts, operating as part of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Green Line. The line runs in mixed traffic on South Huntington Avenue and Huntington Avenue between Heath Street and Brigham Circle, in the median of Huntington Avenue to Northeastern University, then into the Huntington Avenue subway. The line merges into the Boylston Street subway just west of Copley, running to North Station via the Tremont Street subway.
The Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) is a state agency of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, situated in the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. It is best known for its parks and parkways. The DCR's mission is "To protect, promote and enhance our common wealth of natural, cultural and recreational resources for the well-being of all." The agency is the largest landowner in Massachusetts.
Revere Beach Parkway is a historic parkway in the suburbs immediately north of Boston, Massachusetts. It begins at Wellington Circle in Medford, where the road leading to the west is Mystic Valley Parkway, and the north–south road is the Fellsway, designated Route 28. The parkway proceeds east, ending at Eliot Circle, the junction of Revere Beach Boulevard and Winthrop Parkway in Revere. In between, the parkway passes through the cities of Everett and Chelsea. The parkway was built between 1896 and 1904 to provide access from interior communities to Revere Beach. It underwent two major periods of capacity expansion, in the 1930s and again in the 1950s. The parkway is designated as part of Route 16 west of Route 1A, and as part of Route 145 east of that point.
Route 203 is a 5.34-mile-long (8.59 km) east-west state highway located wholly within the city of Boston, Massachusetts. The western terminus is at Centre Street in Jamaica Plain and the eastern terminus is at the Southeast Expressway and Route 3A in Neponset. Route 203 is poorly signed, but runs along part of the Arborway, Morton Street and Gallivan Boulevard, all parkways formerly part of the Metropolitan District Commission system of parks and roads.
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 carriage road in a series of parkways connecting parks from Boston Common in downtown Boston to Franklin Park in Roxbury. This park system has since become known as the Emerald Necklace of Boston.
The Neponset Valley Parkway is a historic parkway in southern Boston and Milton, Massachusetts, United States. It is a connecting parkway in the Greater Boston area's network, providing a connection between the Blue Hills Reservation, Neponset River Reservation, and the Stony Brook Reservation. The parkway was constructed between 1898 and 1929 with design assistance from Charles Eliot and the Olmsted Brothers. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.
The Stony Brook Reservation Parkways are a group of historic parkways in Boston and Dedham, Massachusetts. They provide access to and within the Stony Brook Reservation, a Massachusetts state park. The roadways and the park are administered by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, a successor to the Metropolitan District Commission, which oversaw their construction. The roads consist of the Dedham, Enneking, and Turtle Pond Parkways and West Boundary Road. Two roads within the park, Smithfield Road and Reservation Road, are listed as non-contributing properties. The park roads were built between 1894 and 1956, and were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.
The Truman Parkway is a historic parkway in Milton and southern Boston, Massachusetts. It runs along the southern boundary of a portion of the Neponset River Reservation and serves as a connection between the Neponset Valley Parkway and the Blue Hills Parkway. The parkway was built in 1931 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.
The Veterans of Foreign Wars Parkway is a historic parkway in Boston, Massachusetts. The southern terminus of the parkway is at Washington Street at the Dedham-West Roxbury border, from where it travels north and then east, ending at a junction with Centre Street, near the Arnold Arboretum. The highway is almost entirely contained within the West Roxbury neighborhood, although it passes through part of the Chestnut Hill neighborhood near its junction with the West Roxbury Parkway. Most of its length, from Spring Street in West Roxbury to its eastern end, is administered by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), a successor to the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC) which oversaw the road's construction. The parkway was built in stages between 1930 and 1942, and was designed to provide a parkway connection from the Upper Charles River Reservation to other MDC parks via the West Roxbury Parkway. The DCR portion of the road was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. The road formerly carried the designation for U.S. Route 1.
Winthrop Parkway is a historic parkway in Revere, Massachusetts. The parkway, built between 1909 and 1919 and now designated as part of Route 145, runs for about 0.75 miles (1.21 km), from Eliot Circle southeast to the Revere-Winthrop line. Acquisitions for its construction represent the last public purchase of oceanfront lands in Revere. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.
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 that provide circulation within the park, and that join the park to two connecting parkways, the Blue Hills Parkway and the Furnace Brook Parkway. The roadway network was designed by Charles Eliot in the 1890s, except for Green Street, which was added to the network in the 1940s. The parkways were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.
The Fells Connector Parkways are a group of historic parkways in the cities of Malden and Medford, Massachusetts, suburbs north of the city of Boston. The three parkways, The Fellsway, Fellsway West, and Fellsway East serve to provide access from the lower portion of the Mystic River Reservation to the Middlesex Fells Reservation. The latter two parkways continue northward, providing access to the interior of the Fells and providing a further connection to Lynn Fells Parkway. Significant portions of these parkways south of the Fells, which were among the first connecting parkways designed to be part of the Metropolitan Park System of Greater Boston by Charles Eliot, were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.
The Charles River Reservation Parkways are parkways that run along either side of the Charles River in eastern Massachusetts. The roads are contained within the Charles River Reservation and the Upper Charles River Reservation, and fall within a number of communities in the greater Boston metropolitan area. The Charles River parks extend from the Charles River Dam, where the Charles empties into Boston Harbor, to Riverdale Park in the West Roxbury neighborhood of Boston. Most of the roadways within the parks are listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a unit, although Storrow Drive and Memorial Drive are listed as part of the Charles River Basin Historic District.
Blue Hills Parkway is a historic parkway that runs in a straight line from a crossing of the Neponset River, at the south border of Boston to the north edge of the Blue Hills Reservation in Milton, Massachusetts. 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 parkway is a connecting road between the Blue Hills Reservation and the Neponset River Reservation, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.
Hammond Pond Parkway is a historic parkway in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. The road, built in 1932, extends 2 miles (3.2 km) from Hobart Road in Newton to Horace James Circle in Brookline, where it joins the West Roxbury Parkway. It was designed by Charles Eliot and the Olmsted Brothers to provide a parkway setting that provided access from Brookline, Newton, and the western portions of Boston to the southern parks of the Emerald Necklace. The parkway was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.
West Roxbury Parkway is a historic parkway running from Washington Street in Boston, Massachusetts, where the Enneking Parkway runs south, to Horace James Circle in Brookline, where it meets the Hammond Pond Parkway. The parkway serves as a connector between Stony Brook Reservation and Hammond Pond Reservation. West Roxbury Parkway was built between 1919 and 1929 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. The parkway is distinctive in the roadway system developed by the Metropolitan District Commission beginning around the turn of the 20th century in that it was built in collaboration with the City of Boston, and is maintained by the city.
Morrissey Boulevard is a six-lane divided coastal road in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is owned and maintained by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR).
Route 16 is a 59.8646-mile-long (96.3427 km) east–west state highway in Massachusetts. It begins in the west at an intersection with Route 12 and Route 193 in Webster, just north of the Connecticut state border. It runs in a generally southwest-northeast routing through a number of Boston's suburbs and runs to the west and then north of the city before ending in Revere at an intersection with Route 1A and Route 60.
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