Quincy Point is a neighborhood of Quincy, Massachusetts. "The Point" is generally defined as the land east of Quincy Center, the downtown district. Quincy Point is bordered on the west by Elm Street, on the east by Weymouth Fore River and the Braintree city line, on the north by Town River and on the south by Quincy Avenue. The area altitude averages about 30 feet (9.1 m) above sea level. The population of this neighborhood in 2000 was 11,414. [1]
Early in its history Quincy Point was known as the "Great Fenced Fields". This area included the part of old Braintree prior to the 1792 formation of Quincy that was south of Town River and west of Weymouth Fore River where it makes its turn north toward Hingham Bay. [2]
Quincy Point is the site of the former Fore River Shipyard, located in the neighborhood since 1901. [3] The shipyard is famous for launching ships commissioned by the United States Navy, including the World War II battleship USS Massachusetts (BB-59) and aircraft carriers USS Wasp (CV-7) and USS Bunker Hill (CV-17). The shipyard is located on what was known since the eighteenth century as Quincy Neck, [2] a geographical feature now obscured by landfill and piers. The Fore River Shipyard is also widely believed to be the origin of the graffiti character known throughout the world as Kilroy, peeking over a bulkhead proclaiming "Kilroy Was Here".
Quincy Point was formerly a hub for immigrants from Italy and Lebanon. While many of these people still remain, today it is a very diverse neighborhood with many people of Irish, African and Asian descent. [4]
A famous former resident of Quincy Point is Dick Dale, known as the "King of Surf Guitar" and a major influence in the development of heavy metal rock music. Of Lebanese and Polish heritage, Dale introduced complex Middle Eastern melodies and rhythms into the rock and roll repertoire during the early 1960s. Dick Dale was raised on Shea Street near Southern Artery in Quincy Point and resided in Twentynine Palms, California until his death in 2019. [5]
Quincy Point has several small beaches fronting the Town River, including Mound Street Beach and Avalon Beach. [6] Its main recreation facilities are Fore River Field, an athletic complex, and Monroe Playground. [7]
The original market of the Stop & Shop supermarket chain was on the corner of Southern Artery and McGrath Highway; the chain still has a supermarket on the site.
The United States Naval Shipbuilding Museum located at the Fore River Shipyard, features the USS Salem (CA-139), a preserved heavy cruiser which is open to the public. [8]
In January, 2008, The Patriot Ledger newspaper reported that the 328-foot (100 m) tall "Goliath" shipbuilding crane located at the Fore River Shipyard - once the tallest maritime construction crane in the world, and for decades a landmark visible for miles - would be dismantled and sold to Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering of South Korea and relocated to Mangalia, Romania. [9] [10] The dismantlement of the giant structure began in July 2008 but was halted on August 14 following a partial collapse that resulted in the death of ironworker Robert Harvey. [11] Work on the crane's removal stopped for two months while local and federal officials investigated the accident, but later resumed and was completed in early 2009. [12] As a result of their investigation, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued fines totalling $68,000 on January 13, 2009. [13] A barge carrying the crane was christened the USS Harvey in honor of the fallen worker and left the shipyard on March 7, 2009, en route to Romania. [14] [15]
Quincy Point is noteworthy for its religious diversity, including St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church, Quincy Point Congregational Church, Glad Tidings Assemblies of God and a Portuguese-language Assemblies of God parish, all on Washington Street. [4] The neighborhood also has the Thousand Buddha Temple, run by the Budhi Siksa Society, and the Islamic Center of New England mosque, New England's oldest mosque. [4] Beth Israel Synagogue's was southeastern Massachusetts' oldest surviving synagogue until it closed in 2008; the building has since been renovated and houses a Baptist church. [16]
Quincy Point is traversed by two Massachusetts state highways and is served by several bus routes.
State highway Route 53 enters Quincy Point from Braintree as Quincy Avenue, turns north at Southern Artery and ends at Washington Street, intersecting Route 3A.
State highway Route 3A enters Quincy Point from Bridge Street, Weymouth crossing Weymouth Fore River on the Fore River Bridge, entering Washington Street at Fore River rotary. Following Washington Street, Route 3A intersects Route 53 and turns north following Southern Artery toward Hancock Street, North Quincy and Dorchester.
MBTA bus Routes 220 (Hingham Center), 221 (Fort Point, Weymouth Neck) and 222 (East Weymouth) all serve Washington Street out of the Quincy Center Red Line subway station. MBTA bus Route 225 serves Quincy Avenue from Quincy Center station to Weymouth Landing.
MBTA contractor Harbor Express offered daily passenger ferry service from Quincy Point to Boston, but closed at the end of 2013 because of a deteriorating pier, which the MBTA declined to repair. [17]
The neighborhood is serviced by Point Webster Middle School off of Washington Street and Marshall Elementary School on Southern Artery. [18] [19] Graduates of Point Webster attend Quincy High School, located in Quincy Center.
St. Joseph's Parochial School, a Catholic-run K-8 school operated by St. Joseph's Parish, was the last parochial school in the neighborhood; it closed in 2006 due to declining enrollment attributed to the abuse scandals in the Archdiocese of Boston. [20]
Quincy is a coastal U.S. city in Norfolk County, Massachusetts. It is the largest city in the county and a part of Metropolitan Boston as one of Boston's immediate southern suburbs. Its population in 2020 was 101,636, making it the seventh-largest city in the state. Known as the "City of Presidents", Quincy is the birthplace of two U.S. presidents—John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams—as well as John Hancock, a President of the Continental Congress and the first signer of the Declaration of Independence, as well as being the first and third Governor of Massachusetts.
Braintree, officially the Town of Braintree, is a municipality in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Although officially known as a town, Braintree is a city, with a mayor-council form of government, and is considered a city under Massachusetts law. The population was 39,143 at the 2020 census. The city is part of the Greater Boston area with access to the MBTA Red Line, and is a member of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council's South Shore Coalition. The first mayor of Braintree was Joe Sullivan who served until January 2020. The current mayor of Braintree is Charles Kokoros.
USS Salem (CA-139) is a Des Moines-class heavy cruiser completed for the United States Navy shortly after World War II and commissioned in 1949. The second ship of her class, she was the world's last heavy cruiser to enter service and the last remaining. She was decommissioned in 1959 after serving in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. She is open to the public as a museum ship in Quincy, Massachusetts.
Bethlehem Steel Corporation Shipbuilding Division was created in 1905 when the Bethlehem Steel Corporation of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, acquired the San Francisco shipyard Union Iron Works. In 1917 it was incorporated as Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, Limited.
Fore River Shipyard was a shipyard owned by General Dynamics Corporation located on Weymouth Fore River in Braintree and Quincy, Massachusetts. It began operations in 1883 in Braintree, and moved to its final location on Quincy Point in 1901. In 1913, it was purchased by Bethlehem Steel, and later transferred to Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation. It was sold to General Dynamics in 1963, and closed in 1986. During its operation, yardworkers constructed hundreds of ships, for both military and civilian clients.
The MBTA boat or MBTA ferry system is a public boat service providing water transportation in Boston Harbor. It is operated by Boston Harbor Cruises (BHC) under contract to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA). The system consists of three routes that terminate in downtown Boston. F1 service runs from Rowes Wharf to Hewitt's Cove in Hingham. F2H service runs from Long Wharf to Hewitt's Cove, with some trips stopping at Logan Airport, Pemberton Point in Hull, and/or some of the Boston Harbor Islands. F4 service runs in the inner harbor between Long Wharf and the Charlestown Navy Yard. Two additional seasonal routes, not funded by the MBTA but included on some MBTA documents, run from Boston to Salem and Winthrop.
Braintree station is an intermodal transit station in Braintree, Massachusetts. It serves the MBTA's Red Line and the MBTA Commuter Rail Old Colony Lines as well as MBTA buses.
Quincy Adams station is a rapid transit station in Quincy, Massachusetts. It serves the Braintree Branch of the MBTA's Red Line. Located in southern Quincy on Burgin Parkway near the Braintree Split, the station features a large park and ride garage, with space for 2,538 automobiles, built over the station tracks and platforms. It is fully accessible.
Quincy Center station is an intermodal transit station in Quincy, Massachusetts. It is a transfer station between the MBTA Red Line subway, MBTA Commuter Rail's Old Colony Lines and Greenbush Line, and a number of MBTA bus routes. It is located between Hancock Street and Burgin Parkway in the Quincy Center district. Opened in 1971, the station was covered by a large parking garage which was closed in 2012 due to structural problems. A project to remove and replace the garage is under way.
North Quincy station is an MBTA subway Red Line station in Quincy, Massachusetts. It is located in North Quincy, off Hancock Street. A major park-and-ride stop, it has over 1200 parking spaces for commuters. It also serves as a minor bus terminal, with five MBTA bus routes stopping at the south end of the station. The station is fully accessible.
North Quincy is a neighborhood of Quincy, Massachusetts. It is separated from the city of Boston by the Neponset River, and borders the Quincy neighborhoods of Squantum, Montclair and Wollaston. It contains the smaller neighborhoods of Atlantic and Norfolk Downs, as well as much of Wollaston Beach.
Southern Artery is a street in Quincy, Massachusetts. For much of its length it is a major arterial street which is used by an average of over 30,000 Boston area commuters daily.
Weymouth Fore River is a small bay or estuary in eastern Massachusetts and is part of the Massachusetts Bay watershed.
The United States Naval Shipbuilding Museum is a private non-profit museum in Quincy, Massachusetts featuring USS Salem (CA-139), a heavy cruiser docked at the former Fore River Shipyard where she was laid down in 1945. The museum was established in 1993, in response to efforts by local officials and volunteers to revive the shipyard area after operations at Fore River ended in 1986. Several exhibits are on board Salem relating to United States naval history and shipbuilding. Before being moved to a different pier, the museum featured dockside fixtures and a miniature golf course.
Furnace Brook Parkway is a historic parkway in Quincy, Massachusetts. Part of the Metropolitan Park System of Greater Boston, it serves as a connector between the Blue Hills Reservation and Quincy Shore Reservation at Quincy Bay. First conceived in the late nineteenth century, the state parkway is owned and maintained by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) and travels through land formerly owned by the families of John Adams and John Quincy Adams, passing several historic sites. It ends in the Merrymount neighborhood, where Quincy was first settled by Europeans in 1625 by Captain Richard Wollaston. The road was started in 1904, completed in 1916 and added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 2004.
Adams Shore is a neighborhood of Quincy, Massachusetts. It is located on the shore of Quincy Bay at the entrance to the Hough's Neck peninsula. It is bordered on the north by Quincy Bay, on the east by the Hough's Neck neighborhood, on the south by Town River Bay and on the west by the Merrymount neighborhood. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2000 the population of Adams Shore was just over 1,500.
South Quincy is a neighborhood of Quincy, Massachusetts. Located in the south central portion of the city, South Quincy is bordered on the north by Quincy Center and West Quincy, on the east by Quincy Avenue and the Quincy Point neighborhood, on the south by Braintree and on the west by Interstate 93.
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 four sides by water and is only connected to the mainland and Moon Island via causeways. Located in the northernmost portion of the city, Squantum is bordered on the north by Dorchester Bay and Boston Harbor, on the east by Moon Island and Quincy Bay, on the south by Quincy Bay and North Quincy, and on the west by the Marina Bay development. The population of the neighborhood in 2000 according to the United States Census Bureau was 2,626. Squantum has scenic, waterfront views of Boston Harbor and the Boston skyline and has many of Quincy’s most expensive homes. Squantum residents are the wealthiest of any neighborhood in Quincy, according to the 2010 United States Census Bureau, and the home ownership rate is approximately 92%. The neighborhood is further characterized by its tree-lined streets, its "island getaway" feel, close-knit community, and its annual Squantum Fourth of July Parade. As described in a 2020 book, "One road leads in and out of a square mile of land that is a playground for children and a haven for adults." Squantum also has one of the largest Irish populations, on a per capita basis, of any neighborhood in the United States
West Quincy is a neighborhood of Quincy, Massachusetts. It is bordered on the north by Wollaston, on the east by Quincy Center, on the south by South Quincy and on the west by the town of Milton and the Blue Hills Reservation.
Goliath is the name of a crane that is currently located at the Mangalia shipyard in Mangalia, Romania. Formerly, it was part of the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts.
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Area history: "A History of Old Braintree and Quincy: With a Sketch of Randolph and Holbrook" / by William S. Pattee, available online at Google Books
