The Arborway consists of a four-lane, divided
parkway
A parkway is a landscaped thoroughfare. The term is particularly used for a roadway in a park or connecting to a park from which trucks and other heavy vehicles are excluded.
Over the years, many different types of roads have been labeled p ...
and a two-lane residential street in the
Jamaica Plain
Jamaica Plain is a Neighborhoods in Boston, neighborhood of in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Settled by Puritans seeking farmland to the south, it was originally part of Roxbury, Massachusetts, Roxbury. The community seceded from Roxbur ...
neighborhood of
Boston, Massachusetts
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
, United States. It was designed by
Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822 – August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, Social criticism, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the U ...
in the 1890s as the southern-most carriage road in a series of parkways connecting parks from
Boston Common
The Boston 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 five major Boston streets: Tremont Street, Park Street, Beacon Street, Charl ...
in downtown Boston to
Franklin Park in
Roxbury. This park system has since become known as the
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 ...
.
It was included in the landscape complex called the
Olmsted Park
Olmsted Park is a linear park in Boston and Brookline, Massachusetts, and a part of Boston's Emerald Necklace of connected parks and parkways. Originally named Leverett Park, in 1900 it was renamed to honor its designer, Frederick Law Olmsted.
Ol ...
that was placed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
on December 8, 1971.
Description
The Arborway begins at a large
rotary that connects it with the
Jamaicaway
The Jamaicaway (sometimes colloquially referred to as the "J'way") is a four-lane, undivided parkway in the Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, adjacent to the nearby neighborhood of Brookline, Mas ...
, and curves past the main entrance of
Arnold Arboretum
The Arnold Arboretum is a botanical research institution and free public park affiliated with Harvard University and located in the Jamaica Plain and Roslindale, Massachusetts, Roslindale neighborhoods of Boston.
Established in 1872, it is the ...
(125 Arborway), where on-street parking is allowed. The roadway once continued through
Forest Hills to the edge of
Franklin Park, but now ends at the South Street border of the Arboretum. From there, traffic exits into Forest Hills next to
Forest Hills Station. The entire roadway is signed as
Massachusetts Route 203, which continues along the parkway as
Morton Street.
Casey Overpass
Named ''Monsignor William J. Casey Overpass'' in honor of a
Depression-era
priest
A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...
of St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Jamaica Plain, the overpass was opened in November 1953 to allow the increasing automobile traffic of the day to bypass the north-south traffic on Washington Street, South Street, and Hyde Park Avenue. In the 2000s, community groups were investigating the possibility of fixing this "missing link" in the Emerald Necklace. The
Massachusetts Department of Transportation
The Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) oversees roads, public transit, aeronautics, and transportation licensing and registration in the US state of Massachusetts. It was created on November 1, 2009, by the 186th Sessio ...
determined the overpass "structurally deficient" in 2010 and started work on replacing it with an at-grade roadway. The overpass was demolished in 2015.
Major intersections
The entire route is in the city of
Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
.
See also
*
Arborway (MBTA station)
*
M.T.A. (song)
"M.T.A.", often called "The MTA Song", is a 1949 song by Jacqueline Steiner and Bess Lomax Hawes. Known informally as "Charlie on the MTA", the song's lyrics tell an absurd tale of a man named Charlie trapped on Boston's subway system, which was ...
References
External links
Arnold ArboretumThe Emerald Necklace Conservancy
{{Streets and squares in Boston
Emerald Necklace
Frederick Law Olmsted works
Parkways in Massachusetts
Streets in Boston