Some Neighborhood History - In Brief
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
The PROSPECT HILL NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION was named for Prospect Avenue which runs through the middle of the association's boundaries.
The main physical feature of this area is a large hill known as "Mount Hope" which is a part of the Clarendon Hills Range which are prominent in Roslindale. The hill's topmost point is on Johnswood Road. Some consideration was given to naming it after this geological feature but the area around Mount Hope Street (off the 400 block of Hyde Park Ave) was already known as the "Mt Hope" neighborhood, and an existing neighborhood association (Mount Hope-Manning) was already organized, hence the name choice when the association originally assembled in 2004-2005.
STREETS AND ROADS
Streets in this area are named, for the most part, for residents and property owners dating back to the late 1800s and through the World War I era. A few streets were renamed when Hyde Park merged with, and became part of Boston. Prior to that, Hyde Park was a city unto its own. A few more streets were renamed when changes in physical features made a name change necessary. For example, Florence Street once ran from Roslindale Square through to Bourne Street in the Woodbourne neighborhood prior to the building of the Blakemore Street railroad bridge. Florence St. now ends at the bridge, though it originally crossed at grade over the tracks and continued easterly to what is now Bourne Street. You can follow the former Florence Street by turning down Florian Street off Hyde Park Ave. A project by City government in the WWI era also saw many street names changed to avoid duplications. While some did change, others did not and so there remain some duplicates to be found throughout the city.
Blakemore Bridge and its support structure granite block wall, was built (original) in the late 1800s. The original bridge was replaced with the current structure in 1950 according to available bridge inventory listings. Blakemore Bridge is owned by the City of Boston and is one of a handful of bridges owned and maintained by City government.
You can read more about the Blakemore Street Bridge -- HERE. This essay was authored in 2007 by the webmaster for the developers building the condos at 229 Florence Street. It goes into the history of the bridge's history from construction through to it's publication date in 2007
A CHANGING NEIGHBORHOOD
Like many neighborhoods in Boston, this area also saw many changes over time to meet the ever-changing needs of the neighborhood and surrounding community.
Mt. Hope Station a small neighborhood train stop for the Providence and New York Railroad and its associated station buildings, existed on either side of Blakemore Bridge at one time.
The outbound station on the Florence Street side of the bridge eventually became the offices of the Cunningham Coal Company which had a large coal sorting building that reached several stories high with coal gondolas arriving by rail and dropping off coal for the coal-fired stoves and furnaces in the area several days a week. The coal company ended its days when the sorting building burned in a spectacular fire in 1962. It was later leveled and the land remained vacant for another 20-plus years. The former station site is now a part of the Paradigm at Blakemore (original name) condo building, at 229 Florence Street, and a segment of Dale Village that is addressed on Florence Street at Sherwood St. Developers of Paradigm at Blakemore were given a history of the rail station that once stood at this location to maintain on file. It included the story, and historical images of the station building that once stood there.
On the Hyde Park Ave side of the bridge, the inbound train station remained until WWII, but became redundant when streetcar service was instituted along Hyde Park Ave, and summarily closed. After the station burned in the WWII era, and the property cleared, the City of Boston took possession of the land and created a neighborhood playground for children. Sadly, that fell into disrepair and was eventually fenced and abandoned. In the early 2000 time frame Urban Edge Developers obtained the land and there is now housing there addressed at 449 Hyde Park Ave.
Train service to Mt. Hope Station ended in the early 80s when the railroad bed was rebuilt and electrified to accommodate Amtrak high-speed trains and increased MBTA commuter rail trains. Neighborhood meetings were held to offer a replacement stop at Cummins Highway because Blakemore was deemed too close to Forest Hills. Area residents declined the replacement station which ended commuter rail service in this neighborhood along the main line. The land was then sold and the Paradigm building was eventually built.
The Marion St and Harrison St segments of Dale Village complex were also former industrial parcels. On Marion St. Dale Village occupies land once the home of the Boston Ice Company. The Harrison St segment of Dale Village was occupied by Whittimore''s Building Supplies, which was later purchased and renamed Waldo Brothers Supply. It offered mostly masonry supplies to the building trade. It too eventually ended business, burned, land cleared, and became part of Dale Village in the early 80s when Dale Village was commissioned. The land, then zoned industrial, was changed to residential zoning thanks to then City Councilor Thomas Menino, who would later become Boston's longest serving mayor. This changed the neighborhood from being a light industrial zone to the residential zone we now enjoy.
A HIGHWAY THAT NEVER WAS
Many parcels of land on either side of the railroad tracks between Blakemore St Bridge and Canterbury St. Bridge were taken by eminent domain in the early 70s to facilitate a super highway that would have connected Rt 95 in Westwood to Rt 90 in Boston by following the railroad right-of-way. It was to have been an elevated highway not unlike what was torn down in Boston as a part of the "Big Dig." Such a highway would have been the Big Dig of its day. When the highway was stopped in the late 70s, the land already taken was placed under a development moratorium for at least 30 years. Many of the parcels have been redevelopment in recent years and a few still remain awaiting release.
The Southwest Boston Garden at Rowe St. and Cummins Highway is one such parcel that was taken for the highway. It once contained as many as 15 homes composed of 1, 2, and 3-story style buildings, and it even included a whole street - Shannahan Place - that has disappeared from the maps forever. By agreement with the City of Boston, the MBTA was asked to not sell the land into development and it continues to serve the garden club and the neighbors that work the soil there.
At least one home that sat on the land now occupied by the Garden Club was saved and moved on rollers over the top of Cummins Highway to its present location at the corner of Florence Street and Cummins Highway. It is the home just across from the Roslindale Baptist Church with the small land parcel surrounding it.
Additional homes on Rowe Street at the bottom of the hill were also taken by eminent domain for the highway as well as some homes by the Blakemore St. bridge. A segment of Rowe Street between Palfrey Street Extension and the "elbow" had several homes - about 4-5 of them - and their foundations may still be buried under the land. That area is now part of the Rowe Street Woods urban wild. Other homes near the bridge that were demolished, eventually had the land returned to development and new homes built on the same parcels.
URBAN WILDS - THEN AND NOW
The vacant land along Rowe Street that lays adjacent to the railroad has always been vacant and at one time served as play space for neighborhood children dating back several generations. In the 1960s an owner of that parcel started to fill the land with plans of eventually developing it for construction but lax laws and abandonment eventually saw the land filled with trash and construction waste including wood, concrete, and even a few junk autos. The land was eventually capped and taken by the City to hold for later usage. Today it remains an urban wild and is often referred-to as Rowe Street Woods or Roslindale Woods.
In 2004-2005 a plan was crafted by Urban Edge Developers in partnership with the Southwest Boston Community Development Corporation to build as many as 27 units of housing on that land. However, neighborhood objections to the plan as presented (which included more units) and a sudden decline in the US economy, and a loss of government funding, saw that plan ended assuring the land continues as an urban wild. Since then other issues with the quality of the land have come to be known and questions remain whether it is build-able or not. The land remains at this writing in the hands of the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA).
SCHOOLS, CHURCHES, AND MORE
The Edward Brook School on Cummins Highway and which is bordered by Brown Ave. and Allen Street (private way) was not always there. The land one was the location of the St. Francis Xavier Grammar School, the parish school of Sacred Heart Church. When the new Sacred Heart School was built on Canterbury St in the late 1950s, the old school building and an adjacent residential home used as a convent, were demolished and the current building erected. That building was then the home of the St. Clare Girls High School operated by the Sisters of St Francis for several decades afterward. When the high school closed due to under-enrollment and funding problems, the building was sold to become the current Edward Brook Charter School.
Another residential home on Allen Street was slated for demolition in order to erect the school gym section of the building. However that home was moved on rollers over the Cummins Highway "Donato" bridge and is now on Bradstreet Avenue off Mt Hope Street. Watching a full-sized house roll over that bridge was a site to remember!
The convent building and chapel used by the Sisters of St. Francis was also demolished and is now the school's play area and part of the driveway on Brown Ave.
MORE STREETS AND ROADS
Cummins Highway was once Ashland Street. It was re-named after Fr. John Cummins the first pastor of Sacred Heart Church. Fr. Cummins is buried in the Old Calvary Cemetery near the chapel building on Cummins Highway, near Wood Ave.
"Church Row," as it was once known, was the segment of Cummins Highway from the railroad bridge to Roslindale Square. It was known by this name because in a few thousand feet it encompassed a Roman Catholic Church, Methodist Church, Baptist Church, and Congregational Church. The street also included two funeral homes, all of which have long since been re-purposed into residential housing. During the 50s and into the late 60s, the MBTA (and before that the MTA) ran a special "church bus" that ran Sunday mornings and would pick up people along Cummins Highway between Roslindale Sq. and American Legion Highway to get people up the steep hill to church services. It ran hourly.
A BRIDGE BY ANY OTHER NAME
The Joseph Donato Bridge over the MBTA railroad tracks on Cummins Highway was named after the Vietnam MIA, Joseph Donato who lived and grew up on Cummins Highway. For decades he was listed as an MIA, but eventually a secret file was opened to reveal that he was part of a secret air mission over enemy territory and was shot down during that mission. For over 3 decades the file remained sealed by the military.
AND THE MISCELLANEOUS
Up through the early 1950s streetcars, known locally as "trolleys" or "trolley-cars" operated on Cummins Highway, but often had problems making the steep grade in winter months. Streetcars often slid down the hill on icy days. They were later replaced with buses in the mid-1950s. Streetcars also operated on Hyde Park Ave, and Washington Street until the early 1950s when they were replaced by "trackless trolleys (electric buses) and a few years later by regular buses.
The little store known as Budget Mart on Florence Street by the Blakemore St. bridge and the parcel on which it sits, has had a store there for several generations. An adjacent parcel now occupied by homes on Ridge Street had other small businesses as well. Over the years the store has been collectively known as Carroll's Variety, Ed's Variety, Bustoff's Variety, and now Budget Mart.
Of course, many homes and other businesses have come and gone over time.
This is but a brief history that could go on for pages.
- Webmaster
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
The PROSPECT HILL NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION was named for Prospect Avenue which runs through the middle of the association's boundaries.
The main physical feature of this area is a large hill known as "Mount Hope" which is a part of the Clarendon Hills Range which are prominent in Roslindale. The hill's topmost point is on Johnswood Road. Some consideration was given to naming it after this geological feature but the area around Mount Hope Street (off the 400 block of Hyde Park Ave) was already known as the "Mt Hope" neighborhood, and an existing neighborhood association (Mount Hope-Manning) was already organized, hence the name choice when the association originally assembled in 2004-2005.
STREETS AND ROADS
Streets in this area are named, for the most part, for residents and property owners dating back to the late 1800s and through the World War I era. A few streets were renamed when Hyde Park merged with, and became part of Boston. Prior to that, Hyde Park was a city unto its own. A few more streets were renamed when changes in physical features made a name change necessary. For example, Florence Street once ran from Roslindale Square through to Bourne Street in the Woodbourne neighborhood prior to the building of the Blakemore Street railroad bridge. Florence St. now ends at the bridge, though it originally crossed at grade over the tracks and continued easterly to what is now Bourne Street. You can follow the former Florence Street by turning down Florian Street off Hyde Park Ave. A project by City government in the WWI era also saw many street names changed to avoid duplications. While some did change, others did not and so there remain some duplicates to be found throughout the city.
Blakemore Bridge and its support structure granite block wall, was built (original) in the late 1800s. The original bridge was replaced with the current structure in 1950 according to available bridge inventory listings. Blakemore Bridge is owned by the City of Boston and is one of a handful of bridges owned and maintained by City government.
You can read more about the Blakemore Street Bridge -- HERE. This essay was authored in 2007 by the webmaster for the developers building the condos at 229 Florence Street. It goes into the history of the bridge's history from construction through to it's publication date in 2007
A CHANGING NEIGHBORHOOD
Like many neighborhoods in Boston, this area also saw many changes over time to meet the ever-changing needs of the neighborhood and surrounding community.
Mt. Hope Station a small neighborhood train stop for the Providence and New York Railroad and its associated station buildings, existed on either side of Blakemore Bridge at one time.
The outbound station on the Florence Street side of the bridge eventually became the offices of the Cunningham Coal Company which had a large coal sorting building that reached several stories high with coal gondolas arriving by rail and dropping off coal for the coal-fired stoves and furnaces in the area several days a week. The coal company ended its days when the sorting building burned in a spectacular fire in 1962. It was later leveled and the land remained vacant for another 20-plus years. The former station site is now a part of the Paradigm at Blakemore (original name) condo building, at 229 Florence Street, and a segment of Dale Village that is addressed on Florence Street at Sherwood St. Developers of Paradigm at Blakemore were given a history of the rail station that once stood at this location to maintain on file. It included the story, and historical images of the station building that once stood there.
On the Hyde Park Ave side of the bridge, the inbound train station remained until WWII, but became redundant when streetcar service was instituted along Hyde Park Ave, and summarily closed. After the station burned in the WWII era, and the property cleared, the City of Boston took possession of the land and created a neighborhood playground for children. Sadly, that fell into disrepair and was eventually fenced and abandoned. In the early 2000 time frame Urban Edge Developers obtained the land and there is now housing there addressed at 449 Hyde Park Ave.
Train service to Mt. Hope Station ended in the early 80s when the railroad bed was rebuilt and electrified to accommodate Amtrak high-speed trains and increased MBTA commuter rail trains. Neighborhood meetings were held to offer a replacement stop at Cummins Highway because Blakemore was deemed too close to Forest Hills. Area residents declined the replacement station which ended commuter rail service in this neighborhood along the main line. The land was then sold and the Paradigm building was eventually built.
The Marion St and Harrison St segments of Dale Village complex were also former industrial parcels. On Marion St. Dale Village occupies land once the home of the Boston Ice Company. The Harrison St segment of Dale Village was occupied by Whittimore''s Building Supplies, which was later purchased and renamed Waldo Brothers Supply. It offered mostly masonry supplies to the building trade. It too eventually ended business, burned, land cleared, and became part of Dale Village in the early 80s when Dale Village was commissioned. The land, then zoned industrial, was changed to residential zoning thanks to then City Councilor Thomas Menino, who would later become Boston's longest serving mayor. This changed the neighborhood from being a light industrial zone to the residential zone we now enjoy.
A HIGHWAY THAT NEVER WAS
Many parcels of land on either side of the railroad tracks between Blakemore St Bridge and Canterbury St. Bridge were taken by eminent domain in the early 70s to facilitate a super highway that would have connected Rt 95 in Westwood to Rt 90 in Boston by following the railroad right-of-way. It was to have been an elevated highway not unlike what was torn down in Boston as a part of the "Big Dig." Such a highway would have been the Big Dig of its day. When the highway was stopped in the late 70s, the land already taken was placed under a development moratorium for at least 30 years. Many of the parcels have been redevelopment in recent years and a few still remain awaiting release.
The Southwest Boston Garden at Rowe St. and Cummins Highway is one such parcel that was taken for the highway. It once contained as many as 15 homes composed of 1, 2, and 3-story style buildings, and it even included a whole street - Shannahan Place - that has disappeared from the maps forever. By agreement with the City of Boston, the MBTA was asked to not sell the land into development and it continues to serve the garden club and the neighbors that work the soil there.
At least one home that sat on the land now occupied by the Garden Club was saved and moved on rollers over the top of Cummins Highway to its present location at the corner of Florence Street and Cummins Highway. It is the home just across from the Roslindale Baptist Church with the small land parcel surrounding it.
Additional homes on Rowe Street at the bottom of the hill were also taken by eminent domain for the highway as well as some homes by the Blakemore St. bridge. A segment of Rowe Street between Palfrey Street Extension and the "elbow" had several homes - about 4-5 of them - and their foundations may still be buried under the land. That area is now part of the Rowe Street Woods urban wild. Other homes near the bridge that were demolished, eventually had the land returned to development and new homes built on the same parcels.
URBAN WILDS - THEN AND NOW
The vacant land along Rowe Street that lays adjacent to the railroad has always been vacant and at one time served as play space for neighborhood children dating back several generations. In the 1960s an owner of that parcel started to fill the land with plans of eventually developing it for construction but lax laws and abandonment eventually saw the land filled with trash and construction waste including wood, concrete, and even a few junk autos. The land was eventually capped and taken by the City to hold for later usage. Today it remains an urban wild and is often referred-to as Rowe Street Woods or Roslindale Woods.
In 2004-2005 a plan was crafted by Urban Edge Developers in partnership with the Southwest Boston Community Development Corporation to build as many as 27 units of housing on that land. However, neighborhood objections to the plan as presented (which included more units) and a sudden decline in the US economy, and a loss of government funding, saw that plan ended assuring the land continues as an urban wild. Since then other issues with the quality of the land have come to be known and questions remain whether it is build-able or not. The land remains at this writing in the hands of the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA).
SCHOOLS, CHURCHES, AND MORE
The Edward Brook School on Cummins Highway and which is bordered by Brown Ave. and Allen Street (private way) was not always there. The land one was the location of the St. Francis Xavier Grammar School, the parish school of Sacred Heart Church. When the new Sacred Heart School was built on Canterbury St in the late 1950s, the old school building and an adjacent residential home used as a convent, were demolished and the current building erected. That building was then the home of the St. Clare Girls High School operated by the Sisters of St Francis for several decades afterward. When the high school closed due to under-enrollment and funding problems, the building was sold to become the current Edward Brook Charter School.
Another residential home on Allen Street was slated for demolition in order to erect the school gym section of the building. However that home was moved on rollers over the Cummins Highway "Donato" bridge and is now on Bradstreet Avenue off Mt Hope Street. Watching a full-sized house roll over that bridge was a site to remember!
The convent building and chapel used by the Sisters of St. Francis was also demolished and is now the school's play area and part of the driveway on Brown Ave.
MORE STREETS AND ROADS
Cummins Highway was once Ashland Street. It was re-named after Fr. John Cummins the first pastor of Sacred Heart Church. Fr. Cummins is buried in the Old Calvary Cemetery near the chapel building on Cummins Highway, near Wood Ave.
"Church Row," as it was once known, was the segment of Cummins Highway from the railroad bridge to Roslindale Square. It was known by this name because in a few thousand feet it encompassed a Roman Catholic Church, Methodist Church, Baptist Church, and Congregational Church. The street also included two funeral homes, all of which have long since been re-purposed into residential housing. During the 50s and into the late 60s, the MBTA (and before that the MTA) ran a special "church bus" that ran Sunday mornings and would pick up people along Cummins Highway between Roslindale Sq. and American Legion Highway to get people up the steep hill to church services. It ran hourly.
A BRIDGE BY ANY OTHER NAME
The Joseph Donato Bridge over the MBTA railroad tracks on Cummins Highway was named after the Vietnam MIA, Joseph Donato who lived and grew up on Cummins Highway. For decades he was listed as an MIA, but eventually a secret file was opened to reveal that he was part of a secret air mission over enemy territory and was shot down during that mission. For over 3 decades the file remained sealed by the military.
AND THE MISCELLANEOUS
Up through the early 1950s streetcars, known locally as "trolleys" or "trolley-cars" operated on Cummins Highway, but often had problems making the steep grade in winter months. Streetcars often slid down the hill on icy days. They were later replaced with buses in the mid-1950s. Streetcars also operated on Hyde Park Ave, and Washington Street until the early 1950s when they were replaced by "trackless trolleys (electric buses) and a few years later by regular buses.
The little store known as Budget Mart on Florence Street by the Blakemore St. bridge and the parcel on which it sits, has had a store there for several generations. An adjacent parcel now occupied by homes on Ridge Street had other small businesses as well. Over the years the store has been collectively known as Carroll's Variety, Ed's Variety, Bustoff's Variety, and now Budget Mart.
Of course, many homes and other businesses have come and gone over time.
This is but a brief history that could go on for pages.
- Webmaster