Massachusetts Avenue, known to locals as Mass Ave, is a major thoroughfare in Boston, Massachusetts and several cities and towns northwest of Boston. According to Boston magazine, "Its 16 miles of blacktop run from gritty industrial zones to verdant suburbia, passing gentrified brownstones, college campuses and bustling commercial strips."[1]
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The route
The street begins in the Boston neighborhood of Dorchester and runs southeast-northwest through Boston, paralleling Interstate 93 for a short distance and interchanging with the Massachusetts Turnpike (Interstate 90). It crosses the Charles River from the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston into the city of Cambridge via the Harvard Bridge, where it bisects the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, passes through Central Square, and curves around two sides of Harvard Yard at Harvard Square. After Harvard Square it turns sharply northward, passes Harvard Law School, then passes through Porter Square, where it bears northwestward. It continues through North Cambridge, Arlington, and Lexington, where it enters the Minuteman National Historical Park.
Extended route
The road, by the same name, continues northwest and west, through many different cities and towns. It largely parallels or joins Route 2 and Route 2A, all the way into central Massachusetts, with a few gaps at towns that have different names for the central road.
For much of its length, Massachusetts Avenue is a center of commercial activity, especially through the larger towns. Apartments, shops, and restaurants fill both sides of it, and there is a lot of pedestrian traffic.
Towns on the Massachusetts Avenue route
- Dorchester (village of Boston)
- Boston
- Cambridge
- Arlington
- Lexington
- Concord (signed as Great Road from Hanscom Field to the town bypass; route through town unclear; resumes on the Concord Turnpike west of town)
- Acton
- Boxborough
- Harvard
Notable buildings, institutions, and landmarks along the route
- Chester Square (Boston)
- Symphony Hall (Boston Symphony Orchestra)
- Horticultural Hall
- Christian Science Center
- Mapparium
- Berklee College of Music
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Central Square, Cambridge
- Harvard University
- Harvard Square
- Porter Square
- Uncle Sam Memorial Statue
- Lexington Battle Green
History
Paul Revere's ride
On the night of April 18-19, 1775, Paul Revere rode his horse down a portion of this road (then known as the Great Road) on his "Midnight Ride." On April 18-19, 1775, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott also rode on portions of this road on their way to Concord. (These travels were on the Cambridge side of the Charles River; the Harvard Bridge was not constructed until the 1880s.)
Later history
Massachusetts Avenue was actually cobbled together at the end of the nineteenth century from what were formerly separate roads. In Boston the road was previously called East Chester Park south of Chester Square and West Chester Park to the north (Chester Square is in the South End and is now called Chester Park). Across the river in Cambridge the road follows part of what was once Front Street near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and then follows the former Main Street to Harvard Square (Main Street originally ran between Kendall and Harvard Squares, and the part to the east of Central Square retains the original name). From Harvard Square through Porter Square it follows what was once North Avenue. In Arlington it follows the former Arlington Avenue, and in Lexington it follows the former Main Street south of the Battle Green.
References
- ^ Leeds, Jared, The Mass Ave. Project, Boston magazine, November 2007, p.124
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Massachusetts Avenue (Boston, Massachusetts) |
History of Mass Ave [1]
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