Ben Ostrander takes a breather from complaining about all the changes on Beacon Street in Brookline (they're making it near impossible for him to get to Anna's Taqueria) to ask:
I would like to know which stretch of contiguous, straight road has the most names in Boston.
I'll put my money on the Route Formerly Known as 1 from the Fenway to 128: Riverway, Jamaicaway, Arborway, Centre Street, VFW Parkway and Providence Highway.
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Comments
And since The Fenway is actually one-way,
By Paul Levy
Wed, 05/09/2007 - 10:42am
you'll need to include Park Drive as well, which then means we need to include Boylston Street as well, which could take us all the way back to Essex Street!
A close second
By Michael Pahre
Wed, 05/09/2007 - 11:02am
Brighton/Brookline has a good one: in only a couple miles Arlington Street (Brighton) changes to Sparhawk, Warren, Kelton, and then to Winchester Street as it crosses into Brookline. And that doesn't count where Arlington merges into Faneuil Street.
Washington Street in downtown Boston
By Ron Newman
Wed, 05/09/2007 - 11:33am
... used to have a whole bunch of names, changing every two or three blocks. Among those names were Newbury and Marlborough.
did anyone notice that the
By bostnkid
Wed, 05/09/2007 - 11:48am
did anyone notice that the strech of western ave running in front of the harvard business school has been renamed harvard way AND it is listed as BOSTON.
No way!
By adamg
Wed, 05/09/2007 - 11:59am
Harvard Way? Those bastards! We obviously need somebody like Al Vellucci, who got Cambridge to rename Boylston Street as JFK Street when he thought (erroneously, but no matter) that the WGU was going to rename the Kennedy School of Government.
As for it being listed as Boston, well, er, um, that's because it IS in Boston, and has been since well before any of us were born.
i know its boston.i grew up
By bostnkid
Wed, 05/09/2007 - 12:13pm
i know its boston.i grew up in brighton.if someone from outside of boston asks me where im from i say boston.if someone within 30 miles asks i say brighton.
Ah!
By adamg
Wed, 05/09/2007 - 12:27pm
You can't expect some giant multiversity from across the river to concern itself with things like the names of Boston neighborhoods, can you? :-).
And when people from way west of Worcester ask me where I'm from and I say "Boston," and they ask what town and I say I actually live in the city, they always seems surprised - I guess it's hard for most people to imagine living in the city.
Even WGBH ...
By Ron Newman
Wed, 05/09/2007 - 12:29pm
gives its address as "Boston, Mass.", not Allston or Brighton. (Send it to Zoom!)
02134 send it to ZOOM!
By bostnkid
Wed, 05/09/2007 - 12:37pm
02134 send it to ZOOM! growing up in brighton (02135) i was always a bit envious of those striped shirted little buggers.speaking of wgbh has anyone seen and care to comment on that building that is nealy complete? do i miss BFI? im not sure yet.that building looks crazy.its going to be cool when they have their first big conference in their multi million dollar boardroom and staring at them from across the street is the oldest friggin dunkin donuts sign in the US.a change is coming.allston and brighton will be nothing but student ghettos, storage rental places and band rehearsal space.
I love that building
By adamg
Wed, 05/09/2007 - 1:11pm
It's everything that godawful Harvard dorm isn't - they've managed to build some gigantic, modern building that doesn't feel like it'll step on you and squash you should you be so stupid to try to walk under it.
And so convenient to the Stockyard!
Me Too
By Auntie Scotch
Wed, 05/09/2007 - 1:44pm
I grew up in Brighton and recently moved back. I think the WBGH building is beautiful. I too have the same criteria of how I explain where I live (30 miles out I say Boston, 30 in Brighton - give or take). The irritating thing is people have actually argued with me in the past about Brighton being part of Boston, outsiders of course.
"Harvard Way, Boston"
By Anonymous
Mon, 08/13/2007 - 2:42pm
Surprise-surprise, Harvard has purchased property in Allston and is going to be putting up more buildings there. There's a storefront on the ground floor of Holyoke Center with an interactive map that shows what their plan is for Allston. It's open to the public, but only on certain days, for limited blocks of time.
Not the same street.
By Gareth
Wed, 05/09/2007 - 1:47pm
That's not the same street. The J-Way and Centre Street (past the Faulkner) are not the same street at all. The J-Way becomes the Arborway all right, but the Arborway (203) continues over the bridge and down to Dorchester, where it becomes Morton.
Both streets entering the Centre/Arborway rotary continue through. Centre Street comes from JP, where it spun off South Street. Centre Street is also clearly not the same street as the VFW, which is a right turn off it, whereas Centre continues down through the Holy Name rotary to West Rox. (of course, after that, it turns into Grove, then Bussey, then Milton Street).
So really, you get only four on a single street: Riverway, JamaicaWay, Arborway, Morton. And four names is not uncommon for a Boston street - think Pond Street (+Newton, Grove, Independence) or Tremont (+Francis, Malcom X, Roxbury). Two names is almost de rigeur. I'm not sure which street has the most names _in Boston_ (that's right, the Providence Hwy _isn't in Boston_), but the RJAWay isn't it.
Tremont Street doesn't change into Malcolm X Boulevard
By eeka
Wed, 05/09/2007 - 2:10pm
It takes a 90-degree turn and Malcolm X runs into it. It's Tremont Street from Roxbury Crossing to Brigham Circle, where it becomes Francis Street.
VFW Parkway has both names (Boston-Providence Highway) up into West Roxbury.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
I love Boston streets and rotaries. Man, I love rotaries
By adamg
Wed, 05/09/2007 - 2:23pm
I defined it that way for a couple reasons: One, is it used to be Rte. 1. The other is that that route is a single parkway:
Click on this Google Map. It'll put you just north of Jamaica Pond. Follow it south and you'll see that the JWay and the Arborway come together at that rotary (I think that house with the lights, you know, the Castle from Hell, is technically on the Arborway, even though everybody calls it "that castle on the Jamaicaway"), then, if you want to keep heading toward Dedham, you stay on the same road only now you're on Centre Street! Stay on it and you get to that fork past the former Hebrew Center for Rehabilitation of Aged (aged what? Cheeses?). If you want to stay on the parkway, you take the right fork and you're still on the parkway, only now it's the VFW Parkway. If you turn leftish onto Centre, you're now clearly on a city street, although, if you do say, OK, fine, turn onto Centre, then you could argue the street changes names again just past St. T's, where going straight through the light puts you onto Spring Street, while Centre veers off to the left (and then Spring turns into Bridge Street as you cross into Dedham).
You're right about the Providence Highway name change happening at the Dedham line; I threw that in because the original poster is from Brookline, so I figured by "Boston" he meant "Boston area." :-).
One of the truly unfortunate things about the state shifting Rte. 1 to the east is that it meant the end of the great signs just before the Jamaicaway/Arborway rotary - the ones that used to point people headed toward Dorchester to the main part of the road to the left and people headed to Dedham to the carriage-road part to the right, even though they'd both wind up at the same exact rotary.
Boston Roads
By bostran1
Wed, 05/09/2007 - 5:05pm
Thank you all for the responses. It has been quite interesting to see the many streets with many names. I live near Cleveland Circle in Brighton (not Brookline, so still in Boston and close to Anna's on Beacon!) but make my way over to JP and W Rox every once in awhile and the Jamaica Way/Arborway/VFW Parkway section still confuses the heck out of me.
I did a little research online and looks like Washington St. might actually be the longest street in the city. I lost the links but it is interesting that Washington St. used to be Boston's only route to the mainland.
- Ben Ostrander
Washington Street
By Ron Newman
Wed, 05/09/2007 - 5:42pm
runs from downtown Boston all the way to the Rhode Island line. It becomes Broadway when it enters Pawtucket.
Because of street realignment or later highway construction, you occasionally have to turn right or left to "stay on" Washington Street.
Kinda runs
By Gareth
Thu, 05/10/2007 - 9:31am
Washington Street used to be the only road out of Boston, back when Boston was a fat little peninsula, almost an island. But of course then it was called Orange Street and not Washington.
But Washington has an identity crisis by Forest Hills, when it swaps places with South, and the straight-line continuation is Hyde Park. It has another one in Dedham, where Washington is 1A and not 1 (Providence Highway), and then a third in Foxboro, where parallel sections of 1A and 1 are both Washington, and Washington either dead-ends into Smiths Pond or doesn't, as you prefer. It's not really a continuous road anymore, just an idea of continuous.
Jway-Arborway
By Gareth
Thu, 05/10/2007 - 9:09am
The Arborway begins just after the Pond, not at the Centre/Arborway rotary, but the previous, lopsided one. The weird little stretch with three parallel roads is the Arborway (all three).
So if the Arborway continues through the Centre/Arborway rotary, and Centre continues through the other way, how is Arborway turning right to Centre the same road at all? Especially when you consider it's 203 all the way? I still don't buy it. Also, Centre St. from the rotary to the VFW is definitely not a parkway.
That's as convoluted as trying to follow the length of South Street in Roslindale (from near Forest Hills to near Holy Name). Just because it used to be doesn't mean it still is anymore.
Washington Street
By fibrowitch
Wed, 05/09/2007 - 8:04pm
Just to confuse every one further, every street that crosses Washington street has to get a name change.
Maybe downtown
By adamg
Wed, 05/09/2007 - 8:31pm
But by the time Washington Street gets down to Roslindale, it's tired and haggard and stuff and just can't put up with such nonsense.
Not even all the way to
By A.N. Mouse
Thu, 05/10/2007 - 9:35am
Not even all the way to Roslindale; once you're past Tufts, Oak St, Marginal St, Herald St, E. Berkeley St, all cross Washington without changing names. I could keep going, but you get the idea.
Wouldn't it be cool if there were some sort of program, like, I don't know, some map or other, that would show whole cities online that could be checked before making blanket statments that might not be quite accurate...oh, wait.
Oak St WEST
By eeka
Thu, 05/10/2007 - 10:16am
Oak St changes to Oak Street WEST.
But yes, there are a bunch of streets after NEMC that don't change. A lot of South End streets get the direction slapped on them after Washington Street.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
Oops
By A.N. Mouse
Thu, 05/10/2007 - 10:30am
Of course by "Tufts" I meant "NEMC". Mouses need more coffee.
Tufts is there too
By Ron Newman
Thu, 05/10/2007 - 10:41am
the whole Medical School, Dental School, and maybe a couple of other departments.
Sorta
By eeka
Thu, 05/10/2007 - 10:45am
Tufts med/dental school isn't "Tufts."
Just like Harvard isn't in Mission Hill.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
May have once been true, though
By Ron Newman
Thu, 05/10/2007 - 10:37am
The area from Stuart/Kneeland Street through the Boston Herald changed quite a bit due to 'urban renewal' starting in the 1950s. Lots of houses were demolished, streets were realigned and renamed, the Mass. Pike came through.
East Berkeley Street was once Dover Street (probably East and West Dover, like all the other parallel streets). Mass. Ave. long ago was East and West Chester.
Dover
By John Mc
Tue, 05/22/2007 - 9:59pm
Actually, Dover was one of the few that did NOT change name as it crossed Washington st.