Boston Easter Eggs

[stick n move]

Awesome thanks, Ive never seen that before.

 

[stick n move]

Heres a good one.

Neptune rd, the infamous road in East Boston that had all of its houses demolished along with Lovell st and Neptune ct to make room for the logan airport expansion in the 70’s, still exists. Neptune rd is bound by jersey barriers but its there. Neptune ct is also partially there too. Lovell st is the longer winding road that Neptune starts from. Neptune rd is the road from this iconic photograph.

Neptune rd before demolition. Note the median and slight rightward curve.

Neptune road today, sidewalks still in tact, center median still there. Theres even a couple trees.

Wood island station on the left for reference. Its kind of sad because the space on the left of the street is just being wasted with an empty paved lot where houses used to be.

Here it is on apple maps

Still labelled if you zoom in.

More iconic images of Neptune rd.

It would have been so cool to still be able to experience this today. It brings up similarities to the closed kai tak hong airport in hong kong. Its extremely rare to have images like this today and I dont think cities are necessarily better because of it.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/east-boston-neptune-road-1970s-2011-9?amp

 

[Brattle Loop]

Heres a good one.

Neptune rd, the infamous road in East Boston that had all of its houses demolished along with Lovell st and Neptune ct to make room for the logan airport expansion in the 70’s, still exists. Neptune rd is bound by jersey barriers but its there. Neptune ct is also partially there too. Lovell st is the longer winding road that Neptune starts from. Neptune rd is the road from this iconic photograph.

Neptune rd before demolition. Note the median and slight rightward curve.

Neptune road today, sidewalks still in tact, center median still there. Theres even a couple trees.
View attachment 19622

Wood island station on the left for reference. Its kind of sad because the space on the left of the street is just being wasted with an empty paved lot where houses used to be.
View attachment 19623

Here it is on apple maps
View attachment 19624

Still labelled if you zoom in.
View attachment 19625

More iconic images of Neptune rd.

It would have been so cool to still be able to experience this today. It brings up similarities to the closed kai tak hong airport in hong kong. Its extremely rare to have images like this today and I dont think cities are necessarily better because of it.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/east-boston-neptune-road-1970s-2011-9?amp

Fascinating historical remnant that I didn't realize was there, thank you for pointing it out. The similarity to the late, lamented Kai Tak is noticeable.

I find it wryly amusing that while the planes landing at Boston are long gone (two 727s and a DC-10, though I'm betting you wouldn't see "DC-10" written anywhere on that plane), all three are of airlines that you'd still find at Logan today (two Americans and a Delta), and one of those two used the same livery until pretty recently (I'll refrain from comment on American's new livery.)

 

[Arenacale]

I didn't realize Boston had an honest-to-goodness urban ruin like that, that's pretty cool (and sad in the West End Urban Renewal sense).

That being said, in a post-9/11 world those photos are really unsettling to me. Do not like.

 

[Plen-T-Pak]

It would have been so cool to still be able to experience this today. It brings up similarities to the closed kai tak hong airport in hong kong. Its extremely rare to have images like this today and I dont think cities are necessarily better because of it.

By "experience" do you mean it would have been cool to live on Neptune Rd with planes buzzing by just overhead? I get how the chaotic mash up of older cities is interesting, not sure I'd call it better.

 

[Charlie_mta]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/east-boston-neptune-road-1970s-2011-9?amp

Yikes, those photos in Hong Kong look like 9/11.

 

[bigpicture7]

Can an easter egg be an audio easter egg?

If so, I love this one. I'm sure some of you have stumbled upon it. Most of the accessible pedestrian crossings in Cambridge have the typical generic-sounding audio instructions when the walk signal is on. However, there is one crossing (at this intersection) where the audio instructions are in this over-the-top Boston accent, but only for the crossing in one direction; the other direction has the typical sanitized computer-sounding voice.

And of course someone recorded this and posted it online. I just love watching out-of-towners when they hear this for the first time.

via reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/echade/walk_sign_is_on_to_cross_vassar_street/

The best part about this is it is located at the apex of institute row in Cambridge, so you know this was some wiseguy at the DPW's way of thumbing his nose at the scientists

 

[A Chicagoan]

Neptune rd, the infamous road in East Boston that had all of its houses demolished along with Lovell st and Neptune ct to make room for the logan airport expansion in the 70’s, still exists. Neptune rd is bound by jersey barriers but its there. Neptune ct is also partially there too. Lovell st is the longer winding road that Neptune starts from. Neptune rd is the road from this iconic photograph.

Google Street View now has imagery of Neptune Rd and Ct from October 2021.

 

[stick n move]

Does anybody know the story behind this cut and partial street to nowhere in Brighton?


Here it appears to be a vestige of an old street.



You can see it is cut into the side of the hill.


But here you can see the cut abruptly stops and the ground goes back up to the full height of the upper road and then has the slanted portion after it.


Then this abruptly ends and the area all around it is flat





It appears like maybe there used to be an old bridge to watertown that was here. The cut ends abruptly though so it appears that it was never finished. Maybe they started constructing the road and plans changed so they just left it as is. Either that or maybe it was an old road that went down to river level but doesnt make it anymore because the earth surrounding it was removed. Does anybody know the reason for this road to nowhere?

 

[bbfen]

Old rail spur abandoned at the time of the turnpike extension? F-line would know.

 

[The EGE]

Fascinating find! Prompted me to do some research. Looks like that was formerly Wexford Street, which turned south as Hillside Street and dead-ended at the tracks. This 1925 atlas shows it well: https://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/7713/Plate+014/Boston+1925+Brighton/Massachusetts/

There were a few houses on the street - rather surprisingly, considering that the Brighton Abattoir occupied the space between the road and the Charles. None were left by the late 1930s. Birmingham Parkway was built in 1936, as the MDC was unable to acquire the abattoir property to build Soldiers Field Road. The east end of Wexford was removed to make room for the parkway, while Hillside Street was extended west almost to Parsons as a frontage road. (Soldiers Field Road between North Beacon and Market wasn't built until the 1960s.)

Wexford was discontinued east of Hillside Avenue in 1956, probably because it served no purpose - there was nothing on the street, and it connected to the parkway at both ends. Hillside and part of the 1936 extension were abandoned at some point, but the western portion still serves as a frontage road: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.358...4!1sgiJ_vB6dWazlsTMEF1-5eg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

 

[stick n move]

Wow amazing work. That first image appears to answer another question I had as well which is why was all of the land below the road cut out and brought down to river level and was any of that used as fill to fill in the back bay? Idk about where it went but that first image shows that there was a rail line there with a bunch of spurs that went to industry, so it was cut to meet the grade of the rail line and then leveled out around the line to build the industrial buildings. Thank you!

 

[Charlie_mta]

Fascinating find! Prompted me to do some research. Looks like that was formerly Wexford Street, which turned south as Hillside Street and dead-ended at the tracks. This 1925 atlas shows it well: https://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/7713/Plate+014/Boston+1925+Brighton/Massachusetts/

There were a few houses on the street - rather surprisingly, considering that the Brighton Abattoir occupied the space between the road and the Charles. None were left by the late 1930s. Birmingham Parkway was built in 1936, as the MDC was unable to acquire the abattoir property to build Soldiers Field Road. The east end of Wexford was removed to make room for the parkway, while Hillside Street was extended west almost to Parsons as a frontage road. (Soldiers Field Road between North Beacon and Market wasn't built until the 1960s.)

Wexford was discontinued east of Hillside Avenue in 1956, probably because it served no purpose - there was nothing on the street, and it connected to the parkway at both ends. Hillside and part of the 1936 extension were abandoned at some point, but the western portion still serves as a frontage road: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.358...4!1sgiJ_vB6dWazlsTMEF1-5eg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

Thanks for the great info. Soldiers Field Road between North Beacon and Market was built no later than 1960. When I was a kid we would occasionally go to the MDC swimming pool at the west of SFR, and that stretch of SFR was there in 1960. I looked at a 1955 aerial photo on Historic Aerials, and SFR wasn't there yet.

 

[fatnoah]

Here's more, thanks to "the Google".

The area was originally owned by the Winship family and appeared to be known as Winship Gardens and/or Winship Nursery. The land was sold in the 1840's and subdivided in the 1850's. As one can see from the map and plan here, Wexford Street was originally called Winship Avenue: http://www.bahistory.org/MarketStWinshipNursery1865MapFull_Lo.jpg

From Bull In the Garden (pp. 39-40), there's a description of the area Gardens/Nursery:

There were three avenues through Winship Gardens from North Beacon Street to the depot [The Boston & Worcester built a depot in the Gardens in 1834]- one directly behind the old residence shaded by trees, the second along Market Street between borders of plants, and the third by a field of rose bushes. The latter led to a bridge over the railroad which with another at the westerly part of the nursery connected the grounds.

On the grounds were several arbors where visitors and passengers by the railroad could rest. One of them was an expensive affair. It was called the Moss House and was adorned with many articles from China, including birds, animals, and reptiles. It was burned by sparks from an engine. Between Market Street and the first bridge alluded to, the grounds were terraced and very carefully adorned with flowering plants and shrubs.

..snip...

The Conservatory in Winship's Gardens was a feature. It was about one hundred feet long and fifty feet wide. Its main passageway was tiled with marble and bordered with blue Chinaware about two feet high.The front lower walk wassimilarly treated. The rear of the building was used for potting plants and arranging flowers, with a room for preparing seeds and storing buds.

 

[chrisbrat]

West End on-ramp with windows and doorways incorporated into the support column, acknowledging the entire neighborhood razed and thousands displaced for no good reason (or for a poorly thought-out reason that very quickly became recognized for the disaster it was). * Credit to whatever site or facebook page i saw it on

 

[stick n move]

Very interesting, I had never heard of that before.

 

[Aprehensive_Words]

It gets better (or worse). On the wall of that overpass abuttment facing towards Lomasney Way, is inscribed that famous boast about the West End: "The Greatest Neighborhood This Side of Heaven."

I say worse because, in context, surrounded by busted-up sidewalks, roaring traffic on the street and overhead, and the overgrown, empty lots around The Last Tenement, it looks certifiably crazy unless you walk under the overpass and read the fine print about the West End's history.