Why is this a part of Boston?

Some kind of land swap with Everett would be my guess.
 
All I know is that it happened around the time when Charlestown was annexed to Boston (1873). Probably some concession of some kind.
 
It might have had something to do with the adjacent Naval Hospital.
 
I don't see how, since the former naval hospital is far away from this location, in Chelsea. (Now Commandant's Way, Mary O'Malley Park, etc.)
 
I've long had a similar question -- why are the first few blocks west of Sullivan station part of Boston, rather than Somerville? I'd hate to live in such an isolated and forgotten part of a city.
 
Ron Newman said:
I've long had a similar question -- why are the first few blocks west of Sullivan station part of Boston, rather than Somerville? I'd hate to live in such an isolated and forgotten part of a city.
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Well, someone remembered, because theres a big Boston project to redo all the streets there. The location in the OP seems to be an extension of that area.
 
Interesting - I'd always thought that Sullivan lacked pedestrian access to Perkins Street because of a town line, but if I'm reading this correctly, both the street and station are in Boston?
 
Don't take this as gospel but an older verion of the Alford Street bridge used to go up to what is now Chemical Lane, the current line between Everett and Boston. Where the power plant and the other parts of the waterfront are landfill and taken by Everett. The area to the north of this was part of Malden, then Everett when Everett broke away in the late 1800's.

Maybe the city owned the bridge so it stayed in the City's poseession, maybe?

There are lots of geographic quirks in the area. Cohasset and Brookline are in Norfolk County (Why?) I know but I have to get back to work. Comm. Ave by BU was once part of Brookline. Some of the runways at Logan are in Winthrop, why probably becuase one of the islands that was scraped for the runway was part of Winthrop.
 
Norfolk county was once contiguous from Brookline to Dedham and beyond, but all the communities in between became Suffolk when they were annexed by Boston.
 
Yup, that is why there are Dorchester subdivision and land plans up until 1870 on file in Dedham and not Boston.

Cohasset stayed in Norfolk County by choice because it was deemed easier to get to Dedham for county business than Plymouth, though Hull and Hingham are closer to Dedham.
 
I'm pretty sure this was the location of a colonial era ferry crossing of the Mystic. At that time, both sides of the river were part of Charlestown. Maybe when Malden (which at the time included Everett) seceded from Charlestown, Charlestown retained the ferry landing on the north side of the river. It then became Boston land after Charlestown's annexation.
 
Shepard said:
Interesting - I'd always thought that Sullivan lacked pedestrian access to Perkins Street because of a town line, but if I'm reading this correctly, both the street and station are in Boston?
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The short section of Perkins Street east of Mt. Pleasant Street is in Boston (Charlestown).
 
But based on what I just read it sounds like Perkins Street west of the station is Boston as well... in which case, why no connection into that residential neighborhood?
 
It doesn't matter if its in Boston or not...the MBTA is a regional authority serving both Somerville and Boston.
 
Perhaps the boundries between muncipalities really didn't matter when they were drawn. Maybe the part of Charlestown that stayed Charlestown and the part the became Somerville was where it was drawn on the ward maps at the time of the split? The T or I-93 have nothing to do with it. Maybe the line was the difference between one person's estate and another person's in the 1850's. Look at the bounds between Cambridge and Somerville. These were in place before the Revolution. I don't think the General Court was thinking too hard about 911 calls or mispaced pizza deliveries when it was a farm.

I can't think of many places in Massachusetts that streets are used as town bounds. Even on Comm. Ave by BU the buildings are in Brookline but the sidewalks are Boston. RI uses roads as bounds for some towns (East / West Greenwich).

There was an very racist proposal in the 1980's to form a new city in Boston called Mandela that used some streets as boundries, but the nucleus was racial in nature, which is ironic in that Mandela actually worked for racial cooperation.
 
The T and I-93 weren't around when Somerville split from Charlestown, but the railroad was -- and would have been a logical place to put the boundary.
 
If there was logic in municipal boundries there would be no more Brookline.
 
JohnCostello said:
Yup, that is why there are Dorchester subdivision and land plans up until 1870 on file in Dedham and not Boston.

Cohasset stayed in Norfolk County by choice because it was deemed easier to get to Dedham for county business than Plymouth, though Hull and Hingham are closer to Dedham.
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I thought that Cohasset was in Norfolk County because it was mostly settled by people from the Bay Colony while Hingham and Hull were settled by people from Plymouth Colony.
 
Fred R said:
I thought that Cohasset was in Norfolk County because it was mostly settled by people from the Bay Colony while Hingham and Hull were settled by people from Plymouth Colony.
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No the Cohasset assessor once gave me something when I asked her that question. It was a deliberate decsion to go with Norfolk County based on travel to and from Dedham over Plymouth. I know I have it somewhere, if I ever find it I will post it.
 
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