CultureNOW - Massachusetts Turnpike (Newtonville): Peter Vanderwarker

Massachusetts Turnpike (Newtonville)

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Description

ABOUT THE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS
Little seems to be known about this charming railroad station, which was called the North Side Station and located in Newtonville. It was built for the Boston & Albany commuter line in the 1880s and torn down for the Massachusetts Turnpike in the 1960s. The older photo includes both automobiles and horse-drawn buggies, and therefore must date from about 1920. The new photo shows the same scene today, looking westward, with two of the original track beds still in use as part of the Penn Central system.

Boston & Albany expanded its commuter service rapidly during the 1880s. Many of the new stations, although not this one, were designed by Henry Hobson Richardson, the great Boston architect who transformed American design with his beefy Romanesque style. Richardson's stations at Brighton, Chestnut Hill, Eliot, Waban, and Aubunidale were all demolished in the 1960s for the pike or for parking lots. Those at Wellesley Hills, South Framingham, and Woodland survive. All have been altered, the Woodland station now being a tool shed for a country club.

Richardson's influence is apparent here at North Side, too, but the choppy roofs are much too cluttered for the master. Nevertheless, the station is handsome, and its bulk contrasts pleasantly with the wire-taut bowstring truss of the pedestrian bridge that crosses the tracks. More important, the presence of the station creates a tiny downtown, a small but definite place, now
obliterated, within the larger metropolis.

These two photos remind us of the most important change in our methods of travel during the last century. This change is not greater speed but is rather the transformation of travel from a social experience, in which people gathered in stations and on passenger cars, to a private experience, in which we move while sealed in isolated cars, having for our companions only the hosts of radio talk and-music shows.

-Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker, "CITYSCAPES - Blue Highway",Boston Globe, 24 November 1985

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Location

Washington St & Walnut St
Newton, MA 02460
United States

Nearby Items

Newton North High School		0.7 miles
Holocaust Memorial		1.4 miles
Eeyore and Winnie the Pooh and Hunny Pot		1.8 miles
Durant Kenrick House		2.3 miles
Gore Place		2.4 miles
Grousbeck Center for Students and Technology, Perkins School for the Blind		3 miles
Waltham Watch Factory		3.4 miles