Commonwealth Avenue (Boston)
{{Short description|Street in Greater Boston, Massachusetts}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2025}}
{{Attached KML|display=title}}{{Use American English|date=July 2022}}
{{Infobox street
| name = Commonwealth Avenue
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| image = Boston Commonwealth Avenue.jpg
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| image_alt = Commonwealth Avenue in 2006
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| caption = Commonwealth Avenue in 2006
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| length_mi = 11.0
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| direction_a = West
| terminus_a = {{jct|state=MA|MA|30}} in Auburndale
| direction_b =
| terminus_b = Arlington Street in Back Bay
| junction = {{jct|state=MA|MA|16}} in West Newton
{{jct|state=MA|US|20}} in Allston
| north = Marlborough Street (Back Bay)
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| south = Newbury Street (Back Bay)
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Image:1870 BackBay July4 map byFFuchs JohnWeik detail.png
Commonwealth Avenue (colloquially referred to as Comm Ave) is a major street in the cities of Boston and Newton, Massachusetts. It begins at the western edge of the Boston Public Garden, and continues west through the neighborhoods of the Back Bay, Kenmore Square, Boston University, Allston, Brighton and Chestnut Hill. It continues as part of Route 30 through Newton until it crosses the Charles River at the border of the town of Weston.
Description
Often compared to Georges-Eugène Haussmann's Paris boulevards, Commonwealth Avenue in Back Bay is a parkway divided at center by a wide grassy mall. This greenway, called Commonwealth Avenue Mall, is punctuated with statuary and memorials, and forms the narrowest "link" in the Emerald Necklace. It connects the Public Garden to the Fens.
Where Commonwealth Avenue reaches Kenmore Square, the MBTA Green Line B branch rises above ground and dominates the center of the roadway through the campus of Boston University and the neighborhoods of Allston and Brighton. After leaving Boston and entering Chestnut Hill in Newton, the avenue passes by Boston College and the terminus of the MBTA Green Line B Branch. The trolley in the median is replaced by grass as the scenery becomes noticeably more suburban and residential, and the Commonwealth Avenue Historic District begins. As the road continues out of Chestnut Hill and into Newton Centre, Comm Ave is still made up of two roadways separated by a grassy median lined with trees. The south side of the roadway contains the main, two-lane east-west roadway, with a one-way, westbound "carriage road" providing local access on the north side of the median. The section of Comm Ave from Chestnut Hill Ave in Brighton to Route 16 in Newton is along the Boston Marathon route, and is known to be especially hilly, containing the three “Newton hills”. The carriage road continues into West Newton, and the road passes over the Massachusetts Turnpike in the Auburndale section of Newton. The avenue ends as it leaves Newton, crosses the Charles River and interchanges with Route 128.
The linear {{convert|1.5|mi|km}} stretch of Commonwealth Avenue between Kenmore Square and Packard's Corner (where Brighton Avenue maintains a straight continuum and Commonwealth Avenue splits off) contains much of Boston University's campus. BU owns much of the property along and around this part of Commonwealth Avenue.{{Citation needed|date=October 2023}} This 1.5-mile stretch is the most central route to commuting around Boston University's main campus, also known as the Charles River Campus, and is frequented by pedestrians, bicycles, and other means of transportation. Walking from one end (Kenmore Square) to the other end (Packard's Corner) or vice versa takes about 25–35 minutes.{{Citation needed|date=October 2023}}
History
The Commonwealth Avenue Mall was designed by Arthur Delevan Gilman.{{Cite web|url=http://www.nabbonline.com/commonwealth_mall.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070311090440/http://www.nabbonline.com/commonwealth_mall.htm |url-status=dead |title=Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay - Commonwealth Mall|archive-date=March 11, 2007}} Frederick Law Olmsted designed the Newton portion of Commonwealth Avenue and included the parkway as part of the Emerald Necklace park system. The first statue on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall was erected in 1865 at Arlington Street.{{Cite web|url=http://www.nabbonline.com/statues.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060716171640/http://www.nabbonline.com/statues.htm |url-status=dead |title=NABB - Comm Ave. Mall Statues: What's In A Name?|archive-date=July 16, 2006}}
The Newton end of the roadway was constructed in 1895 with a line of the Middlesex and Boston Street Railway in the median. In 1923, the stretch of Commonwealth Avenue between Warren Street and Sutherland Road became the first street paved with concrete in Boston.{{cite news |title=First Concrete Street Contract Completed in Boston |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6S7OAAAAMAAJ |access-date=17 November 2021 |work=Contractors and Engineers |date=July 1923 |page=68}} Streetcar service was cut back to its present terminus at the Boston border in 1930 and buses last ran on Commonwealth Avenue in 1976. An amusement park and ballroom known as Norumbega Park was built at the end of the line on the Charles River in 1897 to increase streetcar patronage.{{Cite web |url=http://users.rcn.com/ralphjohn/aca/norumbega/norumbega.html |title=Auburndale Community Association page on Norumbega Park |access-date=2007-06-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070629093857/http://users.rcn.com/ralphjohn/aca/norumbega/norumbega.html |archive-date=2007-06-29 |url-status=dead }} The eastern half of the Newton section of the road is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Commonwealth Avenue Historic District. The mall that includes the landscape features, monuments, street furniture and fences that are bounded by Kenmore Street, Arlington Street and Commonwealth Avenue was designated as a Boston Landmark by the Boston Landmarks Commission in 1978.
The addition of protected bike lanes between the BU Bridge and Packards Corner in 2020 resulted in a tripling of bikeshare usage along that segment.{{cite journal |doi=10.1016/j.cstp.2021.06.015 |title=Estimating the Effect of Protected Bike Lanes on Bike-Share Ridership in Boston: a Case Study on Commonwealth Avenue |first=Elizabeth |last=Karpinski |journal=Case Studies on Transport Policy |date=July 3, 2021 |volume=9 |issue=3 |pages=1313–1323 |issn=2213-624X}}
Statuary
Starting at the Public Garden and going westward, the following statues can be seen on the mall:
- Alexander Hamilton, co-author of The Federalist Papers, sculpted by William Rimmer. The first statue placed on the mall. 1865.
- Statue of John Glover, (depicts John Glover, Revolutionary War soldier), sculpted by Martin Milmore. 1875.
- Bust of Patrick Collins, depicts Patrick Andrew Collins, the former mayor of Boston; sculpted by Henry Hudson Kitson and Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson. Moved in 1966 from its original siting at Charlesgate due to construction of the Bowker Overpass.
- The Vendome Memorial, which honors nine firefighters killed in the 1972 Hotel Vendome fire, sculpted by Theodore Clausen with landscape architect Peter White. 1997.{{Cite news|url=http://archive.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2012/06/17/a_fathers_sacrifice_a_sons_calling/|title=A father's sacrifice, a son's calling|first=Wesley|last=Lowery|newspaper=Boston.com |date=June 17, 2012|via=The Boston Globe}}
- William Lloyd Garrison, abolitionist and journalist, sculpted by Owen Levi Warner.
- Samuel Eliot Morison, naval historian and writer, sculpted by Penelope Jencks. 1982.
- The Boston Women's Memorial, with statues of Abigail Adams, Lucy Stone, and Phillis Wheatley, sculpted by Meredith Bergmann. 2003.
- Domingo Sarmiento, former president of Argentina, sculpted by Yvette Compagnion. 1973. A gift of the Argentine government in 1913, the statue arrived in Boston sixty years later.
- Leif Ericson, first European discoverer of Newfoundland, sculpted by Anne Whitney. 1887. Commissioned by Eben Norton Horsford, the inventor of baking powder, this statue was originally sited at the Massachusetts Avenue end of this block, but was moved to Charlesgate in 1917. Whitney also created a monument to Leif situated on the shores of Lake Michigan in Milwaukee.{{cite web|url=http://www.shorpy.com/node/23704|type=Dry Plate Glass Negative|location=The shores of Lake Michigan|date=c. 1899|title=Leif Erikson statue, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.|access-date=19 August 2018|work=Shorpy.com}}{{Cite Americana|wstitle= Whitney, Anne |volume= XXIX |short= }}
Image:Hamilton statue, Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, from Robert N. Dennis collection of stereoscopic views.jpg|Hamilton Statue, 19th century
Image:Morison-statue.jpg|Statue of Samuel Eliot Morison on the mall, 2006
Image:Commonwealth Ave October 2006.jpg|The Commonwealth Avenue Mall looking west towards the Alexander Hamilton statue, 2006
Gallery
File:CommonwealthAve KingsBoston1881.png|c. 1881
File:CommonwealthAve Boston Bacon 1886.png|c. 1886
File:2350760077 Vendome Boston.jpg|Vendome, 19th century
File:1901 CommonwealthAve ClarendonSt Boston.png|1901
File:Comm Ave at South Street in Brighton at night.jpg|Overview of Commonwealth Ave., Brighton, 2007
File:Boston at sunset.jpg|Overview, near Kenmore Square, 2007
File:Commonwealth Avenue at Mass Pike tilt-shift, November 2009.jpg|Comm. Ave, near Boston University, 2009
File:2010 CommonwealthAve Boston 4588722811.jpg|Near Massachusetts Avenue, 2010
File:USA-Boston-Commonwealth Avenue Mall5.jpg|Commonwealth Avenue Mall with statue of William Lloyd Garrison, 2013
File:1991-BOS-Commonwealth Avenue3.jpg|Magnolias, Commonwealth Avenue, 2013
File:1982-BOS-2.JPG|Brownstones
References
{{reflist}}
Further reading
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20060716171640/http://www.nabbonline.com/statues.htm Comm. Ave Mall Statues: What's In A Name?]
- Commonwealth Avenue Mall Committee, Commonwealth Avenue Mall: A Walking Tour, pamphlet.
External links
- [http://www.bu.edu/cap/ Boston University's Commonwealth Avenue Improvement Project]
- [http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/highway/HighlightedProjects/CommonwealthAvenueBridgeReconstruction.aspx Commomwealth Avenue Bridge Reconstruction] (over Massachusetts Turnpike)
{{Emerald Necklace|state=uncollapsed}}
{{Parks in Boston}}
{{Streets and squares in Boston}}
Category:Crossings of the Charles River
Category:Landmarks in Back Bay, Boston
Category:National Register of Historic Places in Boston
Category:Roads on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts