The Arborway
Encyclopedia
Parkway
The term parkway has several distinct principal meanings and numerous synonyms around the world, for either a type of landscaped area or a type of road.Type of landscaped area:...
and a two lane residential street in the Jamaica Plain
Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts
Jamaica Plain is a historic neighborhood of in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded by Boston Puritans seeking farm land to the south, it was originally part of the city of Roxbury...
neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, social critic, public administrator, and landscape designer. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture, although many scholars have bestowed that title upon Andrew Jackson Downing...
in the 1890s as the south most carriage road in a series of parkways connecting parks from Boston Common in downtown Boston to Franklin Park
Franklin Park, Boston
Franklin Park, a partially wooded parkland in the Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, and Dorchester neighborhoods of Boston, Massachusetts, is maintained by the City of Boston Parks and Recreation Department...
in Roxbury
Roxbury, Massachusetts
Roxbury is a dissolved municipality and current neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was one of the first towns founded in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, and became a city in 1846 until annexed to Boston on January 5, 1868...
. This park system has since become known as the Emerald Necklace
Emerald Necklace
The Emerald Necklace consists of an chain of parks linked by parkways and waterways in Boston and Brookline, Massachusetts. It gets its name from the way the planned chain appears to hang from the "neck" of the Boston peninsula, although it was never fully constructed.-Overview:The Necklace...
of Boston.
The Arborway begins at a large rotary
Roundabout
A roundabout is the name for a road junction in which traffic moves in one direction around a central island. The word dates from the early 20th century. Roundabouts are common in many countries around the world...
that connects it with the Jamaicaway, and curves past the main entrance of Arnold Arboretum (125 Arborway), where on-street parking is allowed. The roadway once continued through Forest Hills
Forest Hills, Boston
Forest Hills is a part of the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States.-Overview:As the name indicates, Forest Hills is characterized by hilly terrain and wooded areas within and adjacent to its borders...
to the edge of Franklin Park, but now ends at the South Street border of the Arboretum. From there, traffic may either exit into Forest Hills next to Forest Hills Station
Forest Hills (MBTA station)
Forest Hills Station is a station on the MBTA Orange Line, located in Forest Hills in the southern part of the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts at the intersections of Washington Street, Hyde Park Avenue, South Street, The Arborway and Morton Street.Forest Hills is the southern...
or may continue onto the overpass towards Roxbury
Roxbury, Massachusetts
Roxbury is a dissolved municipality and current neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was one of the first towns founded in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, and became a city in 1846 until annexed to Boston on January 5, 1868...
and Mattapan, Massachusetts
Mattapan, Massachusetts
Mattapan is a neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts. Historically a section of neighboring Dorchester, Mattapan became a part of Boston when Dorchester was annexed in 1870. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 36,480...
.
Casey Overpass
Named Monsignor William J. Casey Overpass in honor of a DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
-era priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...
of St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Jamaica Plain, the Overpass was constructed in the mid-1950s to allow the increasing automobile traffic of the day to bypass the north-south traffic on Washington Street, South Street, and Hyde Park Avenue. In recent years, community groups have been investigating the possibility of fixing this "missing link" in the Emerald Necklace.