BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Boston Public Library http://www.archive.org/details/1990bostonurbanw00bost 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report •BGSIttl PUBLIC LIBRARY Boston Natural Areas Fund 4 -y r ature in the city must be cultivated and integrated into the varied pursuits and purposes of human beings; but first it must be recognized and its power to shape human enterprises appreciated. Anne Whiston Spirn "The Granite Garden" . -<;- Cover Photograph: Leatherbee Memorial Woods, West Roxb Protected Urban Wild, owned by BNAF. Photography by George Vasquez Published in May 1991 by the Boston Natural Areas Fund, Inc. © 1991 Boston Natural Areas Fund, Inc. i Boston Natural Areas Fund 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report ROBERT L. STEARNS, CHAIRMAN EUGENIE BEAL, PRESIDENT VALERIE BURNS, DIRECTOR SHEA ENNEN, ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT RICHARD HEATH, SURVEY AND RESEARCH RONALD GALLAGHER, WRITER This report was made possible by funding trom the Jessie B. Cox Charitable Trust and the City of Boston Environment Department and support from individual, corporate and foundation donors. The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report 4 CONTENTS Introduction 1 The 1990 Urban Wilds Report 3 Boston Natural Areas Fund 3 Findings 4 Recommendations 5 Most Important Wilds of Citywide Significance 6 Most Important Wilds of Neighborhood Significance 7 Methodology 7 The Challenge 9 The Urban Wilds Idea 10 Making a Network 1 1 Teaching Tools 1 1 Wilds as Respite 1 1 A Distinctive Look 12 Stewardship A New England Tradition 12 Ownership 13 City of Boston 13 Commonwealth of Massachusetts 14 Federal Government 14 Private sector 14 Current Status 15 Lost 15 Protected 16 Unprotected 17 Current Issues in the Urban Wilds 19 Protection 19 Management and Maintenance 19 Access 20 Current Planning 21 Protection Strategies 22 Public lands 22 Private lands 23 Boston Urban Wild 1990 Status 26 Neighborhood Profiles of Unprotected Wilds 35 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report FOREWORD Fourteen years ago, a small group of what were then thought of as environmental zealots had a vision. We thought the rural remnants named and identified as Urban Wilds should be saved. We naively thought the task could be completed in a few years. The big change that has occurred since 1977 is that the mainstream has shifted toward our position. Making Boston neighborhoods, new and old, more enjoyable to live in now is seen as a reasonable goal, partly achieved. Boston Natural Areas Fund takes pride in having played a central role in this shift in belief as well as having carried out some of the particular actions documented in this report. o~« o W H 3D m m H STREET MAIN STREET NOT TO SCALE 40 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report CHARLESTOWN 02-01 Mystic Overlook Lost 02-02 Schrafft's Cove: Lost 02-03 Charlestown Overlook Location: Mead Street off Bunker Hill Street Mead Street off North Main Street Size: 0.7 acre Owners: Boston Redevelopment Authority; also a private owner The Overlook is a steep set of steps that rise over 50 feet from Russell Street. At the top, near Bunker Hill Street, is a sweeping view of the flat- lands of Charlestown. 41 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report ALLSTON/BRIGHTON Allston/Brighton had 14 Wilds in 1976, and the largest ones, including the 42-acre St. John's Seminary grounds, are intact. Four Wilds were lost. Two of the remaining Wilds are degraded. Protected, accessible Wilds in Allston/Brighton: None NOT TO SCALE ?*4C0A„ LEAMINGTON RD UNPROTECTED URBAN WILDS 1 . Turnpike Overlook 2. Crittendon Hospital 3. St. Sebastian's 4. Cenacles 5. Mt. St. Joseph's 6. Kennedy Rock 7. Leamington Rd 8. St. John's Seminary 9. Foster St. Hill 10. Foster St. Rock 42 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report ALLSTON/BRIGHTON 08-01 Turnpike Overlook Location: The head of Charlesview Street at Newton Street; Charlesview comes off the curve of Bigelow Street, from Washington Street. Size: 7.2 acres. Owners: A private owner; also Massachusetts Turnpike Authority Newton Street rises 75 feet from the level of railroad tracks and the speedways of the Mass Pike. Along it, Turnpike Overlook affords a stunning view of the Charles River, the Arsenal Mall, and the rooftops and tree line of Newton and Cambridge as far north as Porter Square. The Turnpike Overlook is a valuable Urban Wild for its strategic location. The view, one of the most extensive in Brighton, creates a sense of spaciousness in the thickly settled residential neighborhood. 1 :; '-.. * ■ ,:' h , ~t "..» HI* ^^v/Li'iffliiiJjii^....- 1 —'«^^::\>- r *" 08-02 Crittenton Hospital Location: 10 Perthshire Road; off Dunboy Street from Faneuil Street. Size: 3.0 acres Owner: Florence Crittenton House Crittenton Hospital is on a former estate built on terraces that rise over 70 feet from Faneuil Street. A stone wall around the property holds up terraces thick with considerable growth of red maples, locust and ailanthus. Weed-choked steps opposite the entrance to the hospital lead to a raised driveway on which coaches or cars once carried visitors to the mansion. Hidden behind the thick border grove are trees that suggest what the estate grounds were like: an enormous black locust, a copper beech, several sugar maples, crab apples and Crimson King Norway maple. The trees obscure the hospital from all the streets, except from the vehicle entrance on Perthshire Road. Ailanthus, red and black raspberry and Virginia creeper surround the parking lot. Having a large stand of trees on high, sloping ground like the Crittenton property creates a pleasant open and green space in the thickly settled Oak Square district of Brighton. 43 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report ALLSTON/BRIGHTON 08-03 St. Sebastian's Location: Glenley Terrace; off Breck Avenue from Oak Square. Size: 6.4 acres Owner: private This is the former site of a country day school built by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston in 1941. It burned in 1970, creating a large, open site in an otherwise thickly settled residential community. The Urban Wild is a rough triangle, with one comer at the intersection of Breck Avenue, Glenley Terrace and Brayton Road. It rises gently from there on four terraces. The lowest affords a nice view to the St. John's Seminary Wild. The only buildings remaining are the gymnasium and a service building on the Newton city line at the uppermost terrace. Trees include lindens and maples along the approach road, white fir and yellowwood at the site, and arborvitae and black locusts near the gym. Two play fields are overgrown with milkweed, yarrow, Queen Anne's lace, ox-eye daisy and extensive pink clover. Wild raspberry also abounds. 08-04 TheCenacles Location: 200 Lake Street at Kenrick Street. Size: 17.5 acres Owner: Boston Cenacles Society The Cenacles is a retreat center on the grounds of what was a Paine Family estate. The retreat house was finished by 1917, and all the remaining plantings seem to date from that time. Permission is required to visit the grounds. The property is planted with a wide variety of trees and offers a grand view over Brighton to the Charles River. In Spring 1990, the owners began to talk of selling land and buildings. The Cenacles is significant as a community green space connected with Chandler' s Pond and St. John ' s Seminary. The high, terraced lawn is dotted with copper-leaf maple, sugar maple, copper beech and catalpa. The house looms large and imposing over the Seminary playing fields in winter and early spring. In summer and again in the glow of autumn, the mass of trees on the slope high above the neighboring housetops is an imposing sight from Chandler' s Pond. Any change in the tree line would alter the entire feeling of the pond valley. Mountain ash, red osier dogwood, English hawthorn, Crimson King Arrow maple, Japanese maple, varieties of pear and apple trees, sycamore, American basswood, Norway spruce and hemlock are notable. A variety of scentless mock orange, large lilacs and a variety of azalea grow around the house. 44 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report ALLSTON/BRIGHTON 08-05 Victory Gardens: Lost 08-06 Mt. St. Joseph's Academy Location: 605 Cambridge Street near The Taft School, directly opposite Kennedy Rock Size: 6.5 acres Owner: Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph The significant element of Mt. St. Joseph's Academy is the large lawn along the North Beacon Street side of the school, even though recent enlarging of a parking area on the west side diminished the amount of green space. Like most Allston-Brighton Wilds, this is an engineered landscape. In an allee, 36 red maples march up the walk from North Beacon Street. A huge silver maple and an American elm are on the grounds. A 1989 proposal to sell the back of the school land for construction of condominiums spawned a neighborhood meeting. The owners said selling would help the school financially. No action had occurred as of August 1990. 45 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report ALLSTON/BRIGHTON 08-07 Kennedy Rock Location: Between Taft School and 648 Cambridge Street, at rear of Franciscan Children's Hospital Complex. Size: 2 acres Owner: private The most dramatic natural feature along Brighton ' s busy Cambridge Street, this mass of Roxbury conglomerate rises 50 feet from the sidewalk's edge. The rock is characterized by a long, jagged ridge with two peaks. Gray birches grow out of the crevices. Along the ridge, back from the street, an oak grove shades and provides privacy for a playground. Low ground that also is part of this Wild was cleared of secondary growth in late 1988. Opening up the view of the stone made Kennedy Rock even more dramatic from the street. This is the type of Urban Wild that can be appreciated without even stepping foot onto it. 08-08 Leamington Rock Location: Leamington Road off Commonwealth Avenue and Wallingford Road. Size: 0.5 acre Owner: private Leamington Rock, although severely eroded, is an imposing cliff that looms over a handsome row of two-story brick row houses that characterizes Leamington Road. It is a fine-grain sand member of the Roxbury conglomerate group of stones. It is heavily fractured by continual water runoff. It is a wall nearly 60 feet tall that exposes what is beneath Nottinghill Road. The Rock is partly hidden by red maples and red oaks and hardy gray birch. It is a neighborhood landmark whose green space breaks up the look of the densely built-up residential community. 46 The 1 990 Boston Urban Wilds Report ALLSTON/BRIGHTON 08-09 St. John's Seminary Location: 127 Lake Street at Commonwealth Avenue Size: 42.3 acres Owner: Boston Ecclesiastical Seminary The largest open space in Allston Brighton — and the only one with large landscaped spaces — is the grounds of St. John's Seminary. Although private, the seminary lands are open informally for local neighbors. The topography rises 116 feet from a ball field to high, wooded slopes from which a new library overlooks Lake Street. This is a cultivated Urban Wild that represents an interesting, if in- advertent, example of landscape conservation. Two old Brighton estates have been developed, but they retain the flavor of a New England farm's rolling fields dotted with cedars and apple trees. Thick shrubbery along the Chancery wall on Commonwealth Avenue has three varieties of rhododendron, azaleas, three varieties of pines, and andromeda. Cedar trees are irregularly planted around the tomb of Archbishop Williams. False cypress, arborvitae and red cedar hide a small dipping pool outside the gymnasium. Two thick groves with oak, hemlock, and maple remain from the estates. Long views and perspectives link the site's many features and need protection from building. 08-10 Foster Street Hill Location: 166 Foster Street Size: 5.7 acres Owner: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston This Urban Wild is notable for its trees growing over rock ledge. It is behind the compound where the Franciscan Sisters for Africa used to live. It is private and inaccessible, but forms a visible as well as physical link with the Foster Street Rock Urban Wild. The wood opens up to a ledge of puddingstone 75 feet above the lawns of the estate. The views of St. John's Seminary and the spires of Boston College are dramatic. The importance of the Foster Street Hill Wild becomes apparent from the crest of the Foster Street Rock. The wood is relatively young and includes oaks, maples and a scattering of crab apples and eastern cedar saplings. There is a rich ground cover of English ivy, wild rasp- berry, red and black Virginia creeper and false Solomon's seal. esQ^xJ Col 47 The 1 990 Boston Urban Wilds Report ALLSTON/BRIGHTON 08-11 Oakland Quarry: Lost 08-12 Foster Street Rock Location: Foster Street opposite St. Clement's Hall, St. John's Seminary. Size: 5 acres Owner: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston This Urban Wild contains three distinct natural features: rock, meadow and wood. The rock is a 30-foot-high mass of glacially polished mudstone between a parking lot and house lots. It is as smooth as any natural rock can get. A field of tall wildflowers and grasses resulted from quarrying, which also left a high ridge of broken rock at the rear. The rock is like that used in the main building of St. John's Seminary. On the east side, trees are rapidly taking over the grassy meadow. There are oaks, gray birch, and, by the field, staghorn sumac. A parking lot has replaced tennis courts since 1976, and it intrudes on the view from the rock. Nonetheless, this is still a pleasant, passive park, of which Brighton needs more. 08-13 Wallingford Rock: Lost 08-14 Euston Path Rock: Lost 48 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report JAMAICA PLAIN 1 wo of Jamaica Plain's original 18 Wilds have been lost completely. A third Wild, Back of the Hill, has been lost in part and protected in part. A fourth, Williams Street, is partly lost and partly unprotected. All the other Wilds are unprotected. Of the unprotected Wilds today, 12 are intact. The surviving portion of Williams Street and the Allegheny II Wild are degraded, as is Hellenic Hill because of a 10-acre loss. Protected, accessible Wilds in Jamaica Plain: Back of the Hill slope UNPROTECTED URBAN WILDS 1 . Harvard Quarry 2. Allegheny I 3. Alleghany II 4. Judge Street 5. Back of the Hill 6. Parker Hill Top 7. Nira Avenue Rock 8. Rock Hill 9. Oak View Terrace 10. Williams Street 1 1 . Bussey Brook 12. Souther 13. Bakalar 14. Lawrence Farm 15. Daughter's of St. Paul 16. Showa 17. Chapman 18. Hellenic Hill NOT TO SCALE 49 The 1 990 Boston Urban Wilds Report JAMAICA PLAIN 09-01 Harvard Quarry Location : Between St. Alphonsus Street and Calumet Street, both off Tremont Street. Size: 6.6 acres Owner: Harvard University This long-abandoned quarry was a major source of puddingstone blocks for churches (such as the Mission Church nearby), house foundations and other buildings. The corner of Calumet and Tremont Streets, where digging began, is obscured by a shopping center now, but huge blocks along Calumet Street evidence the former quarrying. Behind a store is a thickly wooded canyon, deep and mysterious, with great puddingstone blocks scattered in heaps. The dominant trees here are quaking aspen, red maple and, on the rugged slopes of the quarry, gray birch. Happy-smelling tansy flourishes with homely burdock. Brilliant blue viper's bugloss is beautiful in early summer. Views make this Wild significant. From a ledge off St. Alphonsus Street, one can see to the Fenway and Cambridge and over downtown Boston. The 65-foot drop of the quarry walls explains why the owners discourage visitors and have fenced off the rim, even though the sunny, flat land is a brilliant sea of wildflowers in early summer. 09-02 Alleghany I Location: Between 51 and 35 Pontiac Street. Size: 0.2 acres Owner: Harvard University This is an outcrop of puddingstone wedged between multi-family houses on one side and a low cinder-block commercial building. Alleghany Street, a dirt road, separates this small Wild from the com- mercial building. The ledges are shaded by red maple, with a spotted floor of timothy, sedges and ragweed. In this crowded residential neighborhood, this Urban Wild is a pleasant yard for the abutting residents. W '4r " ■--'^3 l •j^gBB- SSMMBSjM 50 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report JAMAICA PLAIN 09-03 Alleghany II Location: Pontiac Street at end of Alleghany Street, off Parker Hill Street. Size: 1.0 acre Owner: Boston Society of Redemptorist Fathers This is a 50-foot-high ledge of puddingstone that mirrors its smaller neighbor across Pontiac Street, the Alleghany I Urban Wild. Since the Urban Wilds were designated, a parking lot has been put on the lower end of this Wild in a cavity made when this was part of a quarry operation. The parking, however, does not prevent enjoying the grassy top of the Wild, with its wonderful views of the Mission Church and even the Citgo Sign at Kenmore Square. In the evening light, the twin spires of Mission Church are a beautiful sight from this Urban Wild. A large black cherry tree dominates the grassy center, while red maple and gray birch crowd the jagged ledge along Pontiac Street. Mission Church High School is a short walk through the Wild from Pontiac Street. 09-04 Judge Street Location: 200 Hillside Street, opposite McLaughlin playground tot lot. Corner Harleston Street Size: 0.4 acres Owner: private Judge Street is a paper street that connects Hillside Avenue with Iroquois Street at 200 Hillside Street. It is a gently sloping patch of left-over land thickly overgrown with ailanthus, black locust and crab apple trees on the edge. 51 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report JAMAICA PLAIN 09-05 Back of the Hill: Partially lost, partially protected 09-06 Nira Avenue Rock Location: Nira Avenue and Areola Street off Day Street; near Jefferson Playground Size: 1.5 acre Owner: Boston Public Facilities Department. This is a small Urban Wild with great significance and impact in a thickly settled, multi-family neighborhood on narrow streets. Areola Street dead-ends at a grassy slope that leads to the tops of 30-foot outcrop of Roxbury puddingstone. The VA Hospital parking lot is ahead, but the steep treeline of Parker Hill and a glimpse of the Parker Hilltop Urban Wild are across Jefferson Playground to the northeast. Turning back to face Areola Street, one can see the lantern of Blessed Sacrament Church. An adjacent open lot on Areola Street could make a circular connection around the entire Urban Wild if it were added. Only in spring or winter does the scale of the ledge reveal itself — especially from Nira Avenue, where a grassy field contrasts with the ragged edges of the rock. Between the rock and the hospital's fence is a narrow path that leads past fallen boulders to the top the rock. A very old apple tree is the best tree on the site. Most of the others are ones that enjoy exposed windy ground with poor soil: pin oaks, gray birch and, on the edges, black cherry, red maple and a slippery elm. As this report was being written, discussions were under way to transfer this site as parkland to the city Parks and Recreation Depart- ment. 09-07 Cranston Street: Lost 09-08 Sheridan Hillside: Lost 52 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report JAMAICA PLAIN 09-09 Chapman-Runyon Location: Rockwood Street, off Pond Street between 65 Rockwood Street and our Lady of the Cedars of Lebanon Church 12.3 acres private Size: Owner: This is a bit of pristine New England woodland. The wood extends down about 60 feet to the flat playing fields of Hellenic College. Beneath an oaken canopy is a carpet of Canadian Mayflower, lily of the valley, bracken fern and false Solomon's seal. Two unusual shrubs, wild hydrangea and mock orange, may be leftovers from a former estate. Amidst the oaks are sweet birch and white pine. 09-10 Showa Women's Institute (formerly Nazareth) Location: 420 Pond Street Size: 38 acres Owner: Showa Women's Institute 09-1 1 Daughters of St. Paul Location: 50 St. Paul's Avenue, off Pond Street; Westchester Road dead-ends on property Size: 19.9 acres Owner: Daughters of St. Paul Inc. 53 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report JAMAICA PLAIN 09-12 Lawrence Farm Location: 259 Allandale Road. Size: 25.9 acres Owner: private This Urban Wild is a fragment of the former Brandegee Estate, which extended into Brookline. The Wild comprises the open, uncul- tivated land between the greenhouses and farm stand and the great stone terrace of the Mansion House. This is the last working farm in Boston. A dirt cart path off the main entrance to the mansion leads through two steep groves of pine, through an open field and out to a red farm house and planting fields. The field slopes down to a duck pond adjacent to the greenhouse. There is a magnificent white oak standing on the edge of this field. A small-leafed red maple, a very unusual tree, grows in a grove of oaks and hickories near the pond. Between the approach road to the mansion and the wood is a corn field. 09-13 Bussey Brook Location: South Street, opposite the Arnold Arboretum Size: 20.1 acres Owner: Harvard University This large wetland and open meadow is bounded by one of the oldest roads in Boston (South Street) and a railroad causeway. Bussey Brook goes through on its long journey from the Charles River in West Roxbury. This stretch of unaltered, untouched nature contrasts with en- hanced, gently reformed nature across South Street in the Arboretum. Large weeping and black willows stand in the swamp. Quaking aspen, black locust, green ash and crab apples grow from the brook's bank. Yarrow, purple vetch, milkweed, tansy, Jerusalem artichoke and wild onion grass dominate the uplands. Tall stands of tickseed sunflow- ers appear in September. Some of the tallest wild-growing irises in Boston grow here. Raspberry vines and evening primroses grow amidst the sweet yellow and red clover. 54 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report JAMAICA PLAIN 09-14 Parker Hilltop Location: Hillside Avenue, between a parking lot and New England Baptist Hospital. Size: 4 acres Owner: New England Baptist Hospital This meadow is the filled— in site of a 19th-century contagious disease hospital. It has an inspiring view of the city. On a crystal clear day, one can see the Kennedy Library and the harbor islands as well as the wide Atlantic. Closer to home, the standpipe at Fort Hill seems close enough to touch, while the brick slabs of the Shattuck Hospital jut out of the thick tree line of Franklin Park. The Blue Hill Range runs along the southwest horizon. To the northeast are the rooftops of Charlestown. Parker Hilltop is about 200 feet above the lowlands of the Stony Brook Valley. It is the highest of five terraces that are the remnants of the Parker Hill Reservoir. Three terraces are in the McLaughlin Playground. The fourth, just below the Hilltop, has been allowed by the city to be used for parking by the hospital. The meadow itself has a huge American barberry bush near the locust trees on its southwest side. Multiflora roses reach out over the tall and thick tansy and ragweed, requiring a real effort to walk through in summer. 09-15 Oakview Terrace Location: Oakview Terrace off Centre Street Size: 0.4 acre Owner: private This is a circle around which is the residential cul-de-sac of Oakview Terrace. This is the crest of the hill where a small bit of the conglomerate rock beneath peaks out through the grasses of the circle. Nearby are houses built between 1890 and 1914. Crab apple, black cherry and glossy hawthorn make it colorful in spring, and junipers add color in winter. The dominant shade tree is red maple. 55 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report JAMAICA PLAIN 09-16 Rock Hill Location: Rock Hill Street, off Paul Gore Street, off Centre Street Size: 0.5 acre Owner: private This is a 30-foot-high, sheer cliff of Roxbury puddingstone, but ailanthus trees and a row of cinder-block-garages obscure it. 09-17 Williams Street Location: End of Kenton Road, corner of Dungarven Street. Kenton Road comes off Washington Street Size: 4 acres Owner: Seventh-Day Adventist Church This Urban Wild has been reduced in size by expansion of the Parkside School, but enough remains that it is not yet lost. The Wild had extended as a hardwood grove as far as Forest Hills Street, but it was cut and cleared about 1982 for a parking lot, playground and school extension. The Wild now is a woodlot behind the school's play yard and adjoining the former Williams Street horse stable. The ground is mostly low and somewhat wet. An abandoned concrete utility building from the days when the school was a hospital sits buried in red maples draped with thick bittersweet vines. There is a hint that this may have been a landscaped ground of the former Carey Estate because there are three huge northern catalpa trees and two horse chestnut trees obscured by the red maples and ailanthus. Grape vines grow along Dungarven. w^&cl ~9*i - ^L-' j ' '~ **&&. * * W*^ .,..,,. ^m ys^wr* 'Ipirl * * " ' ' JT ' " • □]: C3 d '~~>f&jHf ~~31' □ ■ ' HI 3 □ ; □ □ • □ JP □r □ ~3): ■ rUTe* -a;;.. B_ 56 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report JAMAICA PLAIN 09-18 Hellenic Hill Location: Prince Street and Goddard Avenue, at 156 Prince Street. Size: 25.6 acres Owner: Hellenic College Hellenic Hill is the great, silent guardian of Jamaica Pond. This slope behind the pond has varied trees and crumbling foundation walls of the former Bacon estate. American beech and hemlocks are the patriarchs above red maple, black locust, green ash, hagbark hickory, and red and white oak. Unusual trees include prickly ash, tulip tree and, near the Maliotis Cultural Center, a handsome English oak. Just off the drive of the college is a thick carpet of five-leaf akebia, a vine seen in no other Urban Wild in Boston. At top is an overgrown field with brambles and wild raspberry vines. Two overgrown and rubbish-choked entrance drives off Prince Street lead by faint carriage drives to the ruins of former estate buildings. An extensive view to the south is becoming obscured as the trees grow. The college administration building and student housing built in the 1970's are strung along the top of the hill and reduced the size of the Wild by about 10 acres. A refectory, gymnasium, and offices are in a hollow west of the hill, on land that is partly in Brookline. ' : 57 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report ROXBURY 1 here were 13 Wilds in Roxbury in 1976, and four are lost. Two — the widely known Puddingstone Garden and Cedar Street — are protected. All the others are unprotected, and six of those seven are intact. The last, Dudley Cliffs, is labeled "altered" in BNAF's survey because a road has been cut into the cliffs, but the change reveals more of the important natural feature — the rock face itself. Protected, accessible Wilds in Roxbury: Puddingstone Garden UNPROTECTED URBAN WILDS I.Dudley Cliffs 2. Juniper Terr. 3. Fountain Hill 4. Warren Gardens 5. Alpine 6. Rockledge 7. St. Monica's 8. Cedar St. 9. John Eliot Square /new > » <*. * T-- T 1 1 J 62 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report ROXBURY 10-11 St. Monica's Location: Highland Street between Fort Hill Avenue and Cedar Street Size: 1.3 acres Owner: St. Margaret's Society This Urban Wild is the cultivated grounds around "Rockledge," the 19th-century estate that famed abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison occupied in his last years. In this century, the house, with a modem addition, has been St. Monica's Nursing Home. The Garrison House sits on a 50-foot-high rolling mass of pudding- stone. The rock has created a cool dell presided over by two enormous and magnificent oaks, one white, one red. Deep in back, near where the carriage drive once curved up the slopes, are thick stands of green ash, red maple and a black cherry. A hackberry grows outside the Nursing Home. At the rear of the property, at Highland Park Avenue, are two large oaks. St. Monica's Nursing Home was instituted in 1888 by the Sisters of St. Margaret. The order intends to build a large building on the site. The Society has declined to consider any conservation restriction on its unbuilt land. 10-12 Rockledge Street Location: Rockledge Street, off Juniper Terrace Size: 0.5 acre Owner: Boston Real Property Department This half-acre cove of puddingstone shaded by red maples on a tiny residential street is immaculate and is planted with borders of lilies and irises against a ledge and with a center oval of flowers that enjoy the sun. Red maples predominate in the tree cover, although there is a handsome sycamore and large black cherries. Near the far corner is a stand of black locusts. Gray birches, perched like mountain goats, grow in the crevices in the rock. Neighbors have long cared for this site, which was left unbuilt when the neighborhood was developed in 1928. 10-13 Glen Hill: Lost 63 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report DORCHESTER 1 he BRA reported 25 Wilds in Dorchester for its 1976 report. All of four and most of a fifth have been lost. Ten have been protected: seven by the MDC, two by the Boston Conservation Commission, and one by the Parks and Recreation Depart- ment. Of the other Wilds, one is labeled "altered" in this report, the remainder of the partially lost Wild is degraded, and the others are substantially intact. The altered Wild is Keystone Shoreline, which now is a planted garden, rather than natural shoreline, adjoining the residential transformation of the former Keystone manufacturing building. The partially lost Wild is Calf Pasture, formerly Columbia Point. Protected, accessible Wilds in Dorchester: Patten's Cove, Savin Hill Cove, Fernald Terrace, Troy Landfill (Victory Road Park), Geneva Avenue Cliffs, Schoolboy Track, Hilltop Street, O.G. Kelly, Taylor Street UNPROTECTED URBAN WILDS 1 . Calf Pasture 2. Gas. Co. Easement 3. R.O.W. Shores 4. Keystone Shores 5. Penn Central Easement 6. Granite Ave Ledge 7. Adams Rock 8. Huntoon Rock 9. Eldon Street 10. The Humps 11. Meeting House Hill 64 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report DORCHESTER 11-01 Patten's Cove: Protected 11-02 Savin Hill Cove: Protected 11-03 Boston Gas Company Easement Location: Victory Road at Freeport Street Size: 3.2 acres Owner: Boston Gas Co. The Boston Gas Co. Dorchester tanks sit on about 30 acres of a roughly square peninsula called Commercial Point. It juts out where the Southeast Expressway crosses over Morrissey Boulevard. Victory Road, from Morrissey Boulevard, is the only access to the peninsula, which the tanks share with the Old Colony Yacht Club. A tongue of land that extends south from the peninsula is the MDC's 19-acre Victory Road Park, which was built atop an illegal landfill. This neck of land is between public lands along the Dorchester, and it had long been desired to have a connector across the Boston Gas property. The 3.2 acres were designated as an Urban Wild after sustained efforts by BNAF and the city Environment Department. 11-04 Fernald Terrace: Protected 11-05 Troy Landfill: Protected 11-06 Morgan Memorial: Lost 65 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report DORCHESTER 11-07 The Humps Location: Howe Street, off Hancock Street Size: 0.8 acres Owner: private The Humps is an example of "leftover" land: It is the last fragment of the old Free Consumption Home that stood where Fernald Terrace is. The land was left unbuilt when the hospital site was developed into two-family houses in 1927 and 1928. The site is deeply wooded and steep; it literally forms the land on which Fernald Terrace was built. Adjoining it, behind houses on Howe Street, is a one-acre open meadow. Some neighbors have prepared garden plots on a corner of the meadow. It is an open and green corner of a thickly settled residential neighborhood. All but 6,000 square feet of this Urban Wild is privately owned. It alsi is an example of how things can change an unprotected Urban Wild. In six months, between two site visits, dozens of piles of rubble and earth were dumped on the open meadow. ... ,r*\ f-7|B| ! .■■' «'GH Way ICO fiu |co 2 « 16< INg 15. PKtyy CO ICO r^ HARVARD ST JUl I Oui Qu> o< *0NY8*°<**Ese^ «P 14 CLEARY t FAIRVIEW CEMETERY NOT TO SCALE LU 85 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report HYDE PARK 14-01 Sally Rock: Lost 14-02 Sherrin Street: Protected 14-03 Monterey Hilltop: Protected 14-04 Boundary I Location: Blue Ledge Drive at High Point Village. East Boundary Road of Stony Brook Reservation Size: 16 acres Owners: private, Boston Parks and Recreation Department This is rocky, wooded ground wedged between the East Boundary Road of the MDC's Stony Brook Reservation and the cluster housing development of High Point Village. Topographically, there is no logical boundary between it and the reservation. Indeed, the boundary cuts through a pond full of cattails and bird life. Most of this ground is relatively flat, though it drops dramatically nearly 40 feet into the canyon. East Boundary Road runs along the rim of the canyon. The pond is on a privately owned parcel of slightly more than nine acres. A second parcel covers seven acres owned by the Boston Parks and Recreation Department. The vegetation mirrors the reservation — oaks and gray birch. Leaf fires that plague the reservation have not spared the Urban Wild. There is a very pretty stand of swamp azalea. Both sides of the Boundary Road along the pond banks are lined with pale green pussy willow in early spring. The geology is also much like the reservation, although at this end it is more pink Dedham (or Westwood) granite. There is one huge erratic of Roxbury puddingstone. \ t^=^ // (Jto>r "EiL/ <5©tF * 'dr Cr*JB5E V "^(P y& ^ iSl_». • t V N -: 'vliifliP^. 4 \ \ " ^N^_ '\^\y^~Y ~*"--M- sHss*^ «•*—«« ~n ,/ Ja,zz ^ ■4 ,r. 86 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report HYDE PARK 14-05 Boundary II Location: End of Gordon Avenue off River Street Size: 21 unprotected, 17.5 protected (MDC) Owners: private, City of Boston A majestic Urban Wild with ridges of solid granite that rise over 40 feet above canyons and marshes, this is one of the highest pieces of ground in the vicinity. From the highest ridge, one can see only treetops and the rising dome of Great Blue Hill in the southeast. Like the adjoining MDC Stony Brook Reservation, this Urban Wild is a portion of the complex geology of the Neponset River Valley. It is a classic syncline topography, three huge troughs of stratified rock that form rocky beds. In the beds have formed marshes and creeks that drain southeast toward Stony Brook. The understory varies widely. Low-bush blueberries and sweet ferns grow out of cracks in the puddingstone. Bracken fern, oak fern and cinnamon fern dot the low land. There are also witch hazel, swamp azalea, sweet pepperbush and wild raspberry. The trees are mostly oak, with white pine mixed in. One tree is a shadblow, and there are an American chestnut and some American mountain ash saplings. 14-06 Dell Avenue Rock Location: Hyde Park Avenue at Dell Avenue Size: 1.3 acres Owner: Boston Real Property Department Dell Avenue Rock is a steep, rocky bluff of Mattapan volcanic rock that juts up nearly 40 feet from the street where three residential streets converge on Hyde Park Avenue. The vegetation is confined to the base of the rock. The top is wind-blown and the soil is thin, so vegetation is limited to grasses, moss, and low-bush blueberry. The view from the crest is a surprisingly scenic vista of Bellevue Hill and the woods west and south of Stony Brook Reservation. A well-worn footpath leads easterly up the side of the hill from Lincoln Street. Black cherry and common choke cherry and gray birch are the dominant and most interesting trees, growing thickly along the rock base at Hyde Park Avenue and Lincoln Street. A grove of oaks shades the rock from the Dell Avenue side. 87 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report HYDE PARK 14-07 West Street Location: West Street off River Street Size: 1.5 acres Owners: Metropolitan District Commission, abutters The wooded shoreline of the Neponset River just above the Tileston Dam is the West Street Urban Wild. It is mostly back yards of homes, but a large parcel is the MDC's Doyle Playground. The MDC also is entrusted with the river's shore at the playground. The important river frontage is blocked by a wall of vegetation at the bank. This Wild abuts the Patriot Paper Co. factory and dam, both of which have a long history in Boston. The site was the William Summer mill in 1786. I □ □ 14-08 Railroad Avenue Location: West Street and Metropolitan Avenue off River Street Size: 1.2 acres Owners: abutters, Metropolitan District Commission, Boston Conservation Commission This extremely rare piece of open Neponset riverfront is tucked between the ends of Metropolitan Avenue and West Street. The MDC has jurisdiction over a slim stretch of riverbank as well as a sewer easement through land off Metropolitan Avenue. The Boston Natural Areas Fund bought 94,000 square feet of former lumber yard at Pierce and West Streets, against a rail line. That parcel subsequently was taken by the Boston Conservation Commission. There are six house lots on the Pierce Street side. The river bends abruptly at that point, and there is a grand view downstream from the point where the railroad tracks cross the river. At times, especially summer, it is possible to loose oneself here because the steep, wooded banks block the signs of urban life. The Wild would make a fine boat dock or canoe landing if a half-acre parcel at Metropolitan Avenue could be acquired for public use. The BCC site is mostly open. Flat, filled and thick with quaking aspen, the city land should be joined with the MDC property so a riverside promenade could be made for Hyde Park neighbors. 88 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report HYDE PARK 14-09 Sprague Pond Location: Sprague Street at Lakeside Avenue on the Dedham line Size: 1.4 acres Owner: City of Boston Public Facilities Department On the border between Dedham and Boston, Sprague Pond is an oval sheet of water amidst light industry and a wide Amtrak railroad causeway. During the Civil War, it was in the center of famous Camp Miegs, where the 54th Massachusetts Regiment mustered. The pond is, at present, inaccessible, but would afford a grand view of the dome of Great Blue Hill. The only view of the Pond is at a fenced-in yard that adjoins a house at 6 Lakeside. The pond is significant for the surprise it offers when one finds a natural pond behind all the pavement. 14-10 Readville Maples: Lost 89 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report HYDE PARK 14-11 Euclid Street Location: Euclid Street off Poydras Street off River Street Size: 3.9 acres Owners: private, Metropolitan District Commission Euclid Street is a dirt road through an oak and locust wood past one private home. It opens out to a meadow along the swiftly moving Neponset River. This is a rare spot in Hyde Park because the Neponset can actually be seen without going through back yards of houses or businesses. Railroad tracks cross the Neponset at the James River Paper Co. near this Urban Wild, and pass atop a steep embankment that forms one edge of the meadow. The meadow is over 50 feet from the river and in summer is full of meadowsweet, clumps of multiflora rose, groves of black locust, soft rush, sedge and wild raspberry. Along the top of the riverbank are paper birch, gray birch and red maple. 14-12 West and Austin Streets Location: Comer of West and Austin Streets at 126 Austin Street Size: 0.3 acres Owner: Boston Real Property Department This outcrop of puddingstone, barely a quarter-acre, rises 50 feet from the streets of this residential neighborhood. It is overgrown with green brier, poison ivy and buckthorn, making it almost invisible in summer. A thick oak canopy makes it very shady. This is a typical wood-over-outcrop Urban Wild with a thick understory of roiling green briers. gr - •• ',-.. . ■.v'sj!W1'<-:rWr ■:• v- 4P 1 ■St * ii<" ■ -• j.* . 'r ' i. •;., "r~~.;*4, '''* ' l . mm | . - '. ■ - —-mkmmL kti B'"*E!!S~^ > 1 C=] "T^ I ■ 1 i j/~~ f-iLtty uia I f. U S T l*J 5 rretT □ 1 ■ 90 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report HYDE PARK 14-13 Pleasantview Location: Opposite 36 Pleasantview St. near Cummins Highway Size: 0.5 acres Owner: Boston Real Property Department Though one could not tell from the street, Pleasantview is a fragment of the once immense Barry's Quarry, which has been filled. The tan Mattapan volcanic (or possibly breccia) stone rises into a rugged rock shaded by oak, gray birch and cherry with a floor of low-bush blueberry, sweet fern and moss. The sweet fern growing out of the gnarls and knuckles of the stone is particularly attractive. DD 14-14 Fairview Quarry Location: Upton Street at Turtle Pond Parkway Size: 6.7 acres Owner: private The yawning pit of this former gravel quarry is slowly being taken over by stands of quaking aspen and gray birch. The floor is covered with wildflowers that like disturbed land, such as wild indigo, yarrow, goldenrod and deptford pink. Twenty feet above the pit are rocky ledges of puddingstone with a thick sturdy tree cover of oak, scotch pine and scrub oak. Low-bush blueberry and bayberry cover the rocky high ground. The views to the east are magnificent snowing the Blue Hills and the tree tops of Hyde Park. The construction of the Stony Brook Reservation parkway spawned use of the site as a quarry. No roads led to it before about 1905. The quarry has been closed for a generation. It abuts the Fairview Cemetery, a City of Boston property. The severe erosion of the pebbly gravel walls of the quarry makes it possible that this side of the cemetery could wash down in a few years. 91 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report HYDE PARK 14-15 Belnel: Protected 14-16 Dana Avenue: Partially protected, partially lost 14-17 Margin Street: Lost 14-18 Allis Chalmer: (Now Blake Estates), partially protected, partially lost 14-19 Mother Brook I Location: Hyde Park Avenue at the Star Market Size: 0.4 acres Owner: private Squeezed between a Star Market/Osco Drug shopping center on one side and a hardware warehouse on the other, this Wild is a sliver of the Mother Brook 's course between Hyde Park Avenue and a railroad right of way. There is no public access on either side of the brook here because the buildings are so close to the banks. One narrow area that could provide passage is blocked by a truck dock and a dumpster. The banks are covered with rubbish and debris. 14-20 Mother Brook II: Protected 14-21 Mother Brook III : Mostly protected, some lost 92 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report HYDE PARK 14-22 Neponset I Location: Truman Highway, just north of Fowl Meadow Size: 2.1 acres Owners: private, Massachusetts Department of Public Works Neponset I is a thickly overgrown woodlot along the Neponset River. The dense growth is obscured, however, by a chain-link fence that is covered with grape and other vines. The woodland also is 1 5 feet below the sidewalk level. Where it borders the Stop & Shop complex, the Wild is at the river's edge. The chocolate brown water twists around the Wild in a S curve. Farther along, the woods open up into a thick stand of maples, river birch and other trees, some covered with bull-brier. It is impossible to ascertain beyond that because the fence at the street makes access impossible. There are handsome English oaks, the only ones sighted in Urban Wilds. Truman Highway was built in 1936, and the shopping center is the only riverfront construction here. Neponset I buffers the road from omnipresent noise from an asphalt plant across the river. A».„.,, ^ Ki ---, /<5 "5" i -Wj 14-23 Neponset II: Lost 93 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report MATTAPAN JVlattapan had eight Urban Wilds. One is gone through construction. Willowwood Rock is protected by Conservation Commission custody. The remaining six are un- protected, with five of them intact and one degraded. One unprotected Wild, Glade- side II, is on the Mattapan Chronic Disease Hospital grounds owned by the city. Another, Blue Hill Rock, seems to have been incorrectly sized in 1976, and the acreage listed here is correct. Protected, accessible Wilds in Mattapan: Willowood Rock UNPROTECTED URBAN WILDS 1. Baker Chocolate Seawell 2. Penn Central Easement 'GLADESIDE AVE NOT TO SCALE MATTAPAN SQ. 94 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report MATTAPAN 15-01 Gladesidel Location: End of Lorna Road, off Morton Street Size: 10 acres Owner: Boston Department of Health and Hospitals This ground of hardwoods, swamp and rock is on the extensive grounds of the city-owned Mattapan Chronic Disease Hospital. Like the nearby Gladeside II, this Urban Wild shows what the land was like 40 years ago. The Urban Wild is connected to another 10-acre parcel between the Morton-Gallivan Development and Lorna Road. Taken together, they form the largest open and undeveloped area in Mattapan. The high ground of oak and pine, sweet birch and pignut hickory twists onto ridges that go around a picturesque swamp dotted with puddingstone boulders. There is a wide variety of understory shrubs: sweet pepperbush, buttonbush, bayberry, false indigo and a flowering variety of alder. Cattails and arrowheads thrive in the swamp. Behind the Wild is a steep ledge on which are the houses of Constitution Road. 15-02 Livermore Street: Lost 95 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report MATTAPAN 15-03 Pendergast Preventorium Location: Harvard Street, Cummins Highway and Livermore Street Size: 20.8 acres Owner: private In Boston, there were several large sanitoriums at the time when diseases such as tuberculosis and influenza spread easily through crowded urban blocks. One of those was the Pendergast Preventorium, which was built more than 60 years ago on densely wooded rolling land dotted with puddingstone rocks and a wet swamp area full of cinnamon, sweet and bracken ferns. In 1931, a stone wall was built around the property and topped with a chain-link fence. In the mid-1980s, the hospital building was converted to condominiums and called Pudding- stone Estates. The rest of the site remained as wild as ever, though 28 more units of housing will be built on five acres. Sweet birch, gray birch, white pines, American beech, red oak and hickory trees create a dark and cool urban forest. Swamp azalea grow among the ferns and low-bush blueberry, and there is blue-flowered vinca among the old oaks. 15-04 Willowwood Rock: Protected 96 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report MATTAPAN 15-05 Wood haven Location: Woodhaven Street, between Cummins Highway and Blue Hill Avenue. Size: 2.1 acres Owner: Boston Real Property Department This site displays no fewer than four types of rock. It backs up to the right of way of the MBTA commuter rail lines. Along Woodhaven Street, between single-family houses, is a prominent outcrop of purple-gray Mattapan volcanic rock that has red and white oaks growing over it. Green smudges of algae indicate this is a sheltered and moist location. At the rear of the Mattapan volcanic is a stone called breccia, often found in volcanics. This has purple-pink or ashen white pebbles in it like puddingstone. On the far side of the woods is a huge boulder of Roxbury pudding- stone atop a cracked Mattapan volcanic, exactly as a glacier dumped it thousands of years ago. In the bottom land dotted with bracken ferns is a heavy rock, called basalt, with a lot of iron in it. Argyllite ormudstone is another type of rock found in the Woodhaven Wild, although in small quantities and somewhat obscured by leaves and grasses. ■■ firx.. _T / ^r«-o \ ■WMIMEtJ '-i"(rT ' «wi -* D a d li ' ~ ° » T . . ,^ j 15-06 Blue Hill Rock Location: Harvard Street and Blue Hill Avenue Size: 0.3 acre Owner: Boston Housing Authority Blue Hill Rock is a highly visible, buff-colored puddingstone ledge that extends back into Franklin Hill and the Franklin Hill Development apartments as they sit high above Blue Hill Avenue. This highly fractured, heavily weathered puddingstone appears almost like rotted wood rather than stone, and the rusty brown color — almost tan — indicates a very high iron content. Severe cracks at steep angles suggest this rock may be on a fault line. Gray birch trees cling on the ledges, and windswept red oaks grow on the brow of the rock. A mazzard cherry is well-established at the Blue Hill Avenue corner, and an old apple tree has grown out of the grassy ground at the back of the Wild, where there is more soil. The residents of the development have begun a beautif ication project for the Urban Wild. 97 The 1990 Boston Urban Wilds Report MATTAPAN 15-07 Gladeside II Location: Gladeside Avenue, at Briarcliff Terrace, off River Size: 1.1 acres Owners: abutters Contrasting with its neighborhood of single-family houses, this Urban Wild is a remainder of the wide-open pasture land of the Mattapan of 60 years ago. A huge puddingstone outcrop rises more than 20 feet, and a jumble of erratics on top, seemingly dropped out of the sky, form little caves. Oaks predominate among the trees, and dark green polythrichum moss covers the jagged face of the puddingstone. 15-08 Baker Chocolate Seawall Location : North bank of the Neponset River, east of Central Avenue in Milton and behind River Street properties Size: 1.5 acres Owner: Private This Wild is a platform for views downstream toward the Lower Mills dam and the former factory buildings of Baker Chocolate. This area was open in 1976 and, though paved, provided access to the river shore. Access has been restricted now, and the area is used as parking for condominiums in the former factory. Some excavation and grading was done in 1988. The Wild is a short walk from the Central Avenue stop on the Mattapan High Speed Line trolley of the MBTA's Red Line. 98 * NOTES * NOTES 7 9 9 2 k »'t Boston Natural Areas Fund, Inc. Directors (1977-1990) * Oliver F. Ames *# Eugenie Beal Richard Bennink Warren Berg * John Blackwell Edna Boyle * Norman T. Byrnes, Esq. Carmen Canino Karen Clay Melvyn Colon * Edward L. Cooper, Sr. * Lorraine M. Downey * Honorable Harry Elam *# Richard B. Fowler *# Cecile H. Gordon Doris Graham Herbert W. Gray * David W. Hoffman * Katharine D. Kane * Kathryn Matheson, Esq. * Caleb Loring Jr. * Nancy Mayo-Smith F. William Marshall, Jr * Robert R. McCoy Rev. fjipmas E. Payne Elliott Rhodeside * Hugh Rogovin William B. Smith * Robert L. Stearns * Harvey L. Steinberg * Leroy Stoddard * Richard Wheatland * Lucius W. Wilder * current Director # founding Director * BOSTON NATURAL AREAS FUND, INC. 25 WEST STREET BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02111 (617) 542-7696 ISBN 0-9629182-0-2