SomervilleParks Map (2018 edition)
Updated in 2018 with Shape Up Somerville. From street hockey to swimming pools, this map shows that there’s something for everyone at each of Somerville’s Parks and Playgrounds.
Cambridge: East Cambridge and Kendall Square Walking Map
The center of East Cambridge retains much of its early residential character with a vital focus on the Middlesex County courts. The community is located within easy walking of neighboring areas where construction activity booms—Kendall Square with its new offices and North Point where high-rise residences face the Charles River. In 1810, the wealthy investor Andrew Craigie envisioned a community on an island surrounded by salt marshes linked to the Charles River.
Connecting this island to Boston via a new toll bridge (present Science Park Dam), Craigie laid out a grid of streets and began attracting development to the area. The marshes were filled by railroads and industry. In the late 20th century, the riverfront was beautified; traffic was diverted onto new boulevards. Old industrial buildings were rebuilt as offices. Pedestrian routes linked residential, employment and recreation areas at the Charles River..
Click for “East Cambridge and Kendall Square Walking map” on Google Maps
Cambridge Traffic Calming Walking Map
Cambridge: Traffic calming works! Neighborhoods in Cambridge are among the first in the metropolitan area to benefit from traffic calming. Installed after intensive meetings with residents, consultants and City staff, the new facilities slow traffic through handsome old neighborhoods, where narrow streets have been carrying major traffic flows. Traffic calming techniques have also been applied to a commercial district, to improve pedestrian safety.
Click for “Cambridge Traffic Calming Walking Map” on Google Maps
Winthrop: Deer Island Map
From a high hill on the northern end of Deer Island, you can see dramatic views of Boston’s skyline to the west, Hull’s windmill to the southeast, the harbor’s 29 other islands, lighthouses near and far, and open sea all the way to Europe. At the southern end of the island is the $4 billion wastewater treatment plant, opened in 2001 to end centuries of sewage discharges to the harbor. This island facility, surrounded by parkland, has become the technological jewel in the crown of the Boston Harbor Islands National Park.
The giant treatment plant – especially the 15-story egg-shaped sludge digester installation—form a dramatic backdrop to the 60 acres of park that ring the island.
Click for WalkBoston Winthrop Deer Island Walking Map on Google Maps
Newton: The Fields of Newton Walking Map
Imagining fields in today’s Newton takes a giant leap of faith. Yet it is possible for a sensitive walker to trace the underlying structure of the community by exploring its topography, its oldest roads, and the residential buildings that blanket the area. You can find vestiges of the old fields and in the spacious settings of institutions built on large parcels.
Newton’s flat or gently rolling topography and relatively fertile soil kept farming attractive here for more than two hundred years. Rocky of hilly areas that could not be made into fields became woodlots for timber growing and harvesting.
When the railroad arrived and commuting began in about 1850, however, rows of housing took the place of many of the fields. Today the development of Newton’s fields can often be dated by examining variants of architectural styles. Indeed, this walk is a virtual primer on residential architecture: you’ll pass styles ranging from Stick to Colonial to Queen Anne to Shingle.
Click for “WalkBoston Newton Walking Map” on Google Maps