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Biking along the Neponset
By adamg on Thu, 07/16/2009 - 9:22am
Mike Ball reports on a ride along what will someday be the Neponset River Greenway bicycle path in Hyde Park and Mattapan:
... Like so many of the Boston-area bike projects, this one is stuck out there, largely isolated from both other cycling/walking futures and the larger city. Yet, this is another neighborhood that will benefit. Plus, this is the Neponset River Greenway and they are building it not coincidentally where the river has always been.
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Comments
I have spied bits of this
I have spied bits of this path when riding the Mattapan trolley. It looks very nice, I'm just not sure how to get to it. Definitely the network element in Boston bike paths is missing. I hope that is somewhere on the agenda after fixing the bizzaro bike lanes on American Legion Highway.
One end is at Pope John Paul II Park...
...which is right next to the Southeast Expressway-- there's a tunnel under the highway towards the southern (Quincy) end of the park. Not a long ride (2.5 or 3 miles at most) from there to where the path ends at the Central Ave. T stop, but it's extremely cool-- as you follow the river you pass by marshes and old mill buildings, and there's only one road crossing. The part referred to by the OP is beyond (west) of there, and if they could pull it off, it would be as cool if not cooler.
Thanks, I think I'll add
Thanks, I think I'll add this to the list of rides I want to try. I have a decent route from Roslindale to the expressway/JPII park, just didn't realize that hooked up to the trail.
Old Mill Buildings
Those are mostly remnants of the Bakers Chocolate factory, which had my entire neighborhood smelling of chocolate when I was a very young child in Dorchester. They moved to the Midwest around 1961 or 1962. Some of the buildings are now residential, while others house small businesses.
The bikepath itself follows the old right-of-way of the railroad spur that served the factory.
I know the area intimately, having lived in the neighborhood for some 37 years, so if anyone ever takes the ride and has a question about something they see, I may be able to help. Gladly so, if you drop me a line at [email protected]
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
How about....
...giving a U-Hub walking tour someday?
;~}
Walking Tour
That's an interesting idea, actually. Perhaps some other contributors here, more up-to-date with recent neighborhood developments - I moved to Watertown in 1994 - might join me as co-hosts?
I'd dig it, but much of my talking would be the sort of endless pointless reminiscing you try to avoid from your uncle at family reunions, so be forewarned.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
here's one for ya, sul...
Was this neighborhood always crawling with poison ivy?
The bike path is actually fine--I haven't seen any there. But the verges that overhang the trolley tracks between Central Ave and Milton (MBTA property? not sure) are completely infested with it.
It seems like every other house on my street has it creeping out of their hedges and yards--including mine. I've been battling an infestation for two years now, and I've almost got it all, but it feels pretty futile given how much of it there is going to seed around here.
I don't know if everybody around here knows what it is. It's totally out of control. There's one overhanging the street, on the corner of Caddy and Monson, that's eight feet high, I shit you not.
Must be a good year
I've got a sprout of poison ivy growing in my garden where it has never grown before. Kinda caught me by surprise.
blame global warming
Increased CO2 in the atmosphere is good for poison ivy. Makes it itchier, too.
Whatever the cause, it's having a banner year around here. Last summer it was bad, and this summer it's worse.
Regular ivy, too
If I didn't know better, I'd swear the part of our yard not made uninhabitable by stinging nettles is under attack by kudzu. The damn stuff is everywhere, and I now need to chop back what's left of our mock orange out front before the junior-grade triffids that have choked the poor thing to death wrap themselves around our telephone and power lines and pull them down, leaving us defenseless in the night so they can finish us off, too. They really seem to have come to an agreement with the stinging nettles on who controls which part of the yard - which I guess makes us Poland in 1939.
Ahem. I'm reasonably sure it's not poison ivy because I've been barehanding the stuff (yo soy muy macho - y estupido) for a week with no ill effect. I am beginning to worry, however, that we'll run out of room in our shed for all the bags of ivy that are now piling up.
Wow
We certainly had some poison ivy in the neighborhood while I was there, but I don't remember it being so prevalent as you describe. Eight feet tall on the corner of Caddy and Monson? What is it, growing up the street sign pole? :-)
I'm pretty sure the other area you describe is T property, although I'd have to see exactly where you mean to be sure. Are you talking about the high walls by Milton Hill?
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com