Mystic Valley Parkway
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The Mystic Valley Parkway is a short parkway in Winchester, Arlington, and Medford, Massachusetts. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and now forms part of Route 16.
The parkway runs roughly north-south from the Middlesex Fells in Winchester down the Aberjona River valley, and along the east side of the Mystic Lakes to Medford. This section follows the path of the old Middlesex Canal. It then crosses the Mystic River, and curves to follow the river as it runs east-west through Arlington and Medford. (A short branch also runs along the south end of the Lower Mystic Lake.) It joins with the Alewife Brook Parkway in a rotary at the Mystic River, and with the Revere Beach Parkway at its eastern limit.
The parkway, with surrounding landscape, forms part of Boston's Metropolitan Park District, established in 1893. The parkway itself was designed in 1894-1895 by Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot, the noted landscape architects, with Charles Eliot taking a lead role. It was originally created as one section of a web of pleasure roads designed for their aesthetics, as part of a comprehensive plan for green spaces in and around Boston.
It now forms part of the Metropolitan Park System of Greater Boston (MPS), and on January 18, 2006, became listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
[edit] External links
- Charles Eliot, "The Boston Metropolitan Reservations", The New England magazine, Volume 21, Issue 1, September 1896.
- William B. de las Casas, "The Boston Metropolitan Park System", Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 35, No. 2, Public Recreation Facilities (March, 1910), pp. 64-70.
- Charles William Eliot, Charles Eliot: Landscape Architect, Houghton, Mifflin, 1902.
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