Boston/Camberville geographic oddity survey

[dmaze]

Can you find:

1. Mid-Block Connector?
2. Galileo Galilei Way?
3. Three separate Cambridge Streets, all in Boston?
4. Three separate Washington Streets, all in Boston?
5. Two separate Union Squares, both with MBTA bus service?

Comments

[alphacygni]

1, 2, and 5, definitely. 3 and 4 I'm less sure of. Depends on your definition of "Boston".

Mid-Block Connector has always amused me.

[dmaze]

Boston, City of. Allston, West Roxbury, and Charlestown are all Boston; Cambridge, Brookline, and Newton aren't.

[oonh.livejournal.com]

I keep half expecting some pedantic municipal organization to find the mid-block connector faulty (for unspecified and probably incomprehensible reasons), and in need of replacement. The process of replacement would then consist of something like releasing a flock of punk seagulls over the current mid-block connector and then declaring it 'replaced', 'repaired', or (shudder) 'upgraded'.

[iabervon.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure which three of the six separate Washington Streets in Boston you were looking for. There are three large ones (but that doesn't include the one downtown), or three in the regions you specifically mention (but that doesn't include the largest one).

Google Maps does well at finding these things these days, although it separately lists the portions of the Washington Street in Roxbury, West Roxbury, Roslindale, and JP.

[(Anonymous)]

If it helps, I think of Washington Street through Chinatown, North Washington Street, and the short stretch of Washington Street Google Maps shows in Charlestown as all the same street. I wasn't actually aware of the little Washington Street in Hyde Park, northeast of the Readville commuter rail. I was really thinking of the three large ones, though; has this accounting missed any?

[dmaze]

(Oops, lost my login cookie there.)

[iabervon.livejournal.com]

I'm not convinced about the Washington Street in Charlestown being the same street at the one in Chinatown; it's not like you can actually get from one to the other without going down some streets without related names that aren't things like a shared bridge. There's Rutherford Street in Charlestown to get out of the little neighborhood, and then there's city hall between North Washington and Washington in Chinatown.

I'd somehow missed that the one in Chinatown is the one that goes to Dedham via Roxbury, so I'm down to 5, including Charlestown but not North Washington Street.

Do you know how to get from Cambridge Street to Tremont Street in Boston by walking down Washington Street?

If the mid-block connector isn't goodenough for you, can you find a street that is?

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

Ah, clearly the answer is I'm so Bostonian that I just know that it's all one Washington Street even though they're disconnected :-)

[iabervon.livejournal.com]

You'd have to know that it's all one Cambridge Street, also, and one Tremont Street. The only place where Washington Street crosses Cambridge Street and Tremont Street in Boston is in Brighton, and none of the three is connected to those streets downtown (where Cambridge and Tremont meet, but Washington is a block away and parallel).

It's fun to T to the Y-M-C-A!

[dmaze]

Do you know how to get from Cambridge Street to Tremont Street in Boston by walking down Washington Street? Yes, BTDT, in the process of writing Road Rallye even. The first time I did it, which actually was on foot, there was a streetcar loop at the outer end of it.

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

These are all very familiar, but I can't remember where most of them are.
I feel unBostonian.