Old stone Somerville boundary posts

[ron_newman]

A century or more ago, Somerville and Medford installed stone pillars at various locations to mark the boundary between the two cities. While planning the Somerville Bicycle Committee's upcoming Edge of the City Tour on October 13, I looked around for these markers -- both on the Web and on foot around the Tufts University campus.

So far, I've found seven of them, which I've plotted on a Google map. The map includes links to a photo of each marker -- one by Georgy Cohen (georgy), two by David Maze (dzm), one by Elizabeth Bolton, and three by me. Typically, the markers have S etched on one side, M on another side, and the marker number on a third side (or sometimes the same side as S or M). ETA 10/5/12: Thanks to your comments here, the map now has 10 markers, with more coming soon.

If you've seen one that isn't on my map, please comment here so that I can add it! I'd especially like to know if any markers remain for the Somerville-Cambridge or Somerville-Boston (Charlestown) borders.

Here's my photo of one on the west side of Packard Avenue, next to the Tufts tennis courts. (Click on the photo to see a larger version.)

Comments

[dmaze]

At one point I visited all of the places where they should be, though I don't think I have more pictures than the two you already have. I remember finding a couple more in the neighborhood west of Tufts (and also assuming that the two markers that should, by rights, be inside Tisch Library were gone), and not finding the one inside the 38/93 interchange. The map I see up in places that deliver food actually has the boundary marker locations and numbers marked on it in tiny print.

The only Cambridge/Somerville marker I know of is #17, at White Street and Elm Street, but it's embedded in the sidewalk. I've looked for more in the Davis area, and while it's straightforward to use the parking permit signs to find the city line I haven't found more markers. The markers are also all over on the canonical biking routes through the western suburbs.

[enveri.livejournal.com]

This seems like a dumb question, but... what differentiates between the parking permit signs?

The reason I ask is the house we just moved into is apparently in Medford, while our front steps (and address) is Somerville. It's... caused some issues with parking.

[dmaze]

I think the Cambridge ones say "CITY OF CAMBRIDGE" on the bottom of them, and they're rectangular, where the Somerville ones are square. I don't remember what Medford ones look like, and when I did this exercise I was mostly wandering through residential neighborhoods before Somerville instituted the "all permit parking all the time" rule.

[ron_newman]

As dzm says above, Somerville signs are square, while Cambridge's are rectangular (higher than they are wide). I took this photo of a Somerville and a Cambridge permit parking sign, side by side on Seven Pines Avenue. These two signs have the city names printed on them, but most of them don't.

Cambridge and Somerville street cleaning signs are also subtly different. Cambridge cleans each side of the street once a month. Somerville does it twice a month. Again, most of these signs don't have the city name printed on them.

I've only seen a few Medford permit parking signs, but the ones I've seen are rectangular, like Cambridge's.

[ron_newman]

A number of Cambridge houses front on Elm and Russell Streets. The houses and (most of?) the yards are in Cambridge, but the sidewalk and street are in Somerville. Congressman Tip O'Neill lived in one of these houses, and he had to pay some property tax to both cities.

I think residents of these houses have special arrangements to put both Cambridge and Somerville parking permits on their cars, with one city's permits restricted to just that one street. There are similar issues on Line Street, and I think also on Harris Street and White Street.

The city line runs for a few blocks along several streets west of Tufts University -- Curtis Street, Hillsdale Road, and North Streets. Houses on one side are in Somerville , houses on the other in Medford, and I'm not sure which city controls the street itself.

[josephineave.livejournal.com]

The "split by the border" problem is pretty common. I looked at a house on Beacon with the driveway in Cambridge. I think the Globe did an article about these places with a special emphasis on school districts. Where the kids actually slept determined what school they could go to.

There are also some houses on Boston Ave in Medford that have Somerville mailing addresses, but they are 100% in Medford. And they have 781 area codes as well.

[ron_newman]

This Boston Globe article, from 1998? It is about a townhouse duplex condo building which is split, one unit on Shea Road on Cambridge, the other on Kingston Street in Somerville. (You will need a Minuteman Library Network card number to read the full text.)

[josephineave.livejournal.com]

I have a good memory, but I don't think the article was 14 years ago. I'm thinking in the last 3 to 4 years.

[ron_newman]

I found it here in the Globe archives, published December 26, 2004. That's behind the Globe paywall, but fortunately someone reposted it to a Usenet group, which anyone can read for free.

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

If you have a house that in some way is on both sides of the border, you may be able to get both sets of parking permits - talk to the parking offices in both towns.

[ron_newman]

Hi, dzm! I assume that you are the David Maze whose two photos (of markers #8 and #19H on Boston Ave.) I included on my map.

I found and photographed four other markers on the Tufts campus: #11 and #12 on the west side of Packard Ave, and #13 and #14 on the east side of Curtis Street. Marker #12 is cleverly disguised as one of two 'gate posts' flanking a pedestrian path overlooking the Tufts tennis courts.

I did not find any of the markers west of Tufts. If you know where any of these are, can you reply here? I'd like to add them to my map.

This official City of Somerville map, or something similar to it, is probably what you are seeing on the walls of those pizza delivery joints. If you zoom in far enough, you can see all of the 'CITY BOUND NO. XX" notations. Most, but not quite all, of these are at places where the city boundary turns a corner. The official map does not show the location of marker #3H, which Georgy Cohen found on Albion Street just off Broadway. I'm curious if there are more like that one.

[dmaze]

Yes, that's me, and yes, that's the map. I did this quite a while ago (the photos you found were from 2008, but I thought I did this more like 2002ish) but at that point I thought I had found at least #15 and #16. I definitely remember looking for #20 behind the U-Haul but don't remember finding it. I also haven't found Cambridge marker #1, though I've looked around the Gore St./Medford St./Grand Junction grade crossing a bit.

[ron_newman]

I looked today for #15, #16, and #18, but did not find them. I did find #19 on Gordon Street, and what I think is a sad little remnant of #17 on North Street opposite Fairfax. I've added both of these to the Google map.

[ron_newman]

The Tufts University alumni association in 1959 commissioned a history of Tufts called High on the Hill: Tufts Then and Now, by Linda J. Dixon. This book has been updated a few times, most recently in 1979.

The page about the library says: "You will remember we mentioned that the Medford-Somerville line bisects the campus; there are two granite markers here to show where it angles across this library!".

I don't know if that means the markers were inside the library, or just outside it. Back then it was called Wessell Library. Since then, it has been expanded into the current Tisch Library. I wonder if the markers were lost during that construction.

[ron_newman]

Wow, I've passed the corner of Elm and White hundreds, if not thousands, of times, on foot and on bicycle. And I'd never before noticed that boundary curbstone. Thanks for telling me about it! I'll try to put a photo up soon.

ETA: And here it is. I also added it to the Google map.

[ron_newman]

I found Cambridge-Somerville markers #18 and #20 today. They are tiny! One is barely visible in the Elm Street crosswalk across Russell Street. The other is set into the middle of a private residential driveway on Chester Street, close to the sidewalk. I've added both of these to the Google map.

(Perhaps we should meet up some time in person?)

ETA 10/11: On closer inspection, what I thought was marker #18, in the Russell Street crosswalk, is probably just a small square gas company manhole. So I'm taking it out of the map and photo albums.