A report on Watertown, Massachusetts, Boston and Massachusetts Turnpike

Approaching the former West Stockbridge toll plaza traveling eastbound, January 2008

In 1773, a group of angered Bostonian citizens threw a shipment of tea by the East India Company into Boston Harbor as a response to the Tea Act, in an event known as the Boston Tea Party.

The "Weston tolls" that separated the Western Turnpike from the Boston Extension, October 2006

Saltonstall's landing spot in Watertown, also known as Elbridge Gerry Landing

Map showing a British tactical evaluation of Boston in 1775.

The eastern terminus of the turnpike in the state, and I-90 nationally, at Route 1A in Boston

Edmund Fowle House, built in the 1700s and used by the Massachusetts government during the Revolutionary War

Boston, as the Eagle and the Wild Goose See It, 1860, by J.W. Black, the first recorded aerial photograph

Now-demolished toll plaza on an exit ramp, January 2016

Toll ticket used prior to conversion to open road tolling

View of downtown Boston from Dorchester Heights, 1841

Hairenik Association building – Watertown, Mass.

A map of the proposed highway put forth in the 1948 Massachusetts Highway Master Plan. These proposed roadways would become some of the state's most important transportation routes in the eastern portion of the state.

The was home to the Boston city council from 1865 to 1969.

Billboard advertising the construction of the Turnpike, c. 1956

General view of Boston, by J. J. Hawes, c. 1860s–1880s

New York Central Railroad (Boston and Albany parent company) employee magazine Headlights from February 1965 showing an aerial photograph of the completed Boston Extension of the Massachusetts Turnpike

Diagram of the highway system in downtown Boston before and after completion of the Big Dig

Boston traffic crawling over the closed Ted Williams Tunnel entrance during rush hour, one day after the ceiling collapse

Boston as seen from ESA Sentinel-2. Boston Harbor, at the center, has made Boston a major shipping port since its founding.

Star Market (briefly Shaw's Supermarket) was built over the turnpike in Newtonville

The Massachusetts Turnpike near the Chicopee exit

200 Clarendon Street is the tallest building in Boston, with a roof height of 790 ft.

Boston's skyline in the background, with fall foliage in the foreground

A graph of cumulative winter snowfall at Logan International Airport from 1938 to 2015. The four winters with the most snowfall are highlighted. The snowfall data, which was collected by NOAA, is from the weather station at the airport.

Per capita income in the Greater Boston area, by US Census block group, 2000. The dashed line shows the boundary of the City of Boston.

Map of racial distribution in Boston, 2010 U.S. Census. Each dot is 25 people:

Chinatown, with its paifang gate, is home to many Chinese and also Vietnamese restaurants.

U.S. Navy sailors march in Boston's annual St. Patrick's Day Parade. Irish Americans constitute the largest ethnicity in Boston.

Boston gay pride march, held annually in June

Old South Church, a United Church of Christ congregation first organized in 1669

Boston Latin School was established in 1635 and is the oldest public high school in the US.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is often cited as among the world's top universities

Harvard Business School, one of the country's top business schools

A Boston Police cruiser on Beacon Street

The Old State House, a museum on the Freedom Trail near the site of the Boston massacre

In the nineteenth century, the Old Corner Bookstore became a gathering place for writers, including Emerson, Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller. Here James Russell Lowell printed the first editions of The Atlantic Monthly.

Symphony Hall, home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra

Population density and elevation above sea level in Greater Boston (2010)

Fenway Park is the oldest professional baseball stadium still in use.

Harvard Stadium, the first collegiate athletic stadium built in the U.S.

Chamber of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in the Massachusetts State House

Boston City Hall is a Brutalist landmark in the city

Harvard Medical School, one of the most prestigious medical schools in the world

An MBTA Red Line train departing Boston for Cambridge. Bostonians depend heavily on public transit, with over 1.3 million Bostonians riding the city's buses and trains daily (2013).

South Station, the busiest rail hub in New England, is a terminus of Amtrak and numerous MBTA rail lines.

Headquarters of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

For its first quarter century Watertown ranked next to Boston in population and area.

- Watertown, Massachusetts

The Massachusetts Turnpike is informally divided into two sections by MassDOT: the original 123 mi "Western Turnpike" extending from the New York state border through the interchange with I-95 and Route 128 at exit 123 in Weston, and the 15 mi "Boston Extension" that continues beyond exit 123 through Boston.

- Massachusetts Turnpike

Watertown borders Soldiers Field Road and the Massachusetts Turnpike, major arteries into downtown Boston.

- Watertown, Massachusetts

Complicating the matter, Callahan's planned extension route was not universally accepted by others within the state, such as newly elected Governor John A. Volpe and Newton Mayor Donald Gibbs, who sought to construct a freeway that would follow a different route between the Borders of Newton, Waltham and Watertown along the Charles River and U.S. Route 20 and be constructed using the funds now being provided by the Federal Highway Administration.

- Massachusetts Turnpike

It is bordered to the east by the town of Winthrop and the Boston Harbor Islands, to the northeast by the cities of Revere, Chelsea and Everett, to the north by the cities of Somerville and Cambridge, to the northwest by Watertown, to the west by the city of Newton and town of Brookline, to the southwest by the town of Dedham and small portions of Needham and Canton, and to the southeast by the town of Milton, and the city of Quincy.

- Boston

Boston is the eastern terminus of I-90, which in Massachusetts runs along the Massachusetts Turnpike.

- Boston

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Newton, Massachusetts

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City in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States.

Emily Lavan, Heartbreak Hill, 2005 Boston Marathon

A panoramic view of Newton North High School

It is approximately 7 mi west of downtown Boston.

The city is bordered by Waltham and Watertown on the north, Needham and the West Roxbury neighborhood of Boston on the south, Wellesley and Weston on the west, and Brookline and the Brighton neighborhood of Boston on the east.

The Massachusetts Turnpike goes through the more urbanized northern section of the city before heading into Boston.

Cambridge, Massachusetts

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City in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, and part of the Boston metropolitan area as a major suburb of Boston.

Map showing the original boundaries of Cambridge and other Massachusetts cities and towns

1852 Map of Boston area showing Cambridge and regional rail lines and highlighting the course of the Middlesex Canal. Cambridge is toward the bottom of the map and outlined in yellow, and should not be confused with the pink-outlined and partially cropped "West Cambridge", now Arlington.

A view from Boston of Harvard's Weld Boathouse and Cambridge in winter. The Charles River is in the foreground.

Buildings of Kendall Square, center of Cambridge's biotech economy, seen from the Charles River

Longfellow House–Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site

Aerial view of part of MIT's main campus

The 1888 part of the Cambridge Public Library

The Weeks Bridge provides a pedestrian-only connection between Boston's Allston-Brighton neighborhood and Cambridge over the Charles River.

Engine 2, Paramedic Squad 2, Ladder 3 firehouse

As of the 2020 United States Census, the city's population was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, Worcester, and Springfield.

Located at the first convenient Charles River crossing west of Boston, Newtowne was one of several towns (including Boston, Dorchester, Watertown, and Weymouth) founded by the 700 original Puritan colonists of the Massachusetts Bay Colony under Governor John Winthrop.

The Massachusetts Turnpike does not pass through Cambridge but provides access by an exit in nearby Allston.