Surroundings

The Past Remembered Anew:

How Childhood Moments Reveal   

Who We Are Now

Bill

The street on which I lived in Jamaica Plain, Adams Circle, is about four miles from Boston's City Hall Plaza.  In my current life that is walking distance as I often walk three to four miles in an afternoon. As a kid I knew of only one way to get to downtown Boston. Take the elevated train.  If someone had suggested I could walk to Boston from my house in JP, my disbelieving response would have been, "That's so far away.  No one could walk that. It would take a month!" 

Within my neighborhood I was bounded not only by what I felt I was capable of but also by the parameter of streets I felt I should not cross.  In my mind I had a safe zone beyond which I did not venture and a concept of distance in which a mile was at the outer extreme.

My world in Jamaica Plain was delineated by an area enclosed by Armory Street on the west, Atherton to the north, Washington Street and Egleston Square to the east and Montebello to the south. It wouldn't have bothered me if nothing else existed beyond the space defined by these streets.  Within this boundary was my world.  Parents, grandparents, friends.  Schools, schoolyards, stores.  I played here, I slept here, I ate here.  It rained here, it snowed here, spring showed up every year as did summer.   I lived here.  I grew up here.  I really never had to leave.

My Jamaica Plain neighborhood was laced with familiar streets on which I walked to get to school and to friend's houses, on which I played, discovered and explored. They all seemed to have wonderful names. 

Down from Adams Circle was School Street. Yes, there was a school on it, my school, the Ellis Mendell.  My parents lived on School Street when they first got married. It's where my father's mother and father still lived when I was a kid. Down from Adams Circle was Dalrymple Street where my older sister's friends lived, where I would play tag and hide and seek on summer evenings I wished would never end.  Adams Circle was a dead end but not dead ended by a cul de sac or empty lot but by a set of stairs. Cars couldn't go any further but I could. I loved the sense of moving from one level, Adams Circle, down the stairs to another, Dalrymple Street, almost as if I were moving from the wings to the stage, a place where I could play and explore and be free.

Dalrymple was an L, the elbow of which was at Adams Circle.  The short side went down to Boylston Street, the longer end went over to Egleston Street.  Egleston led down to Haverford Street where my other set of grandparents lived, my mother's family.  My grandmother's house looked down to Montebello, one of my self-imposed boundary streets.

Taking the other part of the Dalrymple L down to Boylston I would walk with a friend down Armory where the local corner store was.  The far side of Armory was bounded by a massive granite wall, some of the locals called it Hadrian's Wall because of the way it effectively cut off one section of Jamaica Plain from the other.  The wall was a filled embankment on top of which were the tracks that carried the New York, New Haven and Hartford railroad to and from Boston.

My friends lived on the up side of Adams Circle.  As a kid it was always "down" to Dalrymple and "up" to  School Street.   Paralleling School Street was Atherton Street which was linked by both Copley Street and Arcadia Street.  All great Boston street names.  Atherton was my, mostly, northern boundary, although as I got older I began to venture, timidly, down Columbus Avenue. 

A left on School Street from Adams Circle took me down to Armory; a right took me up to Washington Street and Egleston Square. At that time the square was still a bustling commercial center. This was my eastern terminus but what a street it was.  My parents knew it well during  their early married lives replete as it was with places to buy cheese and tea, pastries, fruits and vegetables, meats and deli, places to bring shoes to be cobbled, shirts to be laundered, along with lunch counters to sit at, and the Egleston Theatre in which to watch movies.

Keeping the street dark and dappled was the MTA, the elevated train, on which I would ride when my mother took my brother and me into Boston, "in town".  When I was older I'd also explore Egleston Square on my own or with a friend. It could be a bit dangerous.  Not only from the automobiles but you also had to keep an eye out for the streetcars that were back and forth day and night.  Often you'd hear the trolley bell before you were aware they were bearing down on you.

There were a number of what we might today call supermarkets in the square.  Not as streamlined, not as big as today but they were always crowded and seemed jammed with every type of food, much of it in cases, over ice and in barrels.  I remember the First National, the A&P, and Lodgen's market, the store my parents would shop at.

On Washington at Beethoven Street was the Egleston movie theatre.  My mother and her cousins would see a movie here just about every week for years before, during and after the war.  I too recall attending Saturday afternoons with my brother or with a friend.  Next to the movie theatre was the fire station which always held a certain fascination for me.  

I remember the JP neighborhood with a certain fondness.  There was always a lot to do, always places to go, something different to explore.  At the ages of six and seven, when I was out and about on my own, I felt safe there.

Have things changed all that much or was it safer then for kids to be out on their own without a parent supervising or driving them everywhere or even asking them where they were going?  A best selling book from the 1950s was titled, "Where did you go? Out.  What did you do? Nothing."  That sums it up. Be wary of thinking being Out and doing Nothing were boring.  It wasn't, and even it were, it's being bored under a kid's own terms.

As for safety, well, I was active so the risk of injury was high although it was contained to cuts and bruises.  I was definitely warned, mostly in a general way, about talking with strangers, and in a specific way about not taking candy from strangers.  I was never sure what that meant; why would someone I didn't know be offering me candy?  So I knew to be wary of certain situations but that knowledge did not translate into so much anxiety that it would inhibit me from exploring my neighborhood, my own little world. Be sure, in my days kids did get hurt, they hurt each other, they fought, they played rough, they broke bones, got scratched up, felt real fear, but none of what might happen precluded kids from getting out and enjoying what did happen.

When I was a kid my parents' greatest fear was likely their kids' catching some sort of disease. The very word "disease" still imparts a vague sense of foreboding.  Polio was a big deal, as were German measles and whooping cough.  Accidents too were a concern.  Many of the toys we played with were hardly safe, and we never wore a helmet when riding a bike. "Watch out for cars," was something my mother would yell to me as I walked out the door. There was risk but as a kid the bigger risk was missing out on the adventure of being with your friends especially on a summer's night as darkness fell, when both the dangers and excitement increased. Having fun always won out over everything else

I sometimes think of that maze of streets as my very own movie backlot where I could imagine all sorts of situations brought to life in complex play scenarios with my friends or just wandering around with my own imagination in place. The neighborhood's topography gave me my bearings, a place to allay my childhood angst; those Jamaica Plain streets provided me the stage on which I fulfilled my needs and my longings and even the dreams I was barely aware I had.  It's these extraordinary moments I gladly share.