An abbreviated version of this article ran in our winter newsletter. Here it in in full.
A Road Runs Through It
By Jim Briand
March 1955 was a time of contradictions. Postwar optimism coexisted with cold war fear, the cool confidence of Eisenhower with the nuclear brinksmanship of John Foster Dulles. In Canton, Massachusetts two world-views competed as well. An older sensibility prized common natural spaces as a counterpoint to urban life, while a new perspective elevated the freedom and mobility afforded by the automobile and private backyard recreation. The struggle left a lasting mark on the Blue Hills Reservation, dividing it in two.
Progress was the word of the day. It embodied both dedication to scientific approaches to society and commerce and a mild disdain for more haphazard approaches of prior generations. Progress was also patriotic as our economic superiority was intertwined with our Cold War military advantage. This connection became clear in the famous Kitchen Debate of 1959 when Soviet Premier Khrushchev and Vice President Nixon debated which system could produce more homes, automobiles and labor saving devices.
For many in the mid-fifties progress was synonymous with the automobile. July 1954 witnessed the General Motors Parade of Progress on the Boston Common. A caravan of “future-liners,” the biggest and most powerful GM vehicles yet, was paraded to “illustrate how industry and science have increased opportunities for a better and more comfortable way of life.” It was generally accepted, when GM Chairman Charlie Wilson told the Senate in 1955 "What is good for GM is good for America."
In fact, the family car, the highway and national defense were closely related in the public mind. The threat of nuclear attack was a part of everyday life. Large signs on existing Boston roadways in 1955 declared, “In the event of enemy air attack this highway will be closed to all except military vehicles.” In 1956 President Eisenhower would advance the National Interstate and Defense Highway Act with the explicit purpose of advancing military and civil defense aims. Better highways would permit faster evacuations. To be against highways in the mid-fifties was not just anti-progress, it was anti-American.
Yet, building a modern highway system in Boston in the 1950’s inevitably meant conflict with an earlier legacy devoted to land preservation. Boston had been a leader in creating great public spaces through the efforts of Olmstead, Eliot and others. Franklin Park, the Emerald Necklace, the Blue Hills and the Fells Reservation formed a Green Belt around the city. Such preserves were explicitly intended, in Lewis Mumford's words, to provide “...a refuge for privacy” that would "resist the highway engineer’s itch to congeal [the entire region] into a solid urban mass...”
By the 1950’s the need for a parkland refuge was less important to many aspiring post-war families than was acquiring land of their own. As teenagers this generation had seen hopes of prosperity delayed by the Great Depression, when struggling extended families combined into small urban spaces. The war meant more sacrifice, either in the service, or through fuel and tire rationing that limited mobility on the home front. By 1946 families had endured 15 years of enforced closeness. Protecting public spaces, however beautiful, took second place to getting your own backyard.
It was against this background that the Massachusetts Commissioner of Public Works, 47 year old John Volpe, proposed a plan for the new Route 128. Volpe was an ambitious self-made man. The son of a poor Italian immigrant, he spoke no English on entering the first grade. A rare ethnic Republican at a time when that party was still firmly dominated by Boston Brahmins, he became a wealthy contractor in his twenties. His career would take him to the governorship, to US Transportation Secretary under Nixon and nearly to the Vice Presidency, passed over at the very last minute in favor of Spiro Agnew.
Volpe had assumed his role the year before from legendary builder and patronage chief William Callahan. Volpe was determined to complete the vision of a series of radial highways that Democrat Callahan had left undone, especially the combination of the South East Expressway and Route 128. Volpe saw the work as the only rational solution to the automotive gridlock that had enveloped Boston following postwar growth in cars and suburban housing. And if that meant individual sacrifice, that was the price of progress.
Volpe confidently asserted, “In my opinion and also the opinion of nationally respected experts...the completion of the Central Artery will be the best thing that has happened to Boston in the last century.” Furthermore, “the dislocation of people and property are necessarily inherent in this plan and are purely transitory. The people of Boston will understand that rather than engaging in opposition that will cripple Boston , they must support his plan and move Boston into the foremost ranks of cities of this world. Personal sacrifice must be made for progress.”
The upgrading of Old Route 128 into a super highway had ended at Dedham under Callahan. The new road would have three high-speed lanes of limited access roadway, a vital link in Volpe’s vision of driving from Provincetown to Gloucester “unimpeded by traffic lights or grade crossings.” It would meet the Expressway and Route 3 in Braintree. On July 15, 1954 he laid out his vision for the path of the road at a public hearing. He expected no opposition and encouraged none.
Volpe’s team had identified two possible routes, north through the Blue Hills Reservation or south through Randolph. Volpe saw only one rational alternative--the Blue Hills. By his calculations that route would save money, miles and time. Besides, he wanted no opposition after recent drawn out debates on East Milton Square. Having had heard rumblings of opposition in Randolph to a southern route, he had no intention of mentioning an alternative plan. That July evening no opposition was voiced to the Blue Hills plan.
For eight months things remained quiet and planning proceeded. Then on March 2nd, 1955 State Representative Harold Putnam of Needham raised an alarm. The 39 year old Putnam was, in many respects, Volpe’s opposite. Bearing an old New England name, he was the product of Boston Latin School and Dartmouth College. A journalist by trade, he became a lawyer while serving in the State House. A World War II vet like Volpe, he had just completed his sixth term in the house. His publicly stated ambition was to enter the US House of Representatives when the sitting congressman, Richard Bowditch Wigglesworth retired in two years.
On March 3rd, 1955 Volpe was conducting a public hearing on an unrelated matter and Harold Putnam seized control of the agenda. Before a hushed crowd he declared that Volpe's plan to take 750 Acres of reservation land for the highway would be "the ruin of the Blue Hills," and demanded that a new route be found. "This land is priceless and irreplaceable," said Putnam. "It brings joy to thousands of people seeking relaxation from bustling city life." Spurred on by Putnam, several others stood to speak. They shared their love of the reservation's natural beauty and asked that it remain inviolate. Volpe, uncharacteristically caught off-guard , agreed to hold a public hearing one week later to discuss the route.
In the intervening days debate raged on the front pages and editorial sections of the region's many newspapers of The Boston Globe, The Herald and the Post, and the Quincy Patriot Ledger. Putnam charged Volpe and the DPW with a cover-up of viable alternative routes. He said that he discovered, just one week ago, that a secret alternative route had been drawn up by engineer Charles E. Downe in December at the request of DPW. This plan, claimed Putnam, had been concealed from the legislature, denying it the chance to hear the merits of a southern route that would spare the Blue Hills.
Volpe responded with a fusillade of numbers. All other plans, he said, were “much too costly, would require more miles and more dislocation of homes and businesses.” A route to the south would take 65 more homes, three more businesses, add over 4.3 million dollars to the cost and 3.5 miles to the route. Furthermore, Volpe asserted that he had succeeded in reducing land takings to only 294 acres, and that “all but 10 or 20 acres is swampland.” Even if you considered that swampland had value--and Volpe did not--that land accounted for “only 3% of reservation land, leaving 97% of the park in tact.” What he failed to mention was that the 3% would cut the reservation in two.
At 4 PM on March 10th 1955, more than 250 people packed a small Canton hearing room. Volpe led off. “The proposed route will not destroy the Blue Hills, he said, it will make it more accessible and safer to use,” he said. In fact, “a great many more will enjoy its beauty by driving through than ever used it in the past.”
Putnam stood to respond. “Commissioner Volpe’s plan, he stated, represents nothing less than the wanton and reckless sabotage of the public domain. We must preserve the Reservation. Boston is the second most congested metropolitan area in the nation. This recreational land will be more highly prized in the future. A good alternative route has been proposed. Anyone who loves the Blue Hills should join me."
Canton representative William P. Homans concurred . “I see [this part of] Route 128 becoming a super-super highway,” he predicted, “For a stretch [it] will have to handle east-west and north-south traffic. This town will suffer from much increased traffic.”
Furious opposition came from residents of Randolph. Randolph State Representative Ralph Cartwright, charged that Putnam’s alternative route would go two miles into Randolph and bisect the town. Milton’s John Sheldon, an East Milton Square property owner, offered support, saying, “What happened to East Milton...should not happen to any other town.” Emotions reached a fevered pitch when Joseph Semensal, Chairman of the Randolph Board of Selectman charged “Randolph will become a ghost town if the alternative plan succeeds.”
Representatives of Quincy business interests raised the stakes yet again, asserting that the alternative route was not just bad for business, but a threat to security in the event of Russian nuclear attack. According to Z Cranston Smith, Chairman of the Quincy Chamber of Commerce Parking and Traffic Committee, "the proposed alternative would move the route too far from Quincy for civil defense evacuation purposes. We would be trapped with no place to get out [if an air raid] should occur--trapped by the Neponset River Bridge and the Fore River Bridge.” The mayor and city manager of Quincy are 100% behind the original plan,” added the Chamber’s William O’Connell.
Thomas Dunn, a Dorchester scout master, spoke for the children of Boston. "What parent, he asked, will let their children hike on their own, as they do today, when the Reservation is crossed by a high-speed expressway?
At the end of the evening passions remained high and the issue remained unresolved. Yet no one had illusions about the ultimate outcome. John Volpe was both judge and jury, and barring extraordinary political intervention, his mind was made up.
The most eloquent statement on the entire affair came from a local Wollaston man, Arthur C. Wesley. In a letter to the Patriot Ledger one week later, Wesley observed:
...As I listened to Representative Putnam...I realized, here is the last place that any person can go close to Boston and enjoy a natural park without fences and highway signs. This highway is a foot in the door. Then will come bypasses and new connecting links, the noise and stench of fast diesel trucks. It will no longer be a bird sanctuary, no more will it be a study of nature and then it will be too late.
It seems ironical that we solicit funds...to preserve museum pieces like...Old Ironsides and the Old North Church, and then we proceed to slice up a state forest...
The extra $4 million dollars today will benefit ourselves after billions have been wasted overseas, a small cost indeed. Thirty years from now we will cuss ourselves for our short-sightedness and letting our last natural preserve be ruined.
For your own sake and for generations to come, let us keep the faith with the far-sighted individuals who saw the need for preserving this refuge from city living, and register a protest now. Hundreds of petitions should circulate so we can preserve the Reservation and keep the Blue Hills blue for our children and our children’s children.
In the end no such uprising occurred. Faced with a choice between progress and parkland, and between dividing a town and dividing a preserve, Volpe knew his course: 294 acres of swampland seemed a low price to pay.
Sources: Kilgore, Kathleen, 1987. John Volpe, The Life of an Immigrant's Son, Dublin, NH: Yankee Books, The Boston Evening Globe, July 1954-March 1955, The Boston Herald, July 1954-March 1955, The Boston Post, July 1954-March 1955, The Quincy Patriot Ledger, January 1953-March 1955, The Needham Times, November 1954, March 1955, Braintree Observer 1953-1955
