Blue berries
By adamg - 9/24/10 - 8:52 pm
The rest of the family wanted Five Guys, which meant a trip down to Dedham, but I was burgered out, so we stopped first at #7 Chinese Food at Grove and Washington in West Roxbury for my evening sustenance (#1 Chinese Restaurant is in Mattapan; where are #2 through #6?). While they cooked the food, we took a walk down Washington Street. We spotted these berries growing on that huge rock outcropping just south of Grove - something we obviously never would have seen had we just kept driving down Washington toward the Dedham Five Guys.
Comments
Parthenocissus duet
The berries are Virginia Creeper. The Virginia Creeper leaves are in groups of five in the middle (hence the name Parthenocissus quinquefolia - five-leaved virgin grape). They'll turn brilliant red very shortly, one of the brightest lights of autumn. It's a native, common in wood margins, old fields, vacant lots, and sometimes on the sides of buildings.
The three-pronged leaves to the left are of Boston Ivy (Parthenocissus tricuspidata - three-pronged virgin grape), a related plant that's neither from Boston nor an Ivy but an introduced species from Asia. It's the plant most commonly seen growing on brick buildings, the "Ivy" of the Ivy Leagues.
You learn something every day
Cool, thanks for the ivied education!
The corner of Washington and
The corner of Washington and Grove sts. - Kubli square. The area between Washington, Grove and Centre sts. - "The Jungle."
Germantown
I posted a version of the photo on Flickr. When I assigned a location to it, "Germantown" came up. Does anybody actually use that name anymore?
Ha! I'm no help, but I think
Ha! I'm no help, but I think of an upper-class suburb east of Memphis, TN.
Germantown? That's fascinating, thanks Adam
http://homes.point2.com/Neighborhood/US/Massachusetts/Boston/Germantown-Map.aspx
http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ma/quincy/germantown/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germantown_(Quincy,_Massachusetts)
Back when JP had breweries, I think
Enough of the German immigrants who worked there moved to the West Roxbury/Dedham line that the area became known as Germantown. But about the only proof that remains of that is the Deutsches Altenheim - a nursing home on Baker Street (which added an assisted-living facility called Edelweiss Village a few years back).
I always think of the area at Grove and Washington as the entrance to the Grove.
Shades of Newstead Montegrade
Germantown, huh? Shades of Newstead Montegrade.
Not used any more. Back in
Not used any more. Back in the 1800s, Germans settled in the area across Washington street going towards Dedham - hence the name. They worked in the mills on Mother Brook in Dedham. There was a German Street that ran between Grove and Washington streets. During or after the First World War, it was renamed Birchwood street.
Ah, that makes more sense, thanks
Rather than picturing vast hordes of German brewery workers taking the trolley up to JP.
But interesting thing: When I mentioned this to the kidlet at breakfast this morning, she said one of her classmates, who lives there, once told her that "technically" the area is Germantown. So the name is still bandied about occasionally.
That must have been....
where all the folks lived who eventually started up and went to Deutsches Altenheim when they grew older. My mom (not German) was a patient there and the nursing home has a old fashioned wood paneled bar where patients can go for a couple of drinks at cocktail hour. I thought this was a nice homey thing for them to have.
And there is the (partly) German cemetery....
... just a bit south of Forest Hills station (along Hyde Park Boulevard). Most touching monument -- to a 20-something teacher, by her students (at a German language school). ( I forget the teacher's death date -- in the 1840s or thereabouts).
The Tollgate cemetery is
The Tollgate cemetery is Catholic. Irish and German Catholics.
Tollgate Cemetery
The very first recognizable dates here seem to belong to graves of Germans. Then come lots of Irish graves (with people born in County Roscommon being especially prevalent). Then you have a wider ethnic assortment of Civil War veterans.
I lived in The Groves
briefly......used to eat at the Lucky 7 all the time. One of the more unusual neighborhoods within Boston city limits. Isolated up above Washington and Grove streets, deliberately unpaved roads, in the winter it was like going back in time 100 years.
That's it - the secret West
That's it - the secret West Roxbury.
Off topic, but
My 'rents just mentioned that #7 Chinese place to me last night; said it's the best Chinese option since Tai Ho burned down (RIP, they were a nice little business run by really nice folks).