A little West Roxbury humor
To get this, you need to know that there's a large sign on the VFW Parkway for Havey Beach, even though Havey Beach hasn't been open since, oh, the 1950s.
I'm in the checkout line at the Home Depot (buying a replacement sliding screen door for our back porch). The two guys ahead of me have obviously just bought a house, since they're buying a collection of things you would only buy if you just bought a house - a hose, various pruning implements, a couple of plants, a hammer, etc., etc. After they pay, one asks the 20-something cashier (in a charming British accent): "Are there any swimming beaches around here?" She looks at him like he's suddenly grown a second head. An older cashier overhears him and says "There's the ocean. But around here? Only the murky Charles."
They leave, and as they do, she laughs, "Yeah, there's Hahvey's Beach." I say oh, so brightly "Yep, and that's been closed for, what, 50 years?" She answers: "No, Hahvey's Beach. Haven't you ever seen the movie? Hahvey? The rabbit? It's invisible." And she laughs even harder.
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So where was this beach ...
why is it closed, and what's there now in its place?
Havey Beach
It's between the Home Depot and Spring Street. There's still a large MDC (or is it DCR now?) sign right in front of what is a cool looking old stable building (which itself dates back to an even older orphanage farm). There's often room for one car there if you're lucky; if not and you're driving and want to explore, there's plenty of parking on the Dedham side of the river and then you can walk over (it's maybe a five-minute walk). By public transit, I think there's a bus from Forest Hills to the VA Hospital across the parkway.
The beach itself is now given over to trees and scrub. A couple years ago, state Rep. Mike Rush proposed turning it into a canoe launch and a destination on a Charles River walking path (that would hook up with the path along the Charles at Millennium Park); dunno if anything ever came of that (but there is some Eagle Scout who's cleaning up the area to earn his badge).
As to why it closed, well, Charles River in the 1950s. That about says it all.
Watertown?
doesn't border West Roxbury at all. Did you mean Dedham or Needham, perhaps?
I should check this area out some time. I'm looking at my Rand McNally map of Boston, copyright 1999, and it still shows this beach, marked in green along the riverbank.
If I ever start making enough to hire a factchecker
Then the job is yours, Ron! You're right, of course. I really meant Dedham.
What I never got is when the MDC put up all new signage along its parkways (much better signs than the wussy things the DCR has replaced them with, if you ask me, but you didn't), the put up that big, bold Havey Beach sign.
A Watershed Moment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Charlesrivermap.png for some mapping help.
I used to think that the Charles smelled intestinal, but I never really realized that it loops like one, too!
I did know that it ended up in Maynard and up that way, and can be pretty ferocious in wet weather. I also know that the Sudbury and Assabet rivers don't pass too very far from the chuck, but their water heads north to Lowell and into the ocean via the Merrimack at Newburyport/Plum Island.
I blame glaciers.
The Charles is many things, but not Maynardish
I say this as a former reporter up that way, who covered many a SuAsCo (Sudbury, Assabet, Concord, natch) story - my absolute favorite, though, is one I didn't cover - the time the Concord selectmen tried to ban the Sudbury Minutemen from the Patriots' Day celebration (because the Sudbury Minutemen had a tendency to imbibe just a bit too much on the way over and get rowdier than the Concord stuffed shirts felt was appropriate) and the Sudbury Minutemen proved just as resourceful as their forebears: Instead of marching to Old North Bridge, they paddled up the Sudbury (along which they had deposited caches of beer the night before).
Yeah, loops. One thing I think I finally annoyed the family to death with is asking "Hey, guess what river we're crossing?" every time we head north on 128 - especially if we start on Spring Street in West Roxbury (because then you get to cross it twice before you even get to 128).
Maynard
is the smallest suburban town on that map, just under the inset, looking like a little bite that was taken out of much larger Sudbury. Nowhere near the Charles.
Maynard
Was bitten out of four towns, was named for Amory Maynard, who started the woolen mill on the Assabet that still dominates the center of town (it later became DEC world headquarters). Maynard and neighboring Stow have the state's highest concentration of Finnish-Americans, descendants of some of the original mill workers. Today, most of the town is actually owned by the U.S. Army.
And yes, I knew all this stuff without even looking at Wikipedia. Just don't ask me about trivial stuff, like when the car payment is due ...
Rivers Running In Circles!
Yikes, you're both right - it isn't the Charles through that area.
Might help if these durn rivers would run in consistent directions! Wandering geezers!
The Sudbury and Assabet do come quite close to the Charles, but drain in an entirely different direction.
The river that comes closest to the Charles
Is probably the Neponset (which is actually connected to it via the Mother Brook, the oldest canal in the U.S., arrgh, stop me before I start spouting more useless facts!).
Havey Beach
Weirder than the idea of Havey Beach being swimmable
is the idead of the trailer park as a recreation
desitnation. In the late 1800's it was called
"Caledonian Grove" and was, like Havey Beach, a
recreation site. See an old map with details:
http://communityheritagemaps.com/antique_map_west_roxbury/big/westroxbury31.html
42.277626, -71.175742
Throw this into google maps: 42.277626, -71.175742
Houghton's Pond
What about the swimming beach at Houghton's Pond? Dave and the boys used to go hike Blue Hill, do the nature center, and then head there for a swim. I would bike from the Medical Area out Blue Hill Ave. and into the DCR reservation to join them and swim too.
I know that can't be too far from Wrox! Is it just not in the exact same neighborhood and therefore "invisible"?
Oh, sure
I thought of it after the guys had left (probably because my last visit there didn't end all that well).
Oh Yeah
If a father taking pictures of his daughter *must* be a pedophile (real men don't ever touch their kids for any reason save corporal punishment if you are an attention-starved busybody bonehead) I can't help but wonder how two homo-wning men would be treated!
Despite my husband bringing the kids on his own to Houghtons, there was never a bad ending - especially with Fontaines being the logical next stop!
Havey Beach photos
These are from last September; things might look a bit different now that the Eagle Scout's been busy (for one thing, he's probably cleaned up the remains of fires, old beer cans, used condoms and other such stuff back there):
The old stable/beach house:
What's actually left of the beach:
The silly sign on the VFW Parkway:
The view from what's left of the beach toward the old stable:
I pass that sign often and
I pass that sign often and have long wondered if the DCR was on crack