Thirteen Villages & One Goal... Thompsonville
The Newton village of Thompsonville is often associated with its Bowen School, perhaps because it seems like everyone in Newton can figure out where the Bowen School is, but figuring out where Thompsonville begins and ends can be a bit more challenging. Thompsonville's village center is even more elusive...
According to City hall's "Village Views" webpages, Thompsonville "has a concentration of commercial activity near the intersection of Langley Road and Jackson Street, but the village is most closely associated with Chestnut Hill and the regional shopping malls on Route 9/Boylston Street ". Thompsonville is bordered by Newton Centre and the Newton Andover Theological Seminary to the northwest, conservation land to the northeast and south, Oak Hill to the southwest, and the malls of Chestnut Hill to the southeast. Newton Centre dominates at one end, and Route 9 and the malls at the other. It wasn't always this way.
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The 1850 map of Newton shows the Worcester Turnpike, and Langley Road and Cypress Street running south on either side of the seminary grounds to meet Jackson Street before it intersects the Worcester Turnpike. One can just make out Thompson's house at that intersection, so Thompsonville's "center" today is, in fact, just across Route 9 from where Thompson's house stood. It appears to have stood where the Atrium is today.
The Andover Newton Theological Seminary (ANTS) was founded in 1807 on Newton's Institution Hill. Most of the historic campus sits in Newton Centre, and just a small portion is in Thompsonville. It was sold and is no longer used by ANTS or Hebrew College.
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However, development on the former ANTS-Hebrew College campus continues to have a profound effect on traffic issues in Thompsonville. Increasing residential development in Newton Centre and Oak Hill, combined with intense commercial and high-density housing development around Route 9 in Chestnut Hill are exerting pressure on Thompsonville from either end.
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Dense Commercial & Residential Development
Florence Street is the southern continuation of Jackson Street once it crosses Route 9. It is a residential street of single and two-family houses, which over the past few decades has been urbanized. Florence Street now holds small and large condo developments, apartment houses and a few oversized McMansions. The residential side of the street faces the service area and loading docks for the Atrium and Chestnut Hill Square. Drivers use Florence Street as a high-speed cut-through to avoid Route 9 traffic jams. Despite the hard work and hard-won victories of residents in holding back even denser development, urbanization threatens Thompsonville, perhaps even more than other villages in Newton, because of Thompsonville's sensitive location.
Commercial development and activity, of an appropriate scale and character, bring jobs and tax revenue to Newton. Commercial development is preferable to new residential development, which always costs more in services than it generates in tax revenue. Residential development puts Newton further into debt, while responsible commercial development should be fiscally positive. The difficulty with any kind of development is the externalities - the loss of quality of life because of traffic, noise and other effects. The malls of Route 9 are a great convenience to Newton, and a boon to the Newton's treasury, but they come at a high cost to the residents of Thompsonville.
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Losing Affordable Houses to Teardowns & Expensive Higher-Density Housing
Thompsonville has many residential streets of single-family homes, and others with two family homes and small condo or apartment buildings. Along Route 9 and Florence Street, there are some large high-density condo and apartment complexes.
In 2003, a very large townhouse-style condominium development, The Terraces, was constructed along Langley Road, on land made available for sale by ANTS. This style of housing was unusual for Newton at the time, although developers are increasingly proposing tear-downs of older houses in Newton's long-established neighborhoods to make room for such higher-density, "luxury" housing. |