Fellsmere Park Parkways, Metropolitan Park System of Greater Boston

Two short roads in Malden, Massachusetts, West Border Road and Boundary Road, run along the hillsides above Fellsmere Park and its pond. The Metropolitan Parks Commission built West Border Road after awarding a contract in 1914 and redesigned the existing Boundary Road as a border parkway the same year. Each is about 20 feet wide, has no median, and is less than a mile long. Granite retaining walls, stone stairs down to the park and filtered views of the pond are notable features. The roads follow the design principles of the Olmsted firm for the Greater Boston metropolitan park system. In 1935-36, landscape architect Arthur Shurcliff redesigned the surrounding park with Works Progress Administration labor. The parkways are recognized for their role in community planning, landscape architecture, engineering, transportation and recreation. Later changes have been limited mostly to repaving, so the roads keep their early twentieth-century character and setting.