Broadway Street

Broadway Street is a short dead-end street in North Billerica, about 200 feet long, running northwest from Blackstone Road in Fordway Park. It is the only built part of Broadway, the long back street of the "Plan of Fordway Park, North Billerica, Mass., owned by J. W. Wilbur Co.," drawn in May 1897 by Frederic R. Page, civil engineer, of 85 Water Street, Boston (Plan Book 13, Plan 5). On the plan Broadway ran parallel to Fordway Road, now Pollard Street, from Beacon Street, now Mechanics Way, to the North Billerica Road, now High Street, crossing Beacon, Maple, Walnut, Chestnut, Oak and Hawthorne Streets, with rows of lots 20 feet wide on both sides. The plan gives no reason for the name.

For most of its length Broadway remained a paper street. The town meeting of 1927 was asked to accept Chestnut Street "from Pollard Street to the intersection of Broadway," and the 1988 renaming of that street as Truman Avenue still described it as running "From Pollard Street to Broadway Street." An article of the spring town meeting of 1983 to discontinue the eastern end of Broadway was dismissed, but at the fall town meeting of October 4, 1983 the town voted under Article 11 to discontinue as a public way, and convey to the abutters for one dollar, "Broadway Street between Oak Street and High Street," 40 feet wide and about 534 feet long, and part of Hawthorne Street, keeping a permanent utility easement. A special town meeting session of October 18, 1994 authorized the selectmen to discontinue that easement.

The two houses on the built part of the street were built about 1994 and 1995 and sold in 1995 by the trustee of a realty trust. The fall town meeting of 2001 was asked to accept "Broadway St, Blackstone St to Dead End," 150 feet, with a list of other streets, but that article was dismissed on October 2, 2001; the spring town meeting of 2002, at its session of May 14, 2002, accepted Broadway Street from Blackstone Street to the dead end, about 200 feet, as a public way.

References

1. 1983 town report: spring town meeting, Art. 46 (discontinue parts of Broadway and Hawthorne Streets) dismissed
2. 1983 town report: fall warrant Art. 11, discontinue Broadway Street between Oak Street and High Street
3. 1983 town report: fall town meeting, Art. 11 carried, Broadway discontinued 40 by 534 feet
4. 1994 town report: Oct. 18, 1994 special town meeting, Art. 7, discontinue utility easement in Broadway and Hawthorne Streets
5. 2002 town report: fall 2001 warrant Art. 25 street list, Broadway St Blackstone St to Dead End 150
6. 2002 town report: fall town meeting first session Oct. 2, 2001, Art. 25 dismissed
7. 2002 town report: May 14, 2002 Art. 19, Broadway St Blackstone St to Dead End, 200 feet, accepted