Market Street

Market Street is a street in the Central Park neighborhood in the eastern part of town, running southeast from near Pond Street, across Broadleaf Street, to Salem Road; about 1,200 feet of it is in use. It was laid out on the "Plan of Central Park, Billerica Mass," surveyed between November 1913 and March 1914 by John N. McClintock and Robert B. Bellamy, engineers, of Dorchester, for James E. Burke, owner, and recorded on April 27, 1914 (Plan Book 31, Plan 49). On the plan's first sheet Market Street is one of four parallel streets in the corner of the tract near Salem Road, with Chestnut Street (now Bayberry Lane), Arch Street and Race Street, running from Pond Street across Broad Street to Salem Road between blocks of 25-foot lots. The plan gives no reason for the name.

Market Street first appears in the town directory's street list in 1951. The assessors date the oldest house now on it to about 1965; most of the others were built between 1968 and 1987. It was one of the streets accepted as public ways under Article 40 of the annual town meeting of 1972, together with Chestnut Avenue from the same plan. Drainage of the low ground was a long-standing problem: an article to raise $55,000 for drainage in the Central Park area "including Chestnut Street, Broadleaf Street, and Market Street" was lost on June 12, 1979, and on April 29, 1980 the town meeting voted $35,000 for the Fox Hill, Vine Street and Pond Street culverts in the Central Park area, Market Street among the streets named.

On October 17, 1989 the town meeting voted to discontinue the end of Market Street between Pond Street and the southeasterly side of lot 319, about 100 feet of a way 60 feet wide, keeping a drain and utility easement over it. A petition article of 1991 to discontinue a further 75 feet "from the intersection of Broadleaf" was defeated at the special town meeting of October 1, 1991. In fiscal 2020 a new eight-inch water main was laid from Market Street to Moosewood Street, replacing pipe of 1941, and Market Street was repaved in fiscal 2021. It kept its plan name through the renamings of 1988 to 1991.

References

1. Annual Report 1972: warrant Art. 40, street acceptances, incl. Market Street and Chestnut Avenue
2. Annual Report 1972: Art. 40 vote, streets accepted, incl. Market Street
3. Annual Report 1979: June 12, 1979, Art. 12, Central Park drainage (Chestnut, Broadleaf, Market) lost
4. Annual Report 1980: April 29, 1980, Art. 45, $35,000 for Central Park culverts incl. Market Street
5. Annual Report 1989: fall warrant Arts. 46-47, Race Street acceptance, Market Street discontinuance
6. Annual Report 1989: Oct. 17, 1989, Pond Street end of Market Street discontinued (Art. 47)
7. Annual Report 1991: Oct. 1, 1991 special town meeting, Art. 6, Market Street discontinuance lost
8. Annual Report 1963: Planning Board, Supreme Court decision placing Central Park under subdivision control