Vine Street

Vine Street
Location Map
Neighborhood Central Park
Laid Out 1951
Right of Way 44 ft
Pavement 18 ft


Vine Street is a short street in the Central Park neighborhood in the eastern part of town, running north from Salem Road to Race Street. 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). The plan put Vine Street with Market, Arch and Race Streets in the corner of the tract near Salem Road, among long blocks of 25-foot lots meant for the men of the new Boston and Maine car shops across Pond Street. The plan gives no reason for the name.

Like the other Central Park streets, Vine Street was built on slowly. It first appears in the street list of the 1949 directory, "Vine (CP) from Race to Salem rd," and is listed the same way in 1951 and 1957. The assessors date the oldest house on it to about 1951, with others of about 1962, 1964 and 1974 and one of about 2014.

Drainage of the low ground was the street's chief problem. An article for a storm drain "in Central Park area to take care of water accumulating from Pond Street for outlet at corner of Broad and Vine Streets" was indefinitely postponed by the town meeting on March 25, 1967. On April 29, 1980 the town meeting voted $35,000 "to correct the health and drainage problems of the Fox Hill culvert, the Vine Street culvert, and the Pond Street culvert, in the Central Park area." Vine Street was repaved under the town's roadway program in fiscal 2012, and in 2019 an eight-inch water main was laid "from Pond St. down Race and Vine Streets to Broadleaf St. near Salem Rd." No vote accepting Vine Street as a town way has been found. It kept its plan name through the renamings of 1988 to 1991, unlike Broad Street, which became Broadleaf Street.



Vine Street
Central Park, 1914 (Plan 31/49)

References

  1. Billerica town report 1966: warrant for 1967, Art. 61, Central Park storm drain with outlet at corner of Broad and Vine Streets
  2. Billerica town report 1967: Article 61 (Central Park drain) indefinitely postponed, March 25, 1967 session
  3. Billerica town report 1980: Art. 45, $35,000 for the Fox Hill, Vine Street and Pond Street culverts, carried
  4. Billerica town report FY2012: Engineering, roads repaved incl. Race Street and Vine Street
  5. Billerica town report FY2019: water main laid from Pond St. down Race and Vine Streets to Broadleaf St.