Waterview Avenue

Waterview Avenue is a horseshoe-shaped street in North Billerica that leaves Pollard Street just south of the Fordway Bridge, swings out toward the Concord River and comes back to Pollard Street about 500 feet farther south. It was laid out as River View Avenue on the "Plan of Concord River Park, North Billerica, Mass.," drawn by Whitman & Howard, civil engineers, of Boston, dated January 25, 1911 and recorded March 23, 1911 (Plan Book 28 Plan 49). The plan shows 74 house lots between Pollard Street and the river, with River View Avenue looping through them and a short Pleasant Street running from Pollard Street to a small circle on the avenue. The tract was the farm of Owen Murningham, opposite the end of Call Street; after his death in 1909 his daughter Mary Catherine and her husband Edward M. Harrington divided it into house lots, and the first lots were sold in 1911. The name described the outlook of the riverside lots.

The directories of 1916 and 1919 list "River View Avenue from Pollard opp Call to Concord river." The town was slow to take it over. In 1923 the Finance Committee reported that the street was "little more than a wagon track across the fields. There has been no work of any value done to put it in acceptable condition," and an article to accept it "from Pollard Street to the hydrant opposite the residence of Richard Kidder" was dismissed in 1924. The same request passed on Feb. 9, 1929, when the town voted to "accept Riverview Ave. as a Town way from Pollard St. to a point opposite the residence of Richard Kidder," and a water main costing $568.64 was laid that year. Further articles in 1930 (800 feet) and 1941 (575 feet) are not among the recorded acceptances, but a special town meeting on Oct. 28, 1946 accepted "an additional 900 feet of Riverview Avenue as laid out by the Board of Selectmen from end already accepted."

The highway department "scraped, rolled and tarred" the avenue in 1940 and gave it a tar seal coat "for 500 feet west of Pollard Street" in 1943. In 1948 an article for $500 to gravel it was dismissed, the selectmen "to take recognition of the fact that the people on Riverview Avenue desire to have this street graveled," and that year tar penetration was applied for 1,200 feet; in 1949 it was asphalt sealed over its entire length.

Billerica also had a Riverview Street off Lombard Street and a Riverview Road off Nashua Road, and on April 25, 1988, effective July 1, 1988, the selectmen renamed "Riverview Avenue, 2nd and 4th left off Pollard Street beyond High Street," as Waterview Avenue, keeping the sense of the old name; the other two became Stoney Drive and Carter Avenue. The avenue is not one of the roads of the 1831 town map accepted in 2016, and it came too late for the street lists of 1897 and 1899.

References

1. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1946: special town meeting of Oct. 28, 1946 accepts an additional 900 feet of Riverview Avenue as laid out by the Board of Selectmen
2. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1956: list of streets accepted by the town, with Riverview Ave. from Pollard St. to opposite residence of Kidder 2-9-29 and an additional 900 ft. 10-28-46
3. Annual Report of the Town of Billerica, 1988: selectmen's sub-committee for re-naming streets; Riverview Avenue, 2nd and 4th left off Pollard Street beyond High Street, renamed Waterview Avenue (voted April 25, 1988)