Race Street

Race Street is a short street in the Central Park neighborhood in the eastern part of town, running southeast from Pond Street for about 400 feet to the point where Vine Street branches off toward Salem Road. 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 Race Street runs from Pond Street to Broad Street (now Broadleaf Street) beside the block of Arch Street, in the corner of the tract near Salem Road, with Vine Street branching from it. The origin of the name was not found.

The town directory listed Race Street in Central Park "From Pond to Broad" in 1949, 1951 and 1957, and the assessors date its houses to 1965 and 1966. On a petition of residents, the town meeting voted on October 17, 1989 to accept the laying out of Race Street "from Pond Street southeasterly a distance of 425 feet," a way 50 feet wide, after a public hearing of the Street Acceptance and Discontinuance Committee on September 28, 1989. Race Street was repaved in fiscal 2012, an eight-inch water main was laid "from Pond St. down Race and Vine Streets to Broadleaf St. near Salem Rd." in June 2019, and the street was repaved again in fiscal 2021. It kept its plan name through the renamings of 1988 to 1991.

References

1. Annual Report 1989: fall warrant Art. 46, petition to accept Race Street as a public way
2. Annual Report 1989: Oct. 17, 1989, Race Street accepted, 425 ft from Pond Street, 50 ft wide
3. Annual Report FY2012: roads repaved incl. Race Street, Salem Road and Vine Street
4. Annual Report 2019: water main from Pond St. down Race and Vine Streets to Broadleaf St.