Fellsway East
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Fells Connector Parkways, Metropolitan System of Greater Boston
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Fellsway West in Medford
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| Location | Malden and Medford, Massachusetts |
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| Coordinates | 42°26′40″N 71°4′45″W / 42.44444°N 71.07917°WCoordinates: 42°26′40″N 71°4′45″W / 42.44444°N 71.07917°W |
| Built | 1895 |
| Architect | Eliot, Charles; Olmsted Brothers |
| MPS | Metropolitan Park System of Greater Boston MPS |
| NRHP Reference # | |
| Added to NRHP | May 9, 2003 |
The Fells Connector Parkways are a group of historic parkways in the cities of Malden and Medford, Massachusetts, suburbs north of the city of Boston. The three parkways, The Fellsway, Fellsway West, and Fellsway East serve to provide access from the lower portion of the Mystic River Reservation to the Middlesex Fells Reservation. The latter two parkways continue northward, providing access to the interior of the Fells and providing a further connection to the Lynn Fells Parkway. Significant portions of these parkways south of the Fells, which were among the first connecting parkways designed to be part of the Metropolitan Park System of Greater Boston by Charles Eliot, were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.
Following the enactment of authorizing legislation in 1894, the Metropolitan Parks Commission (predecessor to the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC) and today's Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR)) began working with Charles Eliot to plan a parkway to provide access from Boston to the Middlesex Fells Reservation. This job was made difficult due the existence of relatively densely populated areas between the Mystic River and the reservation. The plan that the commission and Eliot finally drafted called for an arterial trunk (The Fellsway), which would run north through Medford and Malden, and then split into two branches. Fellsway West would provide access to the promontory point at Pine Hill in Medford (now visible on the west side of Interstate 93) and the western parts of the reservation, while Fellsway East would provide access to Bear's Den Hill in Malden, and points east. These corridors were wide (120-foot (37 m)) rights of way, in order to provide for several modes of transportation: automobile, street car, and pedestrians and cyclists.
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