14 Comments

1. 

   schlock on April 5, 2012 at 6:11 pm

   thanks Jerry for these quickie vignettes of history past; hoping these memories are posted on historical signs along the Greenway. Has ‘ Historic Newton’ weighed in on combining historical information along the parkway?

2. 

   Jerry Reilly on April 5, 2012 at 6:17 pm

   @Hoss – Not yet, but we do plan to get them involved at some point. Thanks for the reminder.

3. 

   Jerry Reilly on April 5, 2012 at 6:18 pm

   OOOps – I meant @Schlock

4. 

   BOB BURKE on April 5, 2012 at 6:54 pm

   I almost forgot that when we were kids, we used to hop on the rear landing of the last freight car as the train slowly chugged down the line. We used to pretend that we were in hiding trying to cross the Iron Curtain from East to West Berlin. Yes, we were politically aware, even then. I seem to recall that it stopped at some lumber yard which was pretty close to where the line branched off from the Riverside Boston and Albany line near Newton Highlands station. Can’t remember the years, but it was years before the commuter trains stopped running on what is now the D Line.

5. 

   tom sheff on April 6, 2012 at 11:48 am

   Hi Jerry,
   In the next couple of months I plan on doing a show on Newton’s history and would like to add this onto our list of items to talk about. I would appreciate it if you would email me at [email protected] and I would like to talk to you about this.

   Also, if anyone has any ideas on what part of Newton’s history you would like to see, either write it out on this blog or email me at [email protected]. Thanks.

6. 

   Hoss on April 6, 2012 at 6:25 pm

   tom sheff — how about a show on the greatest inventions originating from Newton MA? There must be someone in the city that can generate an interesting patent list.

7. 

   Jerry Reilly on April 6, 2012 at 7:06 pm

   I juts did a quick search on the USPTO web site and found 8937 patents who’s “inventors” address was Newton, MA. I’ve got a few of my own but they were issued before I got to Newton … and they are definitely NOT interesting.

8. 

   BOB BURKE on April 6, 2012 at 8:04 pm

   @Tom. I believe the Stanley Steamer was designed and produced in Newton. I don’t know if it was patented here, or if it was patented at all.

9. 

   Hoss on April 6, 2012 at 10:19 pm

   Jerry — I see what you did there. The fine print says patents before 1975 are searchable only by date, number and classification (on the USPTO site). So we’re missing Newton’s industrial revolution.

   Anyone that wants to see some outstanding programming on area industrial history should start here: http://www.newtv.org/programming/community/newton-history-project [For one thing, it answers why Waltham is the watch capital. And that answer is not obvious at all]

10. 

    Jerry Reilly on April 7, 2012 at 12:00 am

    @Hoss – Its even more amazing that there have been 8937 patents issues to Newton inventors since 1975. I guess we live in a very inventive town.

11. 

    Anil Adyanthaya on April 7, 2012 at 10:18 am

    A couple of nominations:

    The Fig Newton

    Dragon Systems – originators of the speech recognition technology now popularized by Nuance, was headquarted in Newton.

12. 

    Jerry Reilly on April 7, 2012 at 10:43 am

    “Dragon Systems” – good one Anil

    I nominate the Stanley Steamer

    … and whatever they do or make in the small company called “Newtron” beside the pike just east of 128. I always loved that name.

13. 

    tom sheff on April 7, 2012 at 5:58 pm

    The patent idea is certainly a great idea, keep those thoughts coming…some good stuff. Thanks again.

14. 

    Jerry Reilly on April 8, 2012 at 3:27 pm

    If you want a current day Newton inventor you probably couldn’t do better than Ray Kurzweil – optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis (reading machines for the blind), speech recognition technology, and electronic keyboard instruments