A while back we encouraged Village14 readers to send us guest posts. Kathleen Maguire took us up on the offer and has periodically been contributing posts she calls Finding Newton Awe. Thanks Kathleen
When Reverend Howard Haywood encouraged me to explore Cheesecake Brook and include it here as an example of Newton Awe, I was not impressed. The Cheesecake Brook I knew seemed to just trickle down Albermarle’s median strip; it was entirely unremarkable.
However, the opportunity to meet the venerable Reverend Howard Haywood was too good to resist. I sensed he had a story that would bring me closer to Newton. The Haywood’s DNA has been making Newton home since 1850. So, if Reverend Haywood thought Cheesecake Brook was worthy of my study of Newton Awe, then I needed to find out why. I needed to hear and connect with Cheesecake Brook’s significance and let it flow into my own Newton experience.
I learned quickly that the story of Cheesecake Brook does not begin, or even revolve around Albermarle. Cheesecake Brook begins to the left of Brae Burn Country Club on Fuller Street and winds its way, mostly underground, through West Newton and Newtonville and ends at the corner of Bridge and California Streets in Nonantum where it flows into the Charles River. While largely subterranean today, it still flows above ground here and there; through public and private property. These spots above ground give us a glimpse of what Newton’s early settlers experienced. The name Cheesecake Brook is a shortened version of “Cheese and Cake” Brook. Early settlers picnicked beside the brook and enjoyed special treats of cheese and cake on Sundays.
Our tour started on Fuller Street where Reverend Haywood shared his belief that Cheesecake Brook has always unified our city in a quiet, subtle way. While the brook flows through private, restricted access property, the flow of the water itself has always been communal. No private property owner can own the water that runs through his property; the water is free to move where the current leads it and pulse like life-blood in an artery through our city. This free flowing water unites all of us as it travels from neighborhood to neighborhood.
After Fuller Street, our first stop was the far right corner of the playing fields behind Warren House where the brook surfaces for a few yards. Rev. Haywood recalled boyhood escapades with other Village youth along this bend in the brook where they caught goldfish and had old fashioned fun. Back in those days, the brook traveled above ground on a diagonal to the heart of The Village where Reverend Haywood’s family settled in 1850. Towards the end of present day Prospect Street, at the edge of the CCSB property, the brook was above ground and ran through a field that was the center of life in The Village. From their porches, parents could watch one another’s children play in this wide-open space. It was community living at its best. The same water that flowed down from Fuller Street came right into The Village, plain and simple. With the Pike extension, this stretch of Cheesecake Brook went deep underground and The Village of Reverend Haywood’s childhood stood no more.
Taking a sharp right at Border Street, the brook continues underground through the police department parking lot and then through the small berm that borders the right hand side of the field of the old Davis School. It runs parallel to Route 16 and emerges above ground again just before The Barn’s property line. As it approaches Eddy Street, it slips back underground and head for its long, above-ground Albermarle stretch. Then, it slips underground again until it opens up into its ultimate Newton destination: The Charles River at Bridge and California Streets.
Rev. Haywood is on point. This humble brook quietly carries Newton Awe, day after day, generation after generation, through Newton neighborhoods, out into the Charles River and ultimately out into Boston’s estuaries and the oceans beyond. “The lowly will be exalted and the exalted will be brought low.” Ezekiel 21:26 and so is the case with Cheesecake Brook. Thank you Rev. Haywood for opening my eyes to the wonder of these gentle waters.
Kathleen, I also learned some years ago from a student at the Radcliffe landscape design program that the concept of the houses facing the brook and the roadway on either side along Albemarle Road was designed by Olmstead, Olmstead and Eliot.
I am very proud of that little park in the photograph. The neighborhood and I worked closely with the planning department and Wesson & Sampson on a master plan for this park. Using CDBG neighborhood improvement funds, we took an inaccessible stretch of the Cheesecake Brook that was surrounded by chain link fence and littered with discarded bicycles, shopping carts, bottles and other refuse, and turned it into a park that gets a lot of loving use from the public and is care from neighbors. The sound of the rushing water as you sit or walk beside the brook all but drowns out the sound of the MassPike, which is only a block away across Washington Street and offers a pleasant respite.
The Cheesecake flows directly into the Charles River at the end of Albemarle, doesn’t it? I’m confused about this section that goes underground until Bridge and California streets.
Thanks you Ted and Margaret for sharing your perspectives on Cheesecake Brook. As Reverend Haywood explained to me, it is a source of awe in many parts of Newton, even the stretches that have been pushed underground.
The story of how Cheesecake Brook gots its name is recounted in “History of Newton, Massachusetts: Town and City, from Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, 1630-1880” by Samuel Francis Smith (1880).
A Walk Through Time Along Cheesecake Brook is also worth a read.
Would that Kathleen and reverend Haywood found awe in what’s left of the natural and man made beauty in Newton , and devoted as much enthusiasm in its preservation as they do about this overworked storm sewer . We are loosing public trees at a much faster rate than they are being replaced. We are losing naturally affordable housing units to mc mansionization with little concern. We are encouraging the decoration of our extraordinary housing stock with fire escapes in the guise of accessory apartments. We are urbanizing the “Garden City” at an unprecedented rate of change . Where is the awe and appreciation for what might still be preserved?
Bill Cheesecake Brook is not part of the sewer system. As I’m sure you know – we have many brooks that run through Newton that were put underground by our forefathers and foremothers so that more housing could be created in Newton. A very welcoming notion for newcomers! If you want to learn more about it this is a pretty good place to read more http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC35X3M_cheesecake-brook?guid=6b70288a-43cb-4c08-b743-174934fdeb32
Bill, I am sure you jest, there are no facts that back up your statements. I value the beautiful natural resources that we have in Newton but I also believe that affordable housing should not be limited to home ownership and any regulations that denies property owners to build within the approved zoning regulations.
@Howard
You forgot to mention you have no problem with those individuals who build within approved zoning regulations neighbors; Those who make a mockery of zoning ordinance, and neighborhood context and build what they want. Where is the justice in that?
Way to derail the thread, Bill. Must every comment you make come down to the same diatribe every time?
Howard: no need to feed the trolls.
The brook was channelized in the 19th century by farmers who wanted to control the annual flooding. Its channel was also moved in the 19th century as it ran alongside Watertown Street, but was moved south to allow for better house lots along Watertown. Albemarle Park is a filled in wetland and is the place where the area farmers pastured their cows.
Over the years plans have been developed for rain gardens and other storm water mitigation along the brook. Both footbridges are desperately in need of replacement and neither meets ADA guidelines. It would be nice to now do more to clean it up and filter the run-off that naturally flows to the brook as well as the street run-off which we in the 20th and 21st centuries have created.
Robert, I agree.
Kathleen – Thank you for this Newton Awe.
Thank you to Rev. Haywood for sharing his personal history with Kathleen.
A valuable lesson.
Simon, if the zoning ordinances can be made a mockery of they need to be changed.
@Howard,
In deed they do. On many levels. Newton zoning and planning AKA ZAP have many items presently buried, awaiting resurrection.
It’s encouraging they are going to try and find 3 items out of lord knows how many to bring forward.
Nice piece. That’s a really lovely part of Cheesecake Brook and how lucky you are to have such a good tour guide.
When we first moved to our neighborhood, the woman who lived across the street was our local expert and filled us in on all kinds of tidbits. One day she told us that there had been a push at one time to fill in Cheesecake Brook and make a road over it. Probably a long forgotten piece of history but I’d be interested to know if Rev. Hayward knows anything about that.
While the photograph is a lovely picture of one short stretch of Cheesecake Brook, it was not part of my submission and really doesn’t capture the essence of my words. Broadly, the awe I had hoped to showcase flows from our collective spirit, just as the water flows through the Brook. Specifically, I had hoped to convey Reverend Haywood’s feeling that the Brook is a symbol of unity for us all, even if our stretch is buried. Thank you for accepting this clarification.
Kathleen, I want to thank you for allowing me to share my reflections on the Cheesecake Brook. Our tour brought back many precious memories as we visited sites where I had so much fun growing up. I believed then and now that the “Brook” is a Newton Awe that contributes to the beauty of our City. I hope that you continue to point out the many other sites that are Newton Awe.
I live about 100 feet due west of Cheesecake Brook. Its major source is a near full sediment pond at the northwest corner of the Brae Burn Country Club. Since I moved here in 1978 that pond has progressively filled at one end with a delta of sediment. The pond’s surface is mostly water chestnuts or something like that. I doubt that the average depth is more than a foot or two. During the summer it reeks of the results of anaerobic bacteria.
Whenever rain or snow melt becomes becomes excessive, the brook overflows the culvert under the Warren Playgrounds. The brook gets storm water overflow from several streets that lead to Comm Ave. As that street has too few storm grates, on more than one occasion I have seen rivers of water (maybe three inches deep) flowing down my shared driveway into the brook. The abutting Jehovah’s Witnesses’ parking lot provides another unhindered flow of run-off. Last night (2/17/16) I noticed that the latest overflow dug a ten foot long channel under the fence and onto the playground. Several years ago the brook’s overflow went about 75 yards from the fence to the middle of the playground. I have pictures showing the pine needles and other “stuff”.
Here are a few issues that need some discussion:
1) Why did the city refuse Brae Burn’s offer to dredge the pond in the late 1980s? I know the quick answer is that the “wisdom” then was that dredging would interfere with the normal environmental processes. Yes, how true.
2) Why has the city kept the brook as a man-made channel from its source to the Charles? Parts of it have combinations of a concrete bottom, steep rock wall, or rock slope. When it goes under the Warren playground, the storm grate usually has debris that the city checks only when someone complains.
Here is one thought that I hope others have considered or may consider:
a) the area above the storm grate is a mini-forest. A quick overview of the contours of that area shows that a series of mini-dams (using rip-rap and native plants) would create small ponds for wildlife and for restoration of the water table
b) the south side of the playground (bordering the nursing home) is usually very wet; incorporating that area with improvements would help the ground so that foot traffic does not damage the grass as much
c) the reconstructed drainage would allow water from the brook to irrigate the playing fields
d) the improvement would allow people and dogs to visit, and
e) something else?
I grew up down the street from where Cheesecake pours into the Charles. One minor correction to this very nice article….Cheesecake’s end into the Charles is at the end of Albermarle, nowhere near the intersection of Bridge and California St. When I was growing up there, we played in a very cool stretch of woods that ran from the end of the brook at Albermarle to those streets, following the Charles. It’s since been developed into a parkway/bike path. The location where the brook pours into the river also used to have a small cove. The brook poured over a very shallow man-made waterfall into the cove, which emptied into the river. Lots of fish in there.
Since my post in 2016 I noticed (approx June 2019) a few fish actually swimming in the Brook before it went under the Warren Fields. I have more often seen a few ducks loitering between Comm Ave and the Warren Field as well as a few coyotes checking them out. The “dam” for the pond on the Brae Burn Country Club had several leaks in it when I saw it on Marathon Monday 2018. Since then the “water” level in that pond has fallen several inches; I doubt the dam is more than a barrier of sediment that has developed over the years. Thank God the Army Corps of Engineers does not review it. 🙂
Where does Cheesecake Brook run from Warren fields under the Mass Pike and West Newton village to rise again behind The Barn?