My friend Jay told me about his daughter Julia Web writing her Junior Thesis at Newton North in 2001, about the history of Oak Hill Park. I told him that I’d love to read it. He spoke to Julia, got her OK and then put it together in a more digestible form with the images combined with the text.
It’s a wonderful piece of work for high school junior student. It tells the story of Oak Hill Park within the broader context of what was happening in the rest of the country at the time. For me the most interesting part was the detailed description of all the forces of local politics that played a role in the story. Most interesting still is how 70 years later, it all sounds so familiar.
If you have any interest in local history, have a read,
Thanks Julia for your wonderful teenage project.
An interesting addenda: Julia’s history teacher Deborah Holman went on to be principal of Brookline High School 2012-2016.
Wow, what a fascinating thesis – great job by Julia Werb!
And great job by William Pratt, Newton DPW Commisioner from 1948 to 1972. As Julia writes:
If only they’d taken it once step farther and built some canals off the Charles (or Sawmill Brook), it could have been Venice, California minus the palm trees!
I used to pass through Greenbelt, Maryland every weekend on my way to and from the BWI Airport shuttle but I wasn’t aware that it was a New Deal model community – Julia’s thesis has piqued my curiosity about that.
Also, I had a vague recollection of visiting the supermarket in Oak Hill as a kid in the 1980s and a search for its name turned up Jonathan T. Melick’s 2017 history of Oak Park, which is also a fascinating read and offers an insider’s perspective – http://www.newtonmahistory.com/category/oak-hill-park/
This was fabulous. We looked at many homes in that neighborhood and the neighborhood feel came through. Thanks for the great post.
That’s fantastic! I could’ve used her diligent research when writing about the village of Oak Hill for my blog: https://backsideofamerica.blogspot.com/2016/09/i-seek-newton-part-v-oak-hill.html
@Dave Brigham: Do you think there’s any chance that the Knights of Tumsion mightst bringeth their scythes to the Oak Hill Pathway?
I started reading this at 10 PM last evening and thought I’d read a third and get back to the remainder sometime today. I couldn’t put it down. Julia. Five stars.
Wow! This is an extraordinarily well-research report. Julia even described in depth the racial segregation of Oak Hill Park and other Levitt-towns.
Julia Web accomplished as a high school junior what many college graduates may still be unable to produce: an intensely interesting, unbiased, well-researched and clearly written history: a description of the birth of a community, complete with a well balanced bibliography accompanied by historical illustrations. (I wonder what she is up to today, 20 years later!)
Speaking of historical illustrations, I noticed that on page 26 of Julia’s thesis, she reproduces an advertisement from the local Newton Villager of seventy years and one day ago, May 18, 1950, that states: “We are proud of the 412 new homeowners of Oak Hill Park and we join the rest of the City in welcoming them into the community. The youth and vigor of this 14th village will be an asset to Newton.”
Really! Did the Newton Villager predict the Village 14 blog? Alternatively, what village has been subsumed by the other greedy 13? Who counts the villages and establishes their existence anyway? I ask you other Village 14ers, how history could erase a whole village?
@Sallee
Oak Hill Park *was* the 14th village – it was considered a new and distinct village from Oak Hill.
@Sallee – I just checked my 1889 Kings Handbook of Newton. Back then they had 10 declared villages – Newton, Newtonville, Nonantum (or North Village), West Newton, Auburndale, Riverside, Upper Falls, Lower Falls, Newton Highlands, and Newton Centre.
You would have lived in the “rural region of Waban” – i.e. not officially a village.
I don’t know if you Wabanites eventually stole Riverside’s village status
@Michael – I haven’t checked out the Oak Hill Pathway in a few years. Still tangled, I guess. Too bad….
I’ve been doing research through old editions of the Newton Graphic that published between 1887 and 1979. Great paper during the 1970s with may volunteer writers and researchers from the community. I also remember the Newton Villager and was trying to access copies of that as well. Unlike the Graphic, it’s not on the Newton Free Library’s website. Anyone know where I might find it.
It was pretty dull reading for the most part.
Thanks Jerry, I love to read about Oak Hill Park.
Julia Werb, anyone know what she studied in college?
Where is she today? She is of an age similar to my grown children.
@Jerry Thank you for sharing this. It was really a great read. Yes so much of it felt like today. I loved the references to Levittown New Jersey. I lived there until I was 12.