For Week #4 of the Newton Photo Scavenger Hunt, here are five more photos of objects in Newton that are odd or charming — and rather unique, rather permanent, and visible from public property. Can you identify them?
The first person to write in the comments below the correct (and sufficiently precise) location of the object will win one point per object identified. At the end of the summer, whoever has the most points will win a $50 gift certificate for the Newton restaurant of the winner’s choice.
After three weeks of the scavenger hunt, the current totals are: @Michael 4, @LisaP 3, and 2 each for @Dave Brigham, @David Wallace, @Fignewtonville, and @Adam. And we still have these two waiting to be found: 9. No Trespassing (now 3 points) and 12. Insect Hotel (still 1 point).
16. Graffiti Face
17. Bronze Baby
18. Hidden Bridge
19. Half Grid
20. Blue Couple
#19 looks like the radio tower in Upper Falls near Michael’s craft store.
@DaveBrigham: Correct! That’s the WHDH tower. When it was built, it was the third-tallest freestanding (i.e., no guy wires) radio tower in the world. Only the Eiffel Tower and Tokyo Tower were taller. Somehow Paris and Tokyo have been much more successful than Newton in making their towers into tourist attractions. Maybe we can work on that.
#17 is in the small triangular park on Chestnut Street at the intersection with Highland/Valentine.
@Bruce – I had no idea about that distinction! Pretty cool.
@Michael: Correct! The statue is Child with Calla Lilly, given to the City and installed in 1903 as a memorial to Catherine Porter Lambert, a lifelong friend of the artist, Anne Whitney, and wife of Unitarian minister Rev. Henry Lambert, an ardent abolitionist. This statue is a copy made from the original that was prominently displayed at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The story of the Lamberts, their family, their West Newton home, the statue, and the artist is laid out in great detail here.
#20 is in front of a house on Woodward St. between Allen and Chestnut
is the goal to have people walk /bike around newton more while looking for unusual objects? Or for you to get the answer as fast as possible?
Seems to me, that when the objects are familiar, it is easy to identify them. I knew two of the latest and was looking forward to go explore a couple of possible places for the others. However, once the answers are given, that’s no fun.
maybe delayed answers would be more challenging? You could still publish the fastest responses, eventually. Just a thought.
Thank you for giving us something different to think about.
@NanciGintyButler: Correct! From what I can tell, that object used to be a tree but became a sculpture.
I’m not sure if I found #9, the No Trespassing sign from Week 2, or not. That same welded-wire fence surrounds the water tower at the top of Ober Rd., and affixed upon the fence there are indeed a couple of signs that say “TRESPASSERS will be met with ARMED RESPONSE.” But the sign in the photo is all red, whereas the ones I saw seemed to be red and black.
I say “seemed to be” because technically the access to the water tower is through the magnificent Bigelow House property designed by H.H. Richardson in 1887 and restored by Bob Vila and Norm Abram 94 years later. The driveway to the Bigelow House property has a huge sign proclaiming “No Trespassing, Cameras in Use.” So in order to get to the armed-response no trespassing zone, trespassers would need to sneak through a different “no trespassing” zone first!
Luckily enough the public does have nominal access within about a hundred yards of the water tower, via the overgrown and neglected Oak Hill Pathway, but I think that from that vantage point the photographer would have required a super-telephoto lens.
I also rode up the back side of the hill on County Club Rd. but I couldn’t spot any signs atop the retaining wall, just a gang of belligerent turkeys.
If that wasn’t it, I figured it might have been one of Newton’s other two water towers, but it turns out that the ones on Countryside Rd. and Stanton Ave. have been dismantled and the one on Ober Rd. is the only one that remains.
I said it before and I’ll say it again: tough one!
@Michael: Excellent work! And a vivid explanation. But no, that’s not the location of #9 No Trespassing. The search continues…
@Bruce:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdEQmpVIE4A
@Isabelle: My goal with the Newton Photo Scavenger Hunt is to expand folks’ understanding of what’s around Newton and to encourage people to get out and look around. I particularly like the photos that have stories behind them.
I had earlier experimented among some friends with a format that had delayed responses (I made bingo cards of photos, for them to find five photos in a row). But among these friends, no one responded — at all. So I’m trying this format of five photos a week. Each week, I try to show photos in a range of difficulty and also spread across Newton’s neighborhoods.
If it ruins the fun to see answers before you’re done looking, perhaps you could avoid reading the comments until later in the week. If you can identify one or two but think you could find more later, please go ahead with a comment to identify those you can right away, and comment again later with answers for others. Some people here are pretty quick on the draw, but as you can see, the search for some of these photos is rather drawn out. Four currently remain at large — two rather difficult and two not so much, I think. But who knows?
#12 Insect hotel is at the community garden plots at Nahanton Park.
@Dalek: Correct! As I recall, it’s the result of an Eagle Scout project.
18 is a bridge crossing the Charles into Lower Falls. There are two other bridges that look like this, but I’m casting for Lower Falls,
I know I’ve seen #16 but having trouble placing it. Is it part of the eclectic landscape along the trail behind the NSHS shed?
#16 is a trick.
@BobBurke: Correct! It’s this bridge carrying the Cochituate Aqueduct as it crosses the Charles River from Wellesley. The Newton side is in a tiny sliver of Newton that is almost inaccessible due to Rte. 128. (From where the Pillar House used to be, walk along the entrance ramp for Rte. 128 South, through some steep woods.) Bob, I’m guessing you knew of this from your time in Newton before Rte. 128 was built.
@Adam: No, it’s not there. But thanks for the suggestion! I’ve not been on that trail but will take a look to see what may be found.
@SeanRoche: I’m not quite sure what you mean by #16 being a trick, but I don’t think it’s a trick.
As Bob Burke says, that (aqueduct) bridge in #18 is in Lower Falls, but I wonder if it’s actually visible from public property on the Newton side, assuming that you’re not broken down on the highway? I sometimes walk from Washington Street in Wellesley over to Quinobequin Rd. and because it’s under the jurisdiction of MassDOT, that section of roadway past the old Pillar House is a pedestrian and cyclist death trap, with 60 mph traffic coming at you from about a dozen directions.
t looks like there’s a driveway off the 128 SB onramp that leads down to some kind of shack, but I wonder if there’s a pedestrian isthmus between 128 and the river to allow you to get down to the bridge?
Whoops, I was down a rabbit hole on Google Maps so I didn’t see that my question had been answered before I even posted it, thank you Bruce!
@Michael: Yes, that driveway you noted goes to a gas pipeline station (pumping? monitoring?), and if you go around it and continue through the woods (steep down to the river; no path) you can reach the bridge. It’s MUCH easier to reach from the Wellesley side, branching off the Red trail, I think. Last year, the bridge had been so overgrown that it was impassable, but I guess the Wellesley trail maintenance folks cleared that up. Yes, it’s a pedestrian/cyclist death trap getting there. I went on a quiet day and still was very wary. I thought this would be one of the toughest photos to identify, but I forgot that Bob Burke knows the area from before Rte. 128 got in the way. 😉
You are right, Bruce, I don’t have to look at the answers, but I am too competitive!!
I thought #18 was the bridge under Needham street, seen from the river trail and was going to bike over and check. I wonder if they are identical!
Thanks for the fun!
I thought I recognized #18, but thought the whole thing was in Wellesley. I walked the trail on the Wellesley side many years ago, which is short but pretty nice.
#20 I always wondered about the dead tree in front of an otherwise meticulously maintained home as I biked down Woodward. One day I biked past and an artist was on a step ladder carving it with a chain saw. I was half mesmerized and half worried he might fall off the ladder and kill himself. It is beautiful.
I really wonder what’s on the other side of the wall with the pensive white pomegranate! Does moss only grow on the north side of walls? I postulate that graffiti and a badly-eroded sidewalk would probably only survive on public property in Newton if it were under the jurisdiction of an apathetic / unreachable / mostly-unaccountable state-level agency, e.g. MassDOT, the MBTA, or DCR. Not that I would want to see such a lovely pomegranate ever be erased, mind you.
@Michael: Remind me not to be a fugitive with you on my trail.
Bruce, I’ll take that as a yes! North-facing wall along state-owned linear infrastructure it is, then. Or not…
I’ve gotten a big kick out of this – it reminds me of a weekly photo scavenger hunt that they had in the Newswest newspaper when I was a kid – my parents still have a couple of the coffee mugs they won from them. The Newton restaurant gift certificate prize sounds terrific but I’m actually hoping that the prize in the next edition of the contest will be a Village 14 mug.
@Michael: That video clip was to express admiration for your thought process but NOT to confirm your conclusions! Double-whammy: I cannot confirm north-facing. And while a casual observer at #16 might (as I did) think this could be state-owned, a careful inspection of maps indicates different ownership. So sorry to have momentarily led you astray.
@Michael: Great idea! But why wait for the next edition of the contest? (After all the weeks in this summer, how many more suitable photos could here be?) So in addition to a $50 restaurant gift certificate, the winner will now receive a Village 14 mug customized with his/her winning photos.
Unless there’s another version elsewhere, that particular piece of street art was first expanded to include
a friendtwo friends, then covered over.@Bruce – oh wow. Game on!!!
I think in that rendering I can see my winning photos thereon already, but that might just be my 1-point lead giving me hallucinations. Complacency is the enemy here.
Anyway, it would be a hollow victory if the game’s power forwards are purposely holding back. @Sean, get yourself on the board please. Or maybe you’re just teasing us while you wait for the white pomegranate picture to grow in value, and then you’re planning to sink a pair of 3-pointers in the closing seconds for the W!
Must…find…no-trespassing…sign…
Number 16 is on the bridge over the T next to the Crystal Lake bathhouse. Someone who appears to be the original artist added two more faces. Then the city, one assumes, covered them. Here is a picture with the two friends, pre-coverup.
@SeanRoche: Correct, and you’re ahead of me. Here’s how it looked last year when I took the photo. I noticed recently that two more faces were added, but I had not realized that they had since all been covered up. What a shame to lose such compelling street art. A point for you, in any case. My apologies to all for including a photo that turned out to be less permanent than I expected.
Facepalm. Walk by it every day.
This photo shows the progression of street art on the Rogers Street bridge over the Green Line. Last year, there was one inconspicuous and endearing black-and-white face, which was there for quite a while and which I thought would remain in place. By April, two more colorful faces were added (by the same artist, Sean surmises). By late July, they were all covered over in anti-graffiti gray paint. What sparked the City’s gray painters? Perhaps it was the appearance of the two more conspicuous faces. I’d like to see the original black-and-white face restored.
Here’s my walk this evening – no sign of the No Trespassing sign anywhere along the route (17 miles, of which 13 in Newton).
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=7508729
Given the similarities between the picture and the signage/fencing around the Oak Hill water tower, I tried to include as many water-supply installations as I could – the old Quinobequin pumping station, the MWRA pumping station on Comm Ave. the Waban Hill reservoirs…nada. But I did get to see the troll at the library and the troll feet in the Bullough’s Pond waterfall, as well as the Rogers Street bridge where the graffiti faces had been.
Shout out to the residents of Waban Hill – I’d never been up there, but the neighbors were extremely helpful with their thoughts on where the sign might be, and with directions on how to get around the edges of the covered reservoir.
Also, a PSA: if anybody’s missing their seemingly extensive wardrobe collection on hangers wrapped up in a large sheet, it seems to have fallen off / out of your vehicle onto the sidewalk in front of National Lumber. I alerted the sergeant working the detail for the Feeney Bros. construction on Needham Street but he didn’t bother looking away from his cell phone.
@Michael, even though you did not think you found #9 No Trespassing on your travels yesterday, I have to declare your partial victory for that photo because your efforts took you right to it, but it was not nearly as visible as it had been when I photographed it last January! It’s one of 3 or 4 identical signs around the *inside* security fence (yes, there are two barbed-wire fences there) surrounding the Newton Reservoir, on a hill above the Waban Hill Reservoir. All three signs are now hopelessly hidden behind overgrown vegetation. Congratulations! I can’t imagine that anyone would have been more successful on this one. And my apologies to anyone else who was looking to identify this photo. (Note to self: After Graffiti Face was covered by paint and No Trespassing was covered by vegetation, I must recheck the visibility of each photo from here on out.)