Saturday will be a day of celebration on the Neponset River, with a focus on the section that flows through Mattapan and Milton. A group of organizations representing both sides of the river— including the Mattapan Food & Fitness Coalition, Citizens for a Diverse Milton, the Church of the Holy Spirit in Mattapan Square, and St. Michael’s Church in Milton— are joining forces for what they are calling “Our Neponset Community Celebration.”
The gathering will use the Harvest Bridge – the new span that carries the Neponset Greenway trail over the water near Ryan Playground – as its focal point. Starting at noon, the events include a “family friendly two-mile bike ride, live musical acts and spoken word performances, food and, in a sure sign of the changing seasons, a “tree ornament” arts and craft workshop.
The event— set to run until 3 p.m.— might also be considered a small reward for the many good works of countless volunteers who have dedicated themselves over many decades to improving access to the Neponset in this part of the city. The river was the “hidden river” for generations of people who lived within a breath of the babbling waters without ever catching more than a glimpse of it through a hole in the barbed-fence. Industrial uses —chop shops, junkyards, paper mills and chocolate factories, freight engines and streetcars— conspired to make the river all the more closed off to those who lived here.
That all has changed from one end of the river to another, but it didn’t happen by accident or without a monumental effort from dedicated citizens and policy makers.
Last May, the one-mile “missing link” stretch from Central Avenue in Milton to Mattapan Square opened to great acclaim, but with no fanfare. There has been no official ribbon cutting nor photo opps with city and state leaders. The governor was supposed to come out at one point last summer, but the visit was cancelled at the 11th hour. It’s all good, because as one organizer of Saturday’s event told us: “This is a community celebration.”
Many of the folks who you’ll see out there enjoying themselves on Saturday were putting in work last weekend as the Neponset River Watershed Association organized another massive clean-up effort, focused on the Hyde Park, Mattapan, and Dorchester sections. Every year, scores of helpers come out and pull an unbelievable quantity of trash and debris from the muck beneath the river’s surface.
This year, with help from Pile Drivers Union Local 56, students from Wentworth Institute of Technology and members of the New England Aquarium live blue Service Corp, the haul filled up eight large dumpsters, according to NepWRA. Among the junk: 82 auto tires and two tractor tires, a motorcycle, 8 shopping carts, landscaping waste, one American flag, two TVs, and a sewing machine.
The good news: the Neponset has become a place that people frequent daily, thanks to the Greenway extension. There’s a constant stream of bicyclists, joggers, strollers and roller bladers zipping by— which means it’s not an ideal place for scofflaws to add to the decades of dumping their trash here.
That’s reason enough to party on Saturday. Another good reason: Mayor Walsh was in Mattapan Square on Wednesday morning to roll out the long-awaited Blue Bike station at Mattapan Square, right at the end of the Greenway at River Street. See you on the Greenway.
– Bill Forry
