History
From Dalton to Goshen in the Berkshires, the road follows the old Berkshire Trail. The massive expansion of the University of Massachusetts Amherst transformed that part of Route 9 in the late 20th century; this otherwise rural part of the route now has several shops, restaurants, and the mid-sized Hampshire Mall. Between Worcester and Boston, Route 9 follows the path of the 19th Century Worcester Turnpike, opened in 1810. This route originally included a floating bridge over Lake Quinsigamond in Shrewsbury. In the 20th century, Route 9 became the focus for urban sprawl in towns like Newton and Wellesley. Further west, in Framingham, Route 9 was home to one of the first modern shopping malls, the aptly named Shoppers' World.
In Natick, Route 9 is officially the "Ted Williams Highway", named after the Red Sox sports legend Ted Williams, who sported that number. In Newton, it is officially the "United Spanish War Veterans Highway".
From 1903 to 1932, the Boston and Worcester Street Railway ran mostly via Route 9. Today the E branch of the MBTA's Green Line follows Route 9 along Huntington Avenue.
Read more about this topic: Massachusetts Route 9
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“We said that the history of mankind depicts man; in the same way one can maintain that the history of science is science itself.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of some metaphors.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)