Memorial Drive runs along the north bank of the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is designated as U.S. Route 3 or Massachusetts Route 3 for its entire length, and Massachusetts Route 2 over the portion west of the Boston University Bridge.
Formerly Charles River Road, it was renamed in 1922, when Charles River Park was taken over by the Metropolitan District Commission. It is named in honor of those who died in World War I.
Memorial Drive, like the other parkways along the Charles River Esplanade, is maintained by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (the successor to the Metropolitan District Commission). In keeping with the recreational mission, the section of Memorial Drive from Western Avenue to the split at Mount Auburn Hospital at Mount Auburn Street is closed to motor vehicles on Sundays in the summer to allow for pedestrian and non-motorized users. The closure is in effect from 11:00am to 7:00pm starting the last Sunday of April until the 2nd Sunday of November.
A median near Massachusetts Avenue requires executing a so-called Michigan left for certain turns.
In 2003 a 2-mile section of Memorial Drive was reconstructed as part of the DCR's Historic Parkways Initiative.
Famous quotes containing the words memorial and/or drive:
“I hope there will be no effort to put up a shaft or any monument of that sort in memory of me or of the other women who have given themselves to our work. The best kind of a memorial would be a school where girls could be taught everything useful that would help them to earn an honorable livelihood; where they could learn to do anything they were capable of, just as boys can. I would like to have lived to see such a school as that in every great city of the United States.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
“Who will go drive with Fergus now,
And pierce the deep wood’s woven shade,
And dance upon the level shore?”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)