Dedham Tales

In 1947 the Dedham Planning Board did a comprehensive study of the town and its issues regarding traffic, development, land use, etc.. The published study included dozens of aerial photographs of the town, including this one of Dedham Square:

In this picture, Memorial Hall is still standing at the corner of Washington and High- it will come down 15 years later. Most of the train station has been torn down, leaving only the tower. The railroad bridge that once spanned East St. at High St. is seen in the top right hand corner of the photo. The trolleys are gone from Washington St. but the tracks are still visible. The Knights of Columbus Building hasn’t received its brick makeover yet. There are several other smaller buildings along Washington Street and Eastern Ave. that have since disappeared, but the general appearance of the square is the same today. If the recommendations of the Planning Board had been followed, the square might have looked like this:

An interesting proposal that makes the square much less pedestrian friendly than it is today; the Dedham Institution for Savings and the K of C Building or now pretty much on an island. And I wonder what the monument in front of the bank might have been- it actually looks like a cross. Notice too, how traffic hasn’t really increased much. But Dedham did follow through on one aspect of the plan that had been a top priority for many years- the construction of a new town hall. It’s too bad that the historic Dedham granite 1868 Memorial Hall had to be sacrificed to achieve that. More on that building to come on this Memorial Day weekend.

This entry was posted on May 28, 2010 at 4:20 pm and is filed under Lost Dedham. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.