Film Festival Features Documentaries With Newton Ties

The True North Documentary Film Series will feature screenings at Olin College in Needham and Andover Newton Theological School in Newton.

A local film festival slated for this week will feature two Newton-related documentaries, including films on Norumbega Park and Myrtle Baptist Church. The True North Documentary Film Series, which will run April 9-10, will consist of six documentaries spotlighting local issues. The films cover history in the local area including Newton, Needham and Boston. One of the featured films, Return to Norumbega, takes viewers on a tour through the former recreation site and amusement park in Newton.  Another Newton-related film slated for the festival is Myrtle Baptist Church: Pilar of the Community, a documentary that profiles the West Newton institution that has played an important role in both American and Newton history.  A screening of Return …

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More than "Dirty Water": The History of the Charles River in Newton

The Charles River is important to the history, culture, and environment in Newton.

Hugging the border of the city of Newton, the Charles River is a major feature of our natural environment. It provides recreational opportunities, is a natural habitat for thousands of birds, fish, and other wildlife, and for many years was at the heart of industry in our region. More than part of the landscape, the Charles defines our boundaries and shapes the very identity of the city. In fact, the Charles River was the borderline of the City of Newton until 1849, when 600 acres of the northwest corner of the city was annexed by Waltham, thereby cutting a small bit of the Charles out of the city’s borders. Since then, Newton’s boundaries have remained unchanged. Opening in 1890, Norumbega Park attracted thousands from the Greater Boston …

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Jill Tomich

2:37 pm on Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Great photos. You can see a lot of the history of the Charles River from the water itself. Renting a canoe or kayak is a fantastic way to enjoy Newton's history   more ›

Then & Now

Norumbega Park: Then and Now

Norumbega Park used to be one of the largest amusement parks in New England, but today there is little left of this once magnificent site.

From 1897 to 1964, Norumbega Park was a fixture of the Auburndale section of Newton. Over the course of its history, Norumbega Park entertained people from throughout the Greater Boston area. Look around Auburndale today, though, and there is little physical evidence of the park, which once boasted the largest outdoor theater and largest zoo in New England. How did this much-beloved park rise to fame and then disappear in less than 70 years? Norumbega Park was a trolley park, or a destination built to entice people to use the streetcar system built in the late-19th century. For a small fare, the trolley swept people from the busy city of Boston to the serenity of a riverside park in Newton. Live music in the Totem Pole Ballroom, amusement …

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Allison Carter

6:38 pm on Sunday, November 14, 2010

Karla, Thanks for your questions. While there is no way to prove that that term "canoodling" was coined at Norumbega, many people believe that to be the case. The origins of the word "Norumbega" are similarly mysterious. I have read that it was a the term used by the natives of this region to refer to New England before the period of permanent English settlement, but again that is merely one of …   more ›

Then & Now

Connecting to Newton's Past

An introduction to the history column, "Newton: Then and Now" and its contributor.

My name is Allison Carter and I will be contributing a weekly column to the Newton Patch, "Then and Now." As an historian and a longtime Boston-area resident, I am proud to write about the history of Newton. I earned my B.A. in History at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2003 and my M.A. in History at Northeastern University in 2007. For over two years I have served as Museum Educator for Historic Newton, which is housed at the Jackson Homestead and Museum. Over the course of my career, I have worked in a variety of settings, from National Park Service sites to small historic house museums. I love history, and I believe local history has the power to engage people in a way that is so much more tangible than grand stories of our …

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