Chestnut Hill
Mac sighting: C.K.S. International Airport, Taiwan - it’s leaving on a jet plane, but where is it going?
Who would have known Chestnut Hill had a post office? Certainly not someone who’d just put “Chestnut Hill” into to the USPS post office locator, which claims the closest P.O. is in Jamaica Plain.
If you know anything about Chestnut Hill, you know the locals won’t be going to JP for their stamps, 0.4 miles or no 0.4 miles. I hiked out there to meet Dr. Deb’s favorite oral surgeon, who, of course, wanted to remove all my wisdom teeth even though only half of them are ailing at the moment. I was on my way back to the Chestnut Hill T stop, inbound for the stunning variety of Brookline postal options, when I spotted it. It was lovely and well-manicured and looked exactly like a sterotypical post office. Inside the clerks were amazingly friendly and helpful - it was like being in a whole new postal world.
Don’t get me wrong - the Brookline people are nice, too, but the Chestnut Hill post office had that special Stepford Wives touch about it. Having accomplished my postal mission (a last-minute submission to Writers of the Future [the link is especially amusing if you have popups turned off]), I decided to take the scenic route east and walked towards the Chestnut Hill reservoir. I took a turn up Chestnut Hill Road, a private way, and it was like I’d stepped into another century.
Picture those gorgeous old houses you see in Newton when you’re driving out of the city on Route 9, but instead of being all crowded together imagine them with lots of immaculately landscaped space around each one. Throw in a few topiary trees and lots of slate roofs, and you have the Hill. I felt that I was polluting the shades of Chestnut Hill just by walking up the road with my CVS bag.
I emerged at the wrong end of the reservoir, with the homey asphalt landscaping of Boston proper equally far away on both sides. I went left. There’s a fence around the reservoir, but if you really wanted to get in there and spit in my drinking water, it wouldn’t be hard. (I’m trying to express a disturbing thought without attracting the eff bee eye or nasty people looking for water to spit in.) Many joggers passed me by, but eventually I reached Boston and lived to blog the tale.
July 7th, 2004 at 2:11 pm
Just FYI, the Chestnut Hill Reservoir has not been an active reservoir for some time. It was taken out of regular service with the completion of the Hultman Aqueduct in 1940, but was used intermittently after that. It was last in service in 1974 or so. The MWRA keeps the Chestnut Hill (and a number of other reservoirs) for severe emergencies, but the situation would have to be catasptrophic for this source to be used.
Currently, all of your drinking water comes from the Quabbin and Wachusett Reservoirs, located in Belchertown and West Boylston. All of the drinking water, once it is treated, is kept in covered reservoirs located outside of the city.
July 7th, 2004 at 8:42 pm
Thanks–that’s somewhat comforting, though I’ve been to the Quabbin and it’s even more spittable than Chestnut Hill.