Massachusetts Avenue (Boston)

Massachusetts Avenue, known to locals as Mass Ave, is a major thoroughfare in Boston, Massachusetts, and several cities and towns northwest of Boston. According to Boston magazine, "Its 16 miles of blacktop run from gritty industrial zones to verdant suburbia, passing gentrified brownstones, college campuses and bustling commercial strips."Leeds, Jared, The Mass Ave. Project, Boston magazine, November 2007, p.124

The route

The street begins in the Boston neighborhood of Dorchester and runs southeast-northwest through Boston, paralleling Interstate 93 for a short distance and interchanging with the Massachusetts Turnpike (Interstate 90). It crosses the Charles River from the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston into the city of Cambridge via the Harvard Bridge, where it bisects the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, passes through Central Square, and curves around two sides of Harvard Yard at Harvard Square. After Harvard Square it turns sharply northward, passes Harvard Law School, then passes through Porter Square, where it bears northwestward. It continues through North Cambridge, Arlington, and Lexington, where it enters the Minuteman National Historical Park.

Extended route

The road, by the same name, continues northwest and west, through many different cities and towns. It largely parallels or joins Route 2 and Route 2A, all the way into central Massachusetts, with a few gaps at towns that have different names for the...
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