Bayview MA

[A Joseph Ross]

On 9/11/2013 1:19 AM, Garrett Wollman wrote:

> Well, except for the minor issue that Massachusetts has no such thing
> as a "village".
>
> In the case of the Barnstable "villages", they are all fire districts,
> and may have other aspects of municipal government as well.  In
> Newton, they're just administratively designated districts that
> approximately coincide with historic postal zones.

We do have villages, but they are completely unofficial and undefined.  
Chestnut Hill actually consists of parts of Brookline, Newton, and West 
Roxbury, and the only thing it seems to have in common is a zip code.

At one time in Massachusetts, a village had its own town green and 
Congregational Church.  As population grew, these villages eventually 
became incorporated as towns.  Anherst has a couple of villages like 
that.  South Amherst has a town green and a Congregational Church.  I'm 
not sure whether North Amherst has a town green.  If it does, it's not 
as obvious, but it does have a Congregational Church.  I'm not sure how 
a town the size of Amherst manages to support three churches of the same 
denomination, but it does.  There's another "village" in Amherst called 
"Cushman," but I've never figured out where it is.  Probably there's no 
green or church there.

Other towns in Western Massachusetts have villages, whose legal status 
is unclear.  Turners Falls is a village of Montague.  Leeds and Florence 
are villages of the City of Northampton.

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