- City:
- Framingham, MA
- Site Type:
- Parks and Recreation, Stadiums, Athletic Courts and Fields
- New Deal Agencies:
- Works Progress Administration (WPA), Work Relief Programs, Civil Works Administration (CWA), Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA)
- Started:
- 1933
- Site Survival:
- No Longer Extant
Description
Sometimes referred to as the Union Avenue Athletic Field, “Bowditch Field is the town’s main athletic facility. It is located on Union Avenue midway between Downtown and Framingham Center and was the main athletic facility for the town. It houses a large multi-purpose football stadium that included permanent bleachers on both sides of the field. There is still a baseball field, tennis courts, a track and field practice area, and the headquarters of the town Parks Department. Bowditch, along with Butterworth and Winch Parks, were all built during the Great Depression of the 1930s as WPA projects. It underwent a complete renovation/reconstruction in 2010.” (Wikipedia)
The 5,000-person concrete bleachers have been torn down and replaced. Photo of the original bleachers here.
The Civil Works Administration (C.W.A.) conducted work at the field, too, building a field house in 1933 (completed by the E.R.A. in 1934).
Source notes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framingham,_Massachusetts Annual Report of the Town of Framingham for the Year Ending December 31, 1933 (pg. 78). Annual Report of the Town of Framingham for the Year Ending December 31, 1934 (pg. 98). Annual Report of the Town of Framingham for the Year Ending December 31, 1943 (pg. 186).Site originally submitted by Evan Kalish on October 14, 2014.
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Susan Mojica
I became interested in the naming of the field – from https://www.cryan.com/blog/20160914.jsp – In 1946, the town of Framingham named the complex after Nathaniel Bowditch a long time park commissioner. ( It was not named after the mathematician Nathaniel Bowditch, who also wrote The American Practical Navigator.)
Here’s more about Nathaniel Ingersoll Bowditch for whom the field was named https://tinyurl.com/4ewsw63z