Braille Trail in Watertown
Where the Charles River Road parallels the river from Watertown Square to Brighton, a half-mile Braille Trail was created for the blind and the deaf blind to enjoy nature and explore the banks of the Charles. An unsighted person can follow a guide wire connected by wooden posts along a walking path to points of interest, including a sensory garden with stationary rowboats close to shore and a wooden xylophone marked with Braille notes and accompanied by mallets. Braille messages and cut-out lettering on metal plates provide information along the trail.
This trail was dedicated in July 2016 beginning with an address by Dave Power president of Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown. Also present were officials from Watertown and Massachusetts’ State Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs and the Department of Conservation and Recreation, as well as representatives of the international Sasaki design and planning firm based in Watertown, and members of the community. The project was funded in part by the Lawrence and Lillian Solomon Foundation.*
Perkins’ president Powers spoke of the institution’s mission to educate more students using Braille and assistive technologies including online learning and more creative approaches to teaching. In fact, this organization is a global leader and innovator in education, teacher training, and technology for the blind or visually impaired.
Perkins School for the Blind, the first such school in our country, had its humble beginnings in the Boston home of founder Samuel Gridley Howe, and after a notable history that included student Laura Bridgman the first deaf blind person who learned to read and write, the renowned teacher Annie Sullivan, and the brilliant Helen Keller has been a leader in the education of the deaf blind around the world.
Braille reading and writing that originated in France where the first school for the blind in the world was established, continues to be the universally accepted system used by and for blind persons. It consists of 63 characters, each made up of the arrangement of one to six raised dots.
The Perkins School expanded and eventually relocated in 1912 to the 38-acre campus on North Beacon Street in Watertown where it is situated on a small hill adorned with trees and neighboring homes, the school’s clock tower visible from Watertown’s Riverfront Park near the Braille Trail. A recently installed traffic light provides safe crossing with the visually impaired in mind.
As we were about to leave Riverfront Park on the cold and cloudy fall day we visited, we heard the heavy beat of wings against the water and the trumpet-like call of what appeared to be a large white swan announcing liftoff from the surface of the river. I was later told that two trumpeter swans have taken up residence in this area of the Charles River. We plan to return to the Braille Trail during better weather and would also like to take one of the tours offered at Perkins.
*This foundation also contributed to the Greenway project downriver which was referenced in a previous blog “Charles River Greenways” Sept. 2015.
Referenced:
“New Riverfront Park Makes Nature Accessible”by Alix Hackett
July 22, 2016
https://www.perkins.org/stories/new-riverfront-park-makes-nature-accessible
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