Local News
The mayor said the tricolor center line was repainted yellow for traffic safety. The community called it “a slap in the face.”
For nearly a century, a half-mile stretch of road in Newton hasn’t been bisected by a double yellow line but instead a continuous tricolor line to honor the Italian enclave.
Lined with Italian flags, the center line of Adams Street in Newton’s Nonantum neighborhood has been painted red, white, and green since 1935, the St. Mary of Carmen Society said. But a few weeks before the society’s annual festival, the City of Newton removed the iconic lines in favor of double yellow.
The society, which runs the annual Italian-American Festival in Pellegrini Park set to begin July 16, said the repainting came “without any public notice or outreach.” The festival, which draws a crowd of more than 10,000 people, also includes a procession down that part of Adams Street.
“This surprise removal of our sacred religious public art installation was done hastily and under the cover of darkness, mere weeks before the 90th Annual Festival,” the society members said in a statement. “This was a painful reminder that our traditions can be erased without warning or respect. It was more than a breach of trust: it was a slap in the face.”
Newton Mayor Ruthanne Fuller, who is not running for reelection this year, said in a statement that the “striping of Adams Street” came after “great consideration over many months.” She confirmed the lines had been painted overnight, which is standard practice.
Fuller said she’s “confident” the street can have both the yellow safety lines and the iconic Italian tricolors, which would need to be “moved over by perhaps 12 to 18 (inches).”
“We took the action thoughtfully. Traditions matter. We communicated with Festa volunteers over many months and absolutely want them to again this year repaint the tricolors of green, white, and red as they do every year on Adams Street,” Fuller said.
Adams Street is also dangerous, Fuller said, particularly the half-mile stretch between Washington and Watertown streets with the painted tricolor. She cited the city’s 2024 Traffic Calming Analysis, which ranked that stretch as the top priority for “traffic calming.”
“Having consistent line markings is important. Other busy streets in Nonantum like the rest of Adams Street, Chapel, Bridge, Crafts, Watertown, Pearl, Jackson, and California are double-yellow lined streets,” Fuller said. “We look at data. We follow federal standards.”
Newton City Councilor John Oliver, who is one of three councilors representing Nonantum, told The Boston Globe that he and his neighbors weren’t told about the repainting.
“No one in the community knew this was coming, no elected officials were contacted,” Oliver told the Globe, seemingly in contrast with the mayor’s statement.
While the mayor says the volunteers can repaint the colors, the St. Mary of Carmen Society called on the city “to do the right thing.” In their statement, it asked the city to restore the tricolor line painting, acknowledge the harm caused to Nonantum “due to unconscious cultural bias,” and “recommit to honoring cultural and religious traditions,” according to their statement.
A petition from the society has garnered more than 2,000 signatures as of Wednesday evening.
“This tradition is not new,” the society said. “It has existed in harmony with city traffic and public safety regulations for nearly a century. In fact, it has been formally permitted by the City of Newton for decades—long before the current administration.”
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