“It’s a delightful place,” said Ann Healy, who rides her bicycle from neighboring Marina Bay to the park. “It’s so open, and you’re surrounded by the water and nature.”

Some local residents and officials are hoping that a recently initiated ferry service between the park and Rowes Wharf in Boston will draw more visitors to the idyllic but underused tract that, unknown to many, once boasted a naval air station.

QUINCY — Squantum Point Park, a public park with plenty of open space and waterfront access, has a parking lot with some 850 spaces. But on a typical afternoon, only about a half-dozen of them are occupied.


Meredith Lovis of Medford played with the dogs she walks just off the sandy beach at Squantum Point Park. Dina Rudick/Globe staff/Globe Staff

In a state where some citizens decry a shortage of public access to the shoreline, the 46-acre state park offers exceptional access to the Greater Boston waterfront, a rich natural environment, views of Dorchester Bay and city skyline, and that rare piece of history. It also connects to a 2-mile walking trail that follows the Quincy side of the Neponset River.

The park is now used mainly by dog walkers, who take advantage of its pathways and open space that once housed the military’s Squantum Air Field. The ferry service, currently a 90-day pilot program, along with infrastructure improvements and new housing at Marina Bay, is expected to entice more people to visit the park.

The ferry to Boston departs from a wharf at the end of a huge, mostly empty parking lot. Dina Rudick/Globe staff/Globe Staff

“I think if you are the kind of person who likes the outdoors and is using the lot to commute, you might find yourself coming home on a nice summer afternoon and say to yourself, why not take a walk in the park?” said Matthew Sisk, deputy commissioner for the Department of Conservation and Recreation, the state agency that owns the park. “Or grab dinner at Marina Bay and take a lap around the park to work some of it off.”


Quincy City Councilor William Harris said that physical improvements to be undertaken by the state in connection with the ferry service, especially a new “straight shot” access road off Commander Shea Boulevard, the main local artery, will make it easier for the park to attract visitors. While the state has budgeted $100,000 for site improvements, Quincy officials said the details for the new road still have to be worked out.

The improved wharf at Squantum Point Park. Dina Rudick/Globe staff

“It’s going to be easier for folks to actually go there. It will be a nicer, safer, more comfortable place to go to,” Harris said.

Harris, whose ward includes the park, said he sees about 20 or 30 dog walkers congregate there on weekend mornings. But there’s more to the park than is widely known, he said. “People don’t know there’s a canoe launch.”

And now there’s the ferry.

Operated by Winthrop Ferry, the service makes use of a recently improved wharf on the park’s shore to make three daily runs to take commuters and others to Boston and three afternoon runs back from Boston. The ferry also offers longer, pleasure cruises, taking passengers to Spectacle Island and Winthrop, in addition to the service between Quincy and Boston.

There is plenty of parking at Squantum Point Park. Dina Rudick/Globe staff

Area residents boarding the ferry on its first week, in early August, were enthusiastic about the new option in public transportation, though less enamored of the parking fee the state has imposed to raise revenue from ferry users and any visitor who stays longer than an hour. (The first hour of parking is free; after that the fee is $1.25 per hour with a maximum daily charge of $5. The ferry transportation fee is $8.50 each way.)


“I think this is truly important,” said Gary Sottile, of Quincy. “I want it to become part of the MBTA.”

Passengers waited for the ferry to depart for Boston. Dina Rudick/Globe staff

Sottile pointed to some service improvements he’d like to see, such as a posted schedule for the ferry runs, in the on-shore waiting area. And, noting that visitors to Squantum Point Park must drive through the Marina Bay neighborhood, he said, “We need another outlet.”

Harris said the new access road is part of the agreement between Quincy and the state that created the new ferry service. That road can’t come too soon for passengers who found the existing road closed to them one day during the service’s first week because of new construction at Marina Bay. A detail police officer suggested motorists find parking somewhere in the development and walk to the ferry.

But, while it created access problems, the construction of 350 new housing units at Marina Bay is expected by officials to help attract more people to the park that once served as one of the state’s first airfields.

Seven years after the first manned flight at Kitty Hawk, a Harvard-Boston air show drew thousands of visitors to Squantum Field, including President William Howard Taft and future president Franklin D. Roosevelt. Two years later, in 1912, the field was the site of a high-profile flight disaster when Harriet Quimby, the country’s first licensed aviatrix, plunged to her death after flying over Boston Light.


The site became a US naval air station in 1917 and was used to train pilots during World War II. In more recent times, the vast paved parking apron was created to serve Boston’s Central Artery project “as a staging area and transportation hub” for contractor employees, according to the Department of Conservation and Recreation. The local pier enabled contractors to ship equipment to the harbor islands for improvement work done in connection with the Big Dig.

The former airfield became state property in 1953. When the state opened Squantum Point Park in 2001, it chose to leave it as “unimproved” space for “passive recreation,” a term that includes walking and bike riding.

“We made this an ideal situation for purely passive recreation,” Sisk said. “Ride, walk. Fishing, nature watching along the Boston coast.”

Lacking any staff presence at the park, the Department of Conservation and Recreation has no count of how many visitors have used the park. The new parking fee system will give the agency a way to determine how many cars come to the park, although others will come by foot or bike.

The department has no target number for visitors.

Johnny Loreti of Boston tossed a ball to his dogs at the beach at Squantum Point Park. Dina Rudick/Globe staff

Robert Knox can be contacted at rc.knox2@gmail.com.