Frances - Alewife is a type of fish.

Bennie is correct. The alewife is a species of fish native to the Atlantic coast and coastal streams. Near the Alewife T station there is Alewife Book and Little Pond. It's likely the fish inhabits those areas.

True, Alewife is a fish that is closely related to the herrings, but you won't find any around here. They never ride the tube or swim in the Charles river.

You get so much interesting information on this board!
In English a harridan would be referred to as a fishwife and I suspected that this was a variation on that. I think that fishwife refers to a hardened woman-possibly a fish seller who is noisy, so if I am right you can see how I made the fairly small leap to alewife(like golfing widow!)
Many thanks

I like the signs that saw (w/ pic of helicopter on them) We are watching you!! I've seen them in Indiana, they might be elsewhere!