M E T R 0 P 0 L I TA N DISTRICT C 0 M M I S S I 0 N NEW BASIN CHARLE S RIVER RESERVATION

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The New Charles River Basin will transform the “lost half mile” of the river and provide continuous waterfront esplanades, green parks, and a variety of recreational and interpre tive opportunities at the center of the Metropolitan Park System. From the railroad bridges that cross the river near North Station, views of the Nashua Meadows open out to the beacons and the Green Line viaduct upstream. Beyond the viaduct are the towers of Charles River Park and the Museum of Science.

THE VISION dams, pumping stations, locks, and and water taxi service, and a central history of transportation in ,

viaducts — will be set off and com cove for transient docking. Small and the creative forces of science and The New Charles River Basin will plemented by the powerful sweeps of boats will ply sheltered waterways, art. Designers, artists, and artisans complete the Metropolitan Park parkland and water. bordered with native wetland plants will develop these themes, enriching System’s famed water park, reshaping Three miles of tree-shaded bike- and wildlife. the possibilities for exploration, the river and its banks in the lost half ways will be built, together with Central themes of these new learning, and celebration. Guided by mile between the existing Charles almost four miles of pathways within public spaces will be the industrial this vision, the New Charles River River Esplanades and Boston’s the parklands and at the water’s edge, and shipping history of East Basin will become a gathering place HarborPark. It will change the image across and under viaduct, rail and Cambridge and Charlestown, the for its neighbors, for school children, of the river and the city. The mouth of bridge barriers. New waLkways will social and cultural heritage of the for downtown business people, for

the Charles, now obscured by dams, lead people across the river in several North End and the West End, the visitors — for the whole metropolitan bridges, and derelict industry, will be locations. Gateways will tie the New ecology of the Charles River, the community. rediscovered and celebrated. Over the Basin to Charlestown, the North End, next ten to fifteen years, these downtown Boston, the new Boston presently under-used and disjointed Garden, and nearby office develop edges of Boston and Cambridge will ment, and from the West End, East be knit into a lively urban district, Cambridge and North Point. These centered on a new recreational communities will be linked as never resource comparable in its impact to before. People will be able to stroll the creation of the Emerald Necklace through fascinating parklands, ani in the late 19th century and the mated by history, art, and science, Boston waterfront renewal in the mid from East Cambridge to the North 20th century. End or from the West End to Over forty acres of parklands Charlestown. will offer broad green meadows, The river banks will be reshaped colorful plantings, and stately trees, to strengthen the focus on the watei as well as plazas, walkways, and bike relate the two edges more strongly paths on lands which are now mostly and create a powerful procession of in public ownership. The Boston and river spaces leading Out to the sea. The New Basin extends from the old Charles River Dam (lower right) to the new dam, Cambridge Esplanades will be con The banks will be sloped down to the just beyond the highway bridge. Downtown Boston is at the upper right. The esplanades nected along the river to HarborPark water’s edge so that the river is visible of the MDC’s Charles River Reservation will be connected to Bostons HarborPark, and gateways to the new public spaces will reinforce the ties between the river and and the Freedom Trail. The large- from everywhere in the New Basin. surrounding neighborhoods. Funding for the first phase of this long-term master plan scale engineering works — bridges, There will be landings for tour boats will be provided by the Highway Department. 0

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A joint commission of the Metropolitan Park Commission and the State Board of Health produced a remarkable map in 1894 showing the deplorable state of the Charles River Basin. Along the waterfront were two prisons, three coal-burning powerplants, numerous shabby commercial ventures (including slaughterhouses in Brighton and East Cambridge), a bankrupt residential development in Cambridge (today the site of MIT), and “temporary” railroad trestles below Craigie’s Bridge. The only park on the river was the Charlesbank, near Boston’s West End (MDC Archives).

THE CHARLES RIVER AND would become the central reservation ll.lllliI’l 4.rI.\ Ills THE METROPOLITAN PARK of the metropolitan district Ill I,’I( IN and the SYSTEM most celebrated “water park” in the entire country. The Cambridge and In 1893 the Boston Metropolitan Metropolitan Park Commissions N Park Commission published its first made their first takings along the report, written by Sylvester Baxter; river in 1894-95. the commission’s secretary, and Six years later James Storrow led Charles Eliot, its landscape architect. a new campaign for a dam at They proposed a park system that Craigie’s Bridge, and the dam, along would preserve the “rock hills, the with a 100-foot embankment on the stream banks, and the bay and the sea Boston side, was finally completed in shores” of greater Boston. Once in 1910. A few lamented the loss of the the public domain these natural last “once primitive and beautiful salt features of the region vould establish meadows,” but the stabilized river the framework for urban develop drew to its banks new campuses for ment, not the haphazard and Harvard, MIT, and Boston unplanned assemblage of street, lots, University. The Storrow Memorial

railroads, and streetcar lines. Embankment — now known as the

The first reservations to be Esplanade — was designed by Arthur

acquired — Beaver Brook, the Blue Shurcliff and dedicated in 1936,

Hills, the Middlesex Fells — repre ninety years after a water park was sented “unique and characteristic” first proposed on the Charles. The metropolitan park plan of 1893 was bounded by the rock hills that surround Boston New England scenery. The rivers and The public spaces of the about ten miles from the State House. Forest reservations — the Middlesex Fells and the bays, with their shores reclaimed, New Basin to be built in the next

Blue Hills — were laid out along this ring of hills. The radial spokes of the park system offered “permanently open spaces decade will continue the 100-year were the three rivers — the Mystic, the Charles, and the Neponset. Comprising the third element of the plan were the beaches of the hay and sea shores; tree-lined parkways provided by nature without cost.” improvement of the river as the linked the hills, the rivers, and the shores. By 1899, over nine thousand acres of In spite of the foul condition of “Central Park” of the Metropolitan reservations and parkways had been acquired (MDC Archives). the Basin, Eliot was certain that it Park System.

Hanscomb Associates, Inc. William Lamb, Todd Lee, Justine Liff, Jane Swift, Governor Michael Project Director Cost Estimating Jim Mansfield, Lisa Morwinkle, Robert Bob Durand, Secretary, EOEA E. Fred Yalouris, Director of LeMessurier Consultants O’Brien, Antonia Pollak, Kenneth Stone, Matthew J. Amorello, Chairman, Architecture and Urban Design Structural Engineering Daniel Wilsen, Jill Ochs Zick Massachusetts Turnpike Authority R. G. Vanderweil Engineers, Inc. City of Cambridge Appointees James Fl. Scanlan, Secretary, EOTC_ Mechanical Engineering Roger Boothe, Martha Doyle, Elizabeth 3 . Brewer Childs Engineering Corporation, Inc. Epstein, Ruby Charlotte C. Fleetwood Marine Engineering Mintz, Anthony Platt, David B. Balfour, Jr., Commissionerf KarstR. Hoogeboom Sam Reece, Hugh Russell, Cara Robert H. Carr, Jr., Associate Seiderman, Alex Strysky, Walter Willett Commissioner We invite your comments. Avril T. Elkort, Associate Carr, Lynch, Hack a Secretary of E — Affairs Contact the Metropolitan District Commissioner Planning, Urban Design, and Appointees Commission Planning Office Everette T. Sheppard, Sr., Associate Joel Bard, Lee Breckenridge, Deirdre Oehrne, van Sweden 20 Somerset Street Commissioner & Associates Buckley, David Ellis, Sonia Hamel, Planting Design Boston, MA 02108 Marilyn Rollins, Associate Richard Heath, Janet McCabe, Judith Howard (617) 727-9693, ext. 267 Commissioner / Stein-Hudson & Associates McDonough, Patrick T. McMahon, Transportation Planning Julia O’Brien, Director of Planning Ed O’Brien, Mark Primack, Jan Reitsma, Sherry Kafka Wagner Karl Haglund, Project Manager Betsy Shure Gross, Patrice Todisco, Programming & Interpretation Robert Zimmerman FedeHighway Administration KrentlPaffett Associates, Inc. Stanley Gee, Division Administrator Interpretive Planning City of Boston Appointees Qazilbash & Associates Peter Davidoff, Lorraine M. Downey, Geotechnical & Civil Engineering Judy Evers, Joseph Hinkle, Nancy Keys, March 1995. Revised July 1999, June 2002