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Character and History

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Character and History character zones Harvard The natural or physical character of the Charles River is and always Square was peculiar. In the first place, the so-called “river” is not a river. East Cambridge Watertown It is a tidal estuary, a shallow and muddy trough, broad in its seaward Square Herter UpperWooded Basin Banks Park part, narrow and tortuous in its inward extension, and filled and Watertown LowerUrban Basin Lake almost emptied by the tide twice every day. At high tide the original The Arsenalsenal Allston-Brighton Beacon Back Bay (already filled in at this point) was about three miles long Cambridgeport Hill Newton Allston Landing Boston Common and two miles wide, and the original “river” wound its way inland MiddleOpen Basin Edge Public Garden five crooked miles to the natural head of the tide in Watertown. CHARLES ELIOT, FIRST REPORT OF THE Back Bay CHARLES RIVER IMPROVEMENT COMMISSION, The Fenway Back Bay Fens he Charles River—which English explorer John Smith named in to honor Prince Charles (later King Charles I)— Character Zones is one of the three major rivers of metropolitan Boston. At eighty miles in length it is the longest river entirely within the The character of the Basin changes along this eight-and-one-half-mile borders of Massachusetts. Twenty dams control the flow of the stretch, forming three discernible zones: the Lower Basin, from the his- Charles from its source at Echo Lake in Hopkinton, feet toric Charles River Dam to the Boston University Bridge; the Middle above sea level, to its confluence with TBoston Harbor. Character and Originally the segment of the river between History the Watertown Dam and the historic Charles River Dam was a sprawling salt marsh with nine-foot tides. The head of Basin, from the BU Bridge to THE LOWER BASIN BEGINS AT THE navigation, near Watertown Square, is eight and one-half miles from the Herter Park, and the Upper CHARLES RIVER DAM waters of Boston Harbor. Today, the width of the Basin ranges from two Basin, from Herter Park to the AND REACHES TO THE thousand feet in its lower, downstream section to less than one hundred Watertown Dam. In its lower BOSTON UNIVERSITY feet in its upper reaches. Channel depth ranges from an average of fifteen section the Basin is a struc- (COTTAGE FARM) BRIDGE. 3 feet in the lower section tured and expansive creation near the Esplanade to that changes to a narrow an average of two to meandering course in the mid- three feet in the upper dle section and changes again section between the to a landscape of intimate, Newton Yacht Club wooded banks in its upper and Watertown Square. reaches. The different charac- ters of these zones, combined with the continuity of the adjacent parkways, are essential to the identity of the Basin and provide an underlying base upon which future planning BEFORE THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE DAM IN , THE CHARLES should build. MEANDERED THROUGH SALT MARSHES LIKE THIS ONE ACROSS FROM THE PERKINS SCHOOL AT WATERTOWN. The Lower Basin is two and one-half miles With the exception of the over- A LESS URBAN CHAR- ACTER MARKS THE long and up to two thousand feet wide. Entirely grown sections by the Massa- UPPER BASIN manmade, it has the feel of an urban lake. chusetts Turnpike and Genzyme BETWEEN HERTER Vertical seawalls, straight tree-lined parkways Corporation, the banks of the PARK AND THE and paths, and the neoclassical presence of the Middle Basin are open. Eight WATERTOWN DAM. Massachusetts Institute of Technology define its boathouses are located along Cambridge shoreline. By contrast, the Boston the twisting course of the shore is a wooded embankment with overlooks. Middle Basin. The red brick It has for a backdrop Beacon Hill, at whose pin- buildings of Harvard Univer- nacle sits the Massa- sity, fronting the tree-lined chusetts State House. boulevards and grassy riverbanks, present a Bridge and a formal landing at Watertown Square classic view of America’s oldest university. form the terminus of the parkway-lined Basin, The Middle Basin but the river continues on another thousand feet is a zone of transition Upstream from the Eliot Bridge the low ele- to the Watertown Dam. from urban and for- vation of Herter Park and the broad sweep of mal to rural and natu- the curving river create a hint of the expansive ral. The Joint Board saltwater marshes that once bordered the mean- A Historical Sketch on the Improvement dering channel. The Harvard University athletic of Charles River, con- fields and Mt. Auburn and Cambridge cemeter- Six thousand years before the first Europeans vened in to con- ies add to the breadth of the open space in this arrived in what is now Massachusetts, the sider improvements section of the Middle Basin. Algonquins settled along the banks and marshes THIS PLAQUE MARKS along the entire Basin, of a place they called Mushauwomuk, “where ONE OF MORE THAN recommended that the In the Upper Basin, woods and brush that there is a big river.” This big river was really a SITES ON THE Cottage Farm Bridge crowd the banks of the river from the open tidal estuary, “a shallow and muddy trough, BANKS OF THE BASIN 4 (rebuilt in and fields of Herter Park to the Watertown Dam broad in its seaward part, narrow and tortuous WHERE INDICATIONS OF PRE-EUROPEAN THE MIDDLE BASIN renamed the Boston University Bridge in ) create a more rural setting on the water. For in its inward extension, and filled and almost HUMAN USE HAVE STRETCHES FROM THE mark the end of the Lower Basin and the shift pedestrians, the water is completely hidden emptied by the tide twice every day.” The BEEN FOUND. BOSTON UNIVERSITY to a more informal landscape. from view along much of this section. Unlike ancient river channel that once BRIDGE TO HERTER PARK. the filled marsh grounds of the Middle Basin, meandered between vast salt Despite the presence of intrusive industrial the hills of Watertown and Newton hem in the marshes can still be traced along and commercial uses along the edges of the river, creating a more intimate environment. the bottom of the Basin today. Basin, this change in character is evident along The Basin widens near the Watertown and the Basin today. Above the Boston University Newton yacht clubs; the tower of the Perkins The first mill dam was built Bridge the river flows in a narrower, curvilinear School for the Blind is a landmark visible from about at the head of the tide near channel for six miles to the Watertown Dam. Daly Field on the south side. The Galen Street Watertown Square. The towns of Boston and Cambridge, once separated by marshes and having to close their mudflats, were linked in by the Great windows in the heat Bridge near Harvard Square. By the mid-th of the summer. Worse century boat captains complained that the still, slaughterhouses numerous bridges crossing the river impeded the in Brighton and East tide and obstructed boat traffic. Because the Cambridge dumped river provided both water access to Boston carcasses directly into Harbor and a convenient place to dump refuse, the river each day to its shores were developed for various industrial float away with the uses, including slaughterhouses, coal-burning tide. Filling of the power plants, and shipping wharves. Canals marshes was called for, were dug in the eastern end of Cambridge in the and real estate developers had much to gain. idea. Together with Sylvester Baxter, a newspa- (LEFT) THE 1893 METRO- hope that Cambridgeportt would become a The rapid disappearance of the Charles River perman and Boston intellectual, Eliot con- POLITAN PARK PLAN FOR A RING OF RESERVATIONS major port. mudflats began with the filling of the Back vinced the state legislature in to establish AROUND BOSTON CON- Bay—now one of Boston’s most prestigious the Metropolitan Park Commission, the fore- NECTED BY RIVERS TO All this development along the shores slowly neighborhoods—from the s through the runner of the Metropolitan District Commission. THE BAY AND SEA SHORES. transformed the big river and its marshes and s. (ABOVE) THE EMBANK- MENT, ABOUT , LOOK- mudflats. Sewage was dumped directly into the Working for the Metropolitan Park Com- ING TOWARD THE BACK river, a practice that lasted well into the twenti- While many people contributed to the idea mission, Eliot and Baxter produced within a BAY FROM THE FLATS OF eth century. By the Boston Board of Alder- of a grand water basin for Boston and Cam- year a report recommending the acquisition BEACON HILL. men would describe the Back Bay marshes as bridge, it was Charles Eliot who placed this and protection of thousands of acres of land “nothing less than a great cesspool, into which bold idea into the context of an even grander throughout the Boston region, with the Charles is daily deposited all the filth of a large and vision: a metropolitan park system for the entire River Reservation as the centerpiece. Eliot pre- increasing population.” The odors were so region. Eliot was the son of the president of dicted that the Charles River Basin would 5 strong that Cambridge residents complained of Harvard College and a protégé of Frederick become the “central court of honor” in the BEFORE THE BASIN’S Law Olmsted, the metropolitan district. CREATION, CAMBRIDGE designer of New York BUSINESSES HOPED TO City’s Central Park, Within three short years the Metropolitan ATTRACT HARBORSIDE ACTIVITY BY DIGGING connections that Park Commission and the Cambridge Parks CANALS ALONG THE helped considerably Commission acquired most of the seventeen RIVER.
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