By Charlie McCabe
Aerial view of the Rose Kennedy Greenway, 2014
This is the second of several blog posts I've planned on the Big Dig and the establishment of the Rose Kennedy Greenway. The first part highlighted the recent WGBH podcast, The Big Dig, which is a nine-part series well worth a listen. You can also get a fairly detailed explanation of much of the Big Dig project via this excellent Wikipedia entry. Today's post focuses on the creation of the Rose Kennedy Greenway in downtown Boston at the tail end of the Big Dig project.
Park Promises from the Boston Globe, January 24, 2004
It's important to remember that the Big Dig project was active for a long time. Planning began in 1982, construction started in 1991, and the project was completed in December 2007. It was multi-faceted and included multiple tunnels, sections of highways, new highway interchanges and connecting streets were constructed. This meant that the required environmental mitigation was equally as big, which led to planning for 45 parks, encompassing nearly 300 acres, across Boston. Another significant aspect of environmental mitigation was the clean-up of old industrial sites and extensive additions to the public transportation system.
Sixteen years of construction definitely left its mark on Boston, especially downtown, where it required shoring up the existing elevated highway while digging a new tunnel beneath. Steps included freezing the ground below the big commuter rail and Amtrak yard at South Station and casting and sinking pieces of road way tunnels at several locations in Boston Harbor. With construction taking place mere feet from buildings housing offices, residences, and retail for more than a decade, soundproofing buildings and homes was another piece 0f mitigation required.
It goes without saying that people were frustrated by all of that activity, increasing as budgets increased and timelines lengthened. The project was managed by the state, led by the two biggest design/construction firms in the U.S., and primarily endured by the city of Boston, although portions took place outside the city.
Many of the park improvements turned out well. Spectacle Island, one of the harbor ("hahba" in Bostonian) islands and the site of the former city dump, was capped by fill extracted from the new tunnels, planted with grasses and trees and dotted with trails, and is now a popular destination. The Fort Point Channel of the Charles River, long an industrial site, became a series of parks after serious remediation.
View of Spectacle Island; photo by Liz Cook, Boston Harbor Now
But early on, people had a lot of opinions on these new public spaces—on how to reunite the portions of downtown neighborhoods that had been split apart by the 50-year old, four-story, elevated freeway. It didn't help that there was a lot of mistrust for the state agency that was managing the project, the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority (MTA). The Boston Globe, together with local TV station channel 5 and MIT, created a series of articles, op-eds, and public meetings called "Beyond the Big Dig" to encourage different points of view.
Big portions of the soon-to-be-daylighted parcels in the downtown area were slated for streets and sidewalks to knit the city back together; 10 parcels were dedicated specifically for development (ranging from hotels to housing and offices); and another 14 parcels were earmarked for various form of public use, including:
three ramp parcels (6, 12 and 18), where exits in and out of the new central artery tunnel would be reserved for buildings with a public purpose (museums, cultural centers, and a YMCA)
three parcels in the Fort Point Channel area (19, 21, 22) reserved for a new year-round "garden under glass" to be developed by the esteemed Massachusetts Horticultural Society (Mass Hort)
the remaining eight parcels for parks and open space, with the idea of a nonprofit trust designated to work with the state to operate and maintain those new parks.
Those eight parcels were put out to bid by the Turnpike Authority (without first informing the city or key neighborhood stakeholders) in three separate groupings: North End, the Wharf District, and Chinatown, each with a different design firm/joint venture overseeing design and public input. Some of the public processes went more smoothly than others; Chinatown and the North End were far ahead of the Wharf District. There were plenty of hard feelings and distrust expressed by stakeholders throughout the process, factoring in the many long years it had taken to get to this point.
Wharf District Park (Parcel 15) – early spring, 2013
Ultimately, designs were advanced, revised, and approved by the community groups, but the promised "garden under glass" fell victim to unrelated financial challenges at Mass Hort. In the end, the MTA de-authorized Mass Hort and turned those parcels (now called the Fort Point and Dewey Square parks) over to the newly established Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy. Mass Hort staff and volunteers helped to raise funds, acquire plants and trees, and joined in planting efforts alongside the Conservancy. Another small parcel, 13, was designated as the site for Armenian Heritage Park, designed and constructed by the local Armenian Heritage Foundation. [The Boston area has a very large Armenian population, many whom have ancestors that immigrated to the U.S. during the genocide in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.]
Interactive Harbor Fog Sculpture, Wharf District Park
The ramp parcels ended up having no buildings built on them, due to the much higher cost of building on those difficult sites and the great challenges of fundraising tens of millions of dollars in what ended up as the Great Recession as the Greenway was initially completed. The $70 Million YCMA, proposed for Parcel 6 (the most complicated of the three sites) reduced its proposed design before giving up entirely. Parcel 6 largely remains as mostly visible highway ramps, although it is surrounded by rows of healthly established trees and a small sandy soil style garden installed in 2022.
Location of Ramp parcels and planned buildings (from the Boston Globe, March 12, 2010)
The Boston Museum, orginally proposed for Parcel 12, attempted to restart on a development parcel, 9, with a slimmed-down design. The state rejected that proposal, ultimately awarding the parcel to a developer in 2013 that built a hotel that opened in 2021. Parcel 12 now boasts a very successful wildflower meadow and has served as the site of temporary art projects and even a zipline for a season, with highway entry and exit ramps still visible. Finally, Parcel 18 was the site of what was to be the New Center for Arts and Culture, an $80 million project sponsored by the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Boston and Combined Jewish Philanthropies. Again, fundraising challenges that continued through the Great Recession's aftermath forced the organizers to cancel the project in March of 2010. Parcel 18 has in turn become the most verdant of the three parcels, with mature trees, landscaped gardens (that have just seen an infusion of additional trees and plantings in 2024) and one of the first outdoor beer gardens in a park in Boston, now in its eighth season.
Greenway Meadow on Parcel 12, North End Parks, summer 2024
When the Greenway officially opened to the public in the summer of 2008, it had several interactive fountains (North End, Wharf District and Chinatown), one permanent interactive art piece (Harbor Fog), lawn areas, constructed paths and seating areas, lighting, hundreds of newly planted trees and thousands of new periennal plants. The price tag for park improvements came to $36 million. Yet to come (in early 2009) was the official agreement for the Conservancy to take responsibility for the park as well as construction on most of the development parcels.
Fort Point Channel Parks — newly planted 2009
Many Bostonians were underwhelmed with the initial state of the Greenway in the summer of 2008, the Boston Globe among them. The front page of the Globe on Sunday, July 13, 2008, led with the story: "Not-So-Green-Acres" with the byline: "Short on shade and visitors, the Rose Kennedy Greenway atop the Big Dig tunnel is off to a slow start in its inaugural summer." Yet to come in 2008 was a presidential election, a deepening worldwide recession, and the realization that the knitting back together of what was the elevated Central Artery into a revitalized several mile stretch of downtown might take longer than anyone realized or hoped. My next posts will focus on the transformation of the Greenway, the surrounding neighborhoods, and my own small but contributing role in all of that.
But I'll leave you with the Globe's recommendation to visit the Greenway in their Best of the Best 2024 edition of July 14, 2024:
Rose Kennedy Greenway: This 1.5-mile strip of green winding through the heart of Boston is the perfect respite from an overscheduled day. Explore bench swings, fountains, food trucks, and an unexpected labyrinth. Start with a ride on the harbor-themed Greenway carousel near Faneuil Hall.
Rings Fountain on a July Saturday, 2013
© Copyright 2024, Charlie McCabe Consulting LLC
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