"Dirty Old Boston"

stick n move said:
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That would have been a massive amount of fill dirt to haul in to raise this huge area up to street level. It was probably similar to the I-93 construction in the early 60s, when I saw the Medford branch being used to haul fill dirt in by train cars for the massive fill area along the Mystic River, plus the I-93 embankment through Medford itself.
 
Charlie_mta said:
That would have been a massive amount of fill dirt to haul in to raise this huge area up to street level. It was probably similar to the I-93 construction in the early 60s, when I saw the Medford branch being used to haul fill dirt in by train cars for the massive fill area along the Mystic River, plus the I-93 embankment through Medford itself.
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Interestingly enough, I think that's actually been excavated, then flooded, then refilled when they built the pru rather than the other way around. Comparing the 1955 aerial to the 1962, it's fairly apparent that the formerly flat railyard was "dug down" substantially.
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Where did you find those?

-Also how crazy is it the triangle 1 dalton parcel was empty all that time until it was finally filled in with the tower?
 
393b40 said:
Street grid is massively different now.
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To say the least - Eliot St doesn't even connect directly to Stuart anymore - though this gives me a legitimate explanation why Stuart St bends at the State Transportation Building now.
 
Arenacale said:

This is quite the time capsule, 1997, right in the height of the Big Dig. Footage of the Museum of Science exhibit! This is the Boston I remember from my childhood.
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One $ billion was such a big deal back then. For large Infrastructure projects now, that's just a rounding error. LOL.
 
Arenacale said:

This is quite the time capsule, 1997, right in the height of the Big Dig. Footage of the Museum of Science exhibit! This is the Boston I remember from my childhood.
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Thanks for posting this! Wow!

There’s a lot of negative things I shout when I’m sitting in traffic in the tunnel, but never did I say “What did they do?”
 
That looks like it might be 1971ish by the scaffolding visible on the Harbor Towers.
 
I know it wasn't in Boston Proper.......but saw this this morning in the Globe and I just had to bring it here - - - - so many of us of a certain age knew THIS guy's work well before learning about Picasso, Rembrandt, etc. Just a joyous thing and a business plan from a different age that really we will never see again.

www.bostonglobe.com

Building 19 used cheap jokes to sell cheap crap. These two guys think it was art. - The Boston Globe

Building 19? Well, it was a store that sold things. There's a word to describe those things, but we can’t print it here. Let’s just say it rhymes with wit, which is how they sold it.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com
 
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Kudos for posting this! What a great article and story. Things like this make me so proud to call MA my home.
 
Arch101 said:
I was kind of shocked that they didn't cover that and put a park or something over it when they did the development at Mass Ave. -Wasted opportunity.
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I hear this frustration quite a bit, but the City of Boston has no control over this site (Parcel 15). It's managed by the Commonwealth, with easements by the MBCR, the Turnpike Commission, the Auditorium Garage Trust, a few energy companies (Veolias, Eversource), and a staked interest by the Prudential Insurance Company at the tunnel entrance, as well as whatever the LLC Fish/Weiner's settlement came down to for the "air rights" value of P15 + the land value of the St. Cecilia weed garden west of Auditorium Garage. (I might have some of the corporate names wrong, but you get the gist?)

Samuels would have had no ability to touch this parcel as they built out the site they won to redevelop Parcel 12/1001 Boylston Street.
 
bbfen said:
I hear this frustration quite a bit, but the City of Boston has no control over this site (Parcel 15). It's managed by the Commonwealth, with easements by the MBCR, the Turnpike Commission, the Auditorium Garage Trust, a few energy companies (Veolias, Eversource), and a staked interest by the Prudential Insurance Company at the tunnel entrance, as well as whatever the LLC Fish/Weiner's settlement came down to for the "air rights" value of P15 + the land value of the St. Cecilia weed garden west of Auditorium Garage. (I might have some of the corporate names wrong, but you get the gist?)

Samuels would have had no ability to touch this parcel as they built out the site they won to redevelop Parcel 12/1001 Boylston Street.
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The old St Cecilia's parcel behind the auditorium was sold off years ago (IIRC, to help pay for the cost overruns on the renovation of the church in the early 2010s). That's when the little shrine in it was removed.
 
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