Features

Boston's park life

1 Nov 2006 by Robert Curley
Boston Web

It’s not been a smooth ride, but now the Big Dig is finished Boston is going through one of the largest transformations in its history. Robert Curley explores its green spaces, both ancient and nascent.

Not long ago, many travellers to Boston might have agreed with writer Oliver Herford, who once remarked: “When I go abroad, I always sail from Boston, because it is such a pleasant place to get away from.” Herford’s denunciation is sweeping, but anyone who has spent hours seething in traffic on Boston’s Central Artery, or tried to negotiate the snarl of Logan International Airport, might share his sentiment that the city looked better on the way out than in. Returning visitors to Boston, however, will immediately notice something is missing: the aforementioned Central Artery, the elevated highway that once pierced the heart of the city, separating most of its downtown from its historic waterfront. At a cost of US$14.3 billion, Boston’s so-called Big Dig was declared officially complete in 2003. The cost may be staggering, but rarely has a construction project done so much to transform a city, particularly from the viewpoint of a business traveller. Where the Central Artery once stood, landscapers are in the process of creating a swathe of parkland known as the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, stretching from the beautiful, cable-stayed Leonard P Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge to Chinatown, passing through the financial district and the historic North End, as well as the famous Quincy Market and bay-fronted wharves on the way. “The dream has been to allow Bostonians to understand their history as a city connected to the sea,” says Pat Moscaratolo, CEO of the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau (GBCVB). “Boston is open to the sea again, with views from City Hall Plaza out to the harbour.” The redevelopment includes the long-neglected Harbor Islands, which have a new, expanded ferry service that departs from Long Wharf. It makes a number of stops, including at Georges Island, the location of Fort Warren, which dates back to the Revolutionary War. When the Greenway is completed next year, visitors will be able to walk unhindered from the hotels in the financial district, Beacon Hill, Chinatown and the theatre district to the Italian restaurants of the North End and attractions such as Quincy Market, Faneuil Hall and the New England Aquarium. Conversely, business travellers staying at waterfront hotels such as the Marriott Long Wharf and Boston Harbor Hotel will no longer have to scurry through dank, rubbish-strewn highway underpasses to reach the rest of the city. The Big Dig has also made it far easier for travellers arriving by air to get from Logan to downtown: the modern, uncrowded Ted Williams Tunnel under Boston Harbor has turned what was once an expensive crawl of a cab ride into a five-minute trip. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s new Silver Line uses express buses on dedicated lanes to speed passengers from Logan to the fast-developing seaport district, while the T’s Blue Line connects the airport to State Street and Government Center downtown. Logan itself is in the final stages of a US$4.4 billion makeover: visitors arriving in Delta Airlines’ new US$400 million Terminal A will encounter few crowds, while American Airlines is consolidating all its flights in Terminal C. There will be a new food court here by next summer to rival the one that opened earlier this year in Jet Blue Airways’ Terminal C space. Beyond aesthetics, the airport project includes a US$205 million central parking garage with 2,880 new spaces, connected to each terminal by a covered walkway; and another 500 outdoor parking spaces have been added at the international Terminal E (soon to be renamed Terminal D). Locals like to call their city “America’s walking city”, and the description is apt: you can walk from the seaport district in South Boston to Fenway Park in the far west in less than an hour. It’s a welcome break from fighting traffic on the city’s still-chaotic downtown streets, many of which still trace their serpentine colonial routes. Bordered by Beacon Hill and the gold-domed State House to the north, the theatre district to the south, and the towers of the financial district to the east, Boston Common has been the city’s green heart since its founding in 1630. The space where cows once grazed and British soldiers drilled is now a stroller’s and picnicker’s paradise; the common is also home to the Frog Pond, a splashy summer playground that becomes a skating rink when it freezes over in winter. For their central location, walkers and joggers will love the Ritz-Carlton Boston Common, the Four Seasons Boston and the boutique XV Beacon. The Four Seasons, for example, overlooks the fabled swan boats and miniature arched bridge of the Boston Public Garden, just across Charles Street from the common. As the central link in Boston’s “emerald necklace”, the Public Garden is a good spot to begin a stroll down the tree-lined corridor of Commonwealth Avenue, past the historic homes of the Back Bay and as far as Kenmore Square (just around the corner from Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox), onto the campus of Boston University (BU) and beyond. Mark Twain observed that while New Yorkers would inquire about a man’s worth and Philadelphians would ask about his lineage, “in Boston, they ask, how much does he know?” And as home to institutes like BU, Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Boston College, Northeastern, Emerson and many more, Boston retains its historic reputation as one of America’s great centres for learning. These schools are a major part of the local economy and a driving force for business development, notably in healthcare, life sciences, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. High-tech companies like Microsoft, IBM and EMC, clustered along the Route 128 and I-495 corridors ringing the city, have also benefited from Boston’s huge knowledge base. “The schools are feeders for the high-tech, engineering and science research industries,” notes Jim Klocke, executive vice president of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. “Universities and hospitals are anchors for our economy.” Harvard and MIT are both located just across the Charles River in nearby Cambridge, easily reached by a series of bridges or the T’s Red Line. Student-led tours of the historic Harvard campus are a free and an educational “must-do” for any visitor to Cambridge. Afterwards, drop into Upstairs at The Square on Harvard Square or check into the neighbouring Charles Hotel. (The Marriott Cambridge or the riverfront Royal Sonesta Hotel are other lodging options). In addition to the teaching hospital at Harvard Medical School, greater Boston is home to the internationally renowned Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the New England Medical Center, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and the Boston University Medical Center as well as managed healthcare organisations like Blue Cross Blue Shield, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Tufts Health Plan. A number of these healthcare organisations are clustered in the Longwood Medical Area, in the Fenway area and neighbouring Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. Boston remains a centre for financial services as well, headquartering companies like Fidelity Investments, Putnam Investments, Pioneer Financial Group, BankAmerica, Sovereign Bank, Citizen’s Bank and TD BankNorth. Many of these firms are located in the city’s financial district or the Back Bay neighbourhood, and the latter is also home to the Copley Place mall, the boutique shops and café restaurants of Newberry Street, the Hynes Convention Center and hotels like the Westin Copley Place and the Fairmont Copley Plaza. The recently renovated Fairmont is a gilded local landmark, which was built in 1912 on the original site of the Museum of Fine Arts. The hotel greets guests with its cheerful red awnings and the city’s only canine ambassador, a friendly black Labrador named Catie Copley. Still a work in progress, Boston’s hottest neighbourhood is South Boston, the traditional home to the city’s working-class Irish-American population and now home to the mammoth new Boston Convention and Exposition Center (BCEC) and the emerging seaport district. In addition to the BCEC, one of the premier meeting facilities on the East Coast, the South Boston waterfront is also home to an architecturally inspired federal courthouse, the Boston Seaport Hotel, and the city’s cruise-ship terminal, as well as offices for companies like Manulife Financial and Fidelity. “In three to five years, the seaport district will surpass the financial district as the centre of business in Boston,” predicts the GBCVB’s Moscaratolo. Another visual gem, the new Institute of Contemporary Art, is taking shape on a harbour-front plot in the seaport district. The futuristic building is aiming to become Boston’s iconic answer to Sydney’s Opera House, but has delayed its opening from this month until the new year. Opening on time, however, the long-awaited headquarters hotel at the BCEC, the 790-room Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel, is a notable addition to the city. Rising just across Fort Point Channel from South Station and downtown is a new InterContinental hotel, scheduled for a 2007 debut. “One of the legacies of the Big Dig is that it has become a real-estate development catalyst,” says Moscaratolo. If your business takes you to Boston’s financial district, making a few stops on the Freedom Trail is a greener way to spend your lunch hour or free time after your meetings are finished. Connected by a red line painted on streets and sidewalks, the Freedom Trail traces the birth of the American Revolution from the Old North Church to Paul Revere’s house in the North End and the USS Constitution, berthed at the Charlestown Navy Yard. A visit to the North End also means connecting with Boston’s Italian population – and it would be wrong not to eat here. This neighbourhood is dotted with Italian pastry shops, pizzerias and restaurants; for northern Italian cuisine, try Mamma Maria, right on Paul Revere Square; and for southern cooking, check out Ristorante Saraceno on Hanover Street. For many visitors, New England is synonymous with seafood, and Boston serves up everything from traditional to trendy. Sassy service has long been the rule at Durgin Park, a 130-year-old eatery at Quincy Market famous for its clam chowder. Even more historic is the Union Oyster House, opened in 1826 and the oldest continuously operating restaurant in the US. You can slurp down oysters chased by brandy and water here just like statesman and orator Daniel Webster once did. For a more modern take on seafood, try the hometown Legal Sea Foods chain or the Summer Shack restaurants in Boston and Cambridge, created by local celebrity chef Jasper White. Todd English is another local chef made good; his name now graces an exclusive restaurant aboard the Queen Mary 2. English still has a strong presence in Boston: Bonfire, located in the Park Plaza Hotel, is English’s clubby twist on a Brazilian churrascaria; Kingfish Hall serves up seafood in Faneul Hall; and the eclectic Olives is a Charlestown mainstay. No trip to Boston is complete without a visit to Fenway Park. Built in 1912, the ballpark has history, atmosphere and character that will appeal to baseball fans and neophytes alike. Ideally, visitors who come to Boston between May and October will snare tickets to a Red Sox game, although that has become a real challenge since the team won the World Series in 2004 (ask your hotel concierge for assistance; expect to pay US$75 per ticket or more on short notice). If you can’t make a game, year-round tours of the park are offered, including a unique look at the fabled Green Monster in left field. The Hotel Commonwealth in Kenmore Square is your best option if you want to be close to the Fenway action. The hotel is also convenient for the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum, famed not only for the founder’s diverse collection of fine art from around the world but also a museum building patterned after a classical Venetian palace, complete with a classic interior courtyard garden. If Herford could visit Boston today, he might find arriving a far more pleasant experience.

"BIG DIG" TUNNEL COLLAPSE

  A section of Boston’s 12.6km “Big Dig” tunnel system collapsed on July 10 this year, killing a passenger in a car that was crushed under tonnes of debris. The incident has led to sections of the multi-billion-dollar road system to be closed as officials investigate and repair other possible danger spots. A three-ton slab of tunnel ceiling fell onto the roadway after a series of anchor bolts failed, and engineers have identified other parts of the tunnel system where similar failures could occur. Officials closed all eastbound lanes and one westbound lane of the Ted Williams Tunnel – connecting Logan International Airport to downtown Boston – to all but bus and emergency-vehicle traffic. The closures have led to major traffic jams; more than 50,000 cars usually travel through the tunnel each day. Investigators have identified more than 1,400 parts of the tunnel requiring repair to prevent another collapse. In addition to the Ted Williams Tunnel, sections of Interstate 90 and Interstate 93 may be affected by closures and repair work.  
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