To all appearances,
the Charles River is tranquil and unchanging. Long viewed as one
of Greater Boston's most attractive and carefully preserved natural
features, the Charles has in fact undergone substantial alteration.
Inventing the Charles River, by Karl Haglund, charts the
river's changing course, both geographic and cultural, from colonial
times to the present. Virtually every bend in the river has been
created and re-created, generating political, commercial and social
ferment at every turn. This book gives that varied history contemporary
relevance as the Big Dig forces Bostonians to reconsider their
cityscape, and reinvent it once again.
Originally a tidal
river, the primal estuary gave way to commercial use in the 18th
century and industrial exploitation in the 19th. But before the
environmental blight that had overtaken the Charles could be remedied,
the area that would become the Basin first had to be imagined
as a single public space.
After the Civil War,
Boston enlisted the help of Frederick Law Olmsted, who developed
what has come to be known as the "Emerald Necklace," extending
from Boston Common to Franklin Park, with a link to the river
at Charlesgate. In the subsequent construction of esplanades on
both sides of the river, Charles Eliot, Guy Lowell, and Arthur
Shurcliff created an extraordinary public domain, a landmark in
what has been called "the culture of refinement."
In our own time, the
design and construction of the Central Artery/Harbor Tunnel project
(at over $14 billion, the largest highway construction project
ever undertaken in the U.S.) has presented the city with opportunities
similar to those of the previous century. These include the development
of public spaces across the city, with twenty acres of new parkland
near Boston Harbor and over forty acres along the Charles.
But a unifying vision
of civic refinement has yet to reemerge. Meanwhile, divergent
political and commercial perspectives have left the Charles River
Basin and its parklands behind, while public debate centers on
the controversies of the Big Dig.
Inventing the Charles
River makes the story of a great public resource available
to all through its rich text and extensive use of full-color illustrations.
The book also bears the mark of an experienced urban planner and
enthusiastic practitioner of narrative history. Karl Haglund's
long interest in urban design, and his thorough understanding
of the historical context from which the Basin has emerged, make
his book an invaluable tool. Urban planners, students of architecture
and landscape, and all who value our public spaces will find his
lucid recounting of the river's development a useful guide to
future action.
The historic and contemporary
images used to supplement the text give visual power to the Charles's
engaging history, remarkable beauty, and great potential. Numerous
images of abandoned or yet-to-be implemented visions illustrate
that the invention of the Charles River Basin remains unfinished;
the process of renewing Greater Boston's most significant public
space must continue.
Aerial photograph showing the Anderson,
Weeks and Western Avenue Bridges, 2001.
Peter Vanderwarker. |
This book offers all
who view urban parkland as a vital part of our democratic heritage
new insight for renewing Boston's common ground in the 21st century.
Profusely illustrated in an oversize format, Inventing the
Charles River is now available in bookstores.
The book is 10 x 9
inches, hardbound, 512 pages, with 450 illustrations (151 are
in color).
Get
this book for free with a $500 contribution to the Charles
River Conservancy.
Buy
this book now from the MIT Press.
Also, visit the WGBH
website to hear a lecture by Karl Haglund sponsored by the Boston
Athenaeum: streams.wgbh.org/forum/forum.php?lecture_id=1249.
