Download or read book A City So Grand written by Stephen Puleo and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2011-05-17 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lively history of Boston’s emergence as a world-class city—home to the likes of Frederick Douglass and Alexander Graham Bell—by a beloved Bostonian historian “It’s been quite a while since I’ve read anything—fiction or nonfiction—so enthralling.”—Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic River and Shutter Island Once upon a time, “Boston Town” was an insulated New England township. But the community was destined for greatness. Between 1850 and 1900, Boston underwent a stunning metamorphosis to emerge as one of the world’s great metropolises—one that achieved national and international prominence in politics, medicine, education, science, social activism, literature, commerce, and transportation. Long before the frustrations of our modern era, in which the notion of accomplishing great things often appears overwhelming or even impossible, Boston distinguished itself in the last half of the nineteenth century by proving it could tackle and overcome the most arduous of challenges and obstacles with repeated—and often resounding—success, becoming a city of vision and daring. In A City So Grand, Stephen Puleo chronicles this remarkable period in Boston’s history, in his trademark page-turning style. Our journey begins with the ferocity of the abolitionist movement of the 1850s and ends with the glorious opening of America’s first subway station, in 1897. In between we witness the thirty-five-year engineering and city-planning feat of the Back Bay project, Boston’s explosion in size through immigration and annexation, the devastating Great Fire of 1872 and subsequent rebuilding of downtown, and Alexander Graham Bell’s first telephone utterance in 1876 from his lab at Exeter Place. These lively stories and many more paint an extraordinary portrait of a half century of progress, leadership, and influence that turned a New England town into a world-class city, giving us the Boston we know today.
Download or read book The Hub s Metropolis written by James C. O'Connell and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2013-03-22 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The evolution of the Boston metropolitan area, from country villages and streetcar suburbs to exurban sprawl and “smart growth.” Boston's metropolitan landscape has been two hundred years in the making. From its proto-suburban village centers of 1800 to its far-flung, automobile-centric exurbs of today, Boston has been a national pacesetter for suburbanization. In The Hub's Metropolis, James O'Connell charts the evolution of Boston's suburban development. The city of Boston is compact and consolidated—famously, “the Hub.” Greater Boston, however, stretches over 1,736 square miles and ranks as the world's sixth largest metropolitan area. Boston suburbs began to develop after 1820, when wealthy city dwellers built country estates that were just a short carriage ride away from their homes in the city. Then, as transportation became more efficient and affordable, the map of the suburbs expanded. The Metropolitan Park Commission's park-and-parkway system, developed in the 1890s, created a template for suburbanization that represents the country's first example of regional planning. O'Connell identifies nine layers of Boston's suburban development, each of which has left its imprint on the landscape: traditional villages; country retreats; railroad suburbs; streetcar suburbs (the first electric streetcar boulevard, Beacon Street in Brookline, was designed by Frederic Law Olmsted); parkway suburbs, which emphasized public greenspace but also encouraged commuting by automobile; mill towns, with housing for workers; upscale and middle-class suburbs accessible by outer-belt highways like Route 128; exurban, McMansion-dotted sprawl; and smart growth. Still a pacesetter, Greater Boston has pioneered antisprawl initiatives that encourage compact, mixed-use development in existing neighborhoods near railroad and transit stations. O'Connell reminds us that these nine layers of suburban infrastructure are still woven into the fabric of the metropolis. Each chapter suggests sites to visit, from Waltham country estates to Cambridge triple-deckers.
Download or read book The City State of Boston written by Mark Peterson and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 764 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the vaunted annals of America's founding, Boston has long been held up as an exemplary "city upon a hill" and the "cradle of liberty" for an independent United States. Wresting this iconic urban center from these misleading, tired clich s, The City-State of Boston highlights Boston's overlooked past as an autonomous city-state, and in doing so, offers a pathbreaking and brilliant new history of early America. Following Boston's development over three centuries, Mark Peterson discusses how this self-governing Atlantic trading center began as a refuge from Britain's Stuart monarchs and how--through its bargain with slavery and ratification of the Constitution - it would tragically lose integrity and autonomy as it became incorporated into the greater United States. Drawing from vast archives, and featuring unfamiliar alongside well-known figures, such as John Winthrop, Cotton Mather, and John Adams, Peterson explores Boston's origins in sixteenth-century utopian ideals, its founding and expansion into the hinterland of New England, and the growth of its distinctive political economy, with ties to the West Indies and southern Europe. By the 1700s, Boston was at full strength, with wide Atlantic trading circuits and cultural ties, both within and beyond Britain's empire. After the cataclysmic Revolutionary War, "Bostoners" aimed to negotiate a relationship with the American confederation, but through the next century, the new United States unraveled Boston's regional reign. The fateful decision to ratify the Constitution undercut its power, as Southern planters and slave owners dominated national politics and corroded the city-state's vision of a common good for all. Peeling away the layers of myth surrounding a revered city, The City-State of Boston offers a startlingly fresh understanding of America's history.
Download or read book Lost Boston written by Jane Holtz Kay and published by Univ of Massachusetts Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At once a fascinating narrative and a visual delight, Lost Boston brings the city's past to life. This updated edition includes a new section illustrating the latest gains and losses in the struggle to preserve Boston 's architectural heritage. With an engaging text and more than 350 seldom-seen photographs and prints, Lost Boston offers a chance to see the city as it once was, revealing architectural gems lost long ago. An eminently readable history of the city's physical development, the book also makes an eloquent appeal for its preservation. Jane Holtz Kay traces the evolution of Boston from the barren, swampy peninsula of colonial times to the booming metropolis of today. In the process, she creates a family album for the city, infusing the text with the flavor and energy that makes Boston distinct. Amid the grand landmarks she finds the telling details of city life: the neon signs, bygone amusement parks, storefronts, and windows plastered with images of campaigning politicians-sights common in their time but even more meaningful in their absence today. Kay also brings to life the people who created Boston-architects like Charles Bulfinch and H. H. Richardson, landscape architect and master park-maker Frederick Law Olmsted, and such colorful political figures as Mayors John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald and James Michael Curley. The new epilogue brings Boston's story to the end of the twentieth century, showing elements of the city's architecture that were lost in recent years as well as those that were saved and others threatened as the city continues to evolve.
Download or read book I Want to be Metropolitan written by Dongwoo Yim and published by Oro Editions. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examples of these are the Big Dig, land reclamation, and its transportation network. These are efforts that are very difficult to find in other cities of similar scale, and provide the first clue towards the potential of the future of Boston and its current success. The second chapter identifies Boston's poly-centrality, a characteristic that appears in big metropolitan cities like Tokyo. Rather than having a single civic center or a downtown, Boston accommodates different urban cores such as an industrial core, an institutional core, a commercial core, and others within the confinement of its limited area. The chapter is subdivided into separate sections to explain each core and their significance in the city. In homage to ''Made in Tokyo'', chapter three catalogs hybrid buildings in Boston, referencing the ambiguity of these buildings being born out of a metropolitan context and transported to a less dense setting.
Download or read book Metropolis written by B. A. Shapiro and published by Algonquin Books. This book was released on 2022-05-17 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This masterful novel of psychological suspense from the New York Times bestselling author of The Art Forger follows a cast of unforgettable characters whose lives intersect when a harrowing accident occurs at the Metropolis Storage Warehouse in Cambridge, Massachusetts. But was it really an accident? Was it suicide? A murder? Six mysterious characters, who rent units in, or are connected to, the self-storage facility, must now reevaluate their lives. We meet Serge, an unstable but brilliant street photographer who lives in his unit, which overflows with thousands of undeveloped pictures; Zach, the building's owner, who develops Serge's photos as he searches for clues to the accident; Marta, an undocumented immigrant who is finishing her dissertation and hiding from ICE; Liddy, an abused wife and mother, who recreates her children's bedroom in her unit; Jason, who has left his corporate firm and now practices law from his storage unit; and Rose, the office manager, who takes kickbacks to let renters live in the building and has her own complicated family history. The characters have a variety of backgrounds: they are different races; they practice different religions; they're young and they're not so young; they are rich, poor, and somewhere in the middle. As they dip in and out of one another's lives, fight circumstances that are within and also beyond their control, and try to discover the details of the accident, Shapiro both dismantles the myth of the American dream and builds tension to an exciting climax. For readers of Janelle Brown, Lucy Foley, Megan Abbott, and Laura Lippman, Metropolis is an original, spellbinding, and moving story of what we hang on to, what we might need to let go, and how unexpected events can lead us to discover our truest selves.
Download or read book Concrete Changes written by Brian M. Sirman and published by Bright Leaf. This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the 1950s to the end of the twentieth century, Boston transformed from a city in freefall into a thriving metropolis, as modern glass skyscrapers sprouted up in the midst of iconic brick rowhouses. After decades of corruption and graft, a new generation of politicians swept into office, seeking to revitalize Boston through large-scale urban renewal projects. The most important of these was a new city hall, which they hoped would project a bold vision of civic participation. The massive Brutalist building that was unveiled in 1962 stands apart -- emblematic of the city's rebirth through avant-garde design. And yet Boston City Hall frequently ranks among the country's ugliest buildings. Concrete Changes seeks to answer a common question for contemporary viewers: How did this happen? In a lively narrative filled with big personalities and newspaper accounts, Brian M. Sirman argues that this structure is more than a symbol of Boston's modernization; it acted as a catalyst for political, social, and economic change.
Download or read book City of Second Sight written by Justin T. Clark and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2018-03-16 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the decades before the U.S. Civil War, the city of Boston evolved from a dilapidated, haphazardly planned, and architecturally stagnant provincial town into a booming and visually impressive metropolis. In an effort to remake Boston into the "Athens of America," neighborhoods were leveled, streets straightened, and an ambitious set of architectural ordinances enacted. However, even as residents reveled in a vibrant new landscape of landmark buildings, art galleries, parks, and bustling streets, the social and sensory upheaval of city life also gave rise to a widespread fascination with the unseen. Focusing his analysis between 1820 and 1860, Justin T. Clark traces how the effort to impose moral and social order on the city also inspired many—from Transcendentalists to clairvoyants and amateur artists—to seek out more ethereal visions of the infinite and ideal beyond the gilded paintings and glimmering storefronts. By elucidating the reciprocal influence of two of the most important developments in nineteenth-century American culture—the spectacular city and visionary culture—Clark demonstrates how the nineteenth-century city is not only the birthplace of modern spectacle but also a battleground for the freedom and autonomy of the spectator.
Download or read book The Image of the City written by Kevin Lynch and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1964-06-15 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The classic work on the evaluation of city form. What does the city's form actually mean to the people who live there? What can the city planner do to make the city's image more vivid and memorable to the city dweller? To answer these questions, Mr. Lynch, supported by studies of Los Angeles, Boston, and Jersey City, formulates a new criterion—imageability—and shows its potential value as a guide for the building and rebuilding of cities. The wide scope of this study leads to an original and vital method for the evaluation of city form. The architect, the planner, and certainly the city dweller will all want to read this book.
Download or read book Streetcar Suburbs written by Sam Bass WARNER and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the last third of the 19th century Boston grew from a crowded merchant town, in which nearly everybody walked to work, to a modern divided metropolis. The street railway created this division of the metropolis into an inner city of commerce and slums and an outer city of commuter suburbs. This book tells who built the new city, and why, and how.
Download or read book Imagine Boston 2030 written by City Of Boston and published by . This book was released on 2017-09-08 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, Boston is in a uniquely powerful position to make our city more affordable, equitable, connected, and resilient. We will seize this moment to guide our growth to support our dynamic economy, connect more residents to opportunity, create vibrant neighborhoods, and continue our legacy as a thriving waterfront city.Mayor Martin J. Walsh's Imagine Boston 2030 is the first citywide plan in more than 50 years. This vision was shaped by more than 15,000 Boston voices.
Download or read book The Atlas of Boston History written by Nancy S. Seasholes and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-10-10 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few American cities possess a history as long, rich, and fascinating as Boston’s. A site of momentous national political events from the Revolutionary War through the civil rights movement, Boston has also been an influential literary and cultural capital. From ancient glaciers to landmaking schemes and modern infrastructure projects, the city’s terrain has been transformed almost constantly over the centuries. The Atlas of Boston History traces the city’s history and geography from the last ice age to the present with beautifully rendered maps. Edited by historian Nancy S. Seasholes, this landmark volume captures all aspects of Boston’s past in a series of fifty-seven stunning full-color spreads. Each section features newly created thematic maps that focus on moments and topics in that history. These maps are accompanied by hundreds of historical and contemporary illustrations and explanatory text from historians and other expert contributors. They illuminate a wide range of topics including Boston’s physical and economic development, changing demography, and social and cultural life. In lavishly produced detail, The Atlas of Boston History offers a vivid, refreshing perspective on the development of this iconic American city. Contributors Robert J. Allison, Robert Charles Anderson, John Avault, Joseph Bagley, Charles Bahne, Laurie Baise, J. L. Bell, Rebekah Bryer, Aubrey Butts, Benjamin L. Carp, Amy D. Finstein, Gerald Gamm, Richard Garver, Katherine Grandjean, Michelle Granshaw, James Green, Dean Grodzins, Karl Haglund, Ruth-Ann M. Harris, Arthur Krim, Stephanie Kruel, Kerima M. Lewis, Noam Maggor, Dane A. Morrison, James C. O’Connell, Mark Peterson, Marshall Pontrelli, Gayle Sawtelle, Nancy S. Seasholes, Reed Ueda, Lawrence J. Vale, Jim Vrabel, Sam Bass Warner, Jay Wickersham, and Susan Wilson
Download or read book Our Boston written by Andrew Blauner and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2013 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An anthology of essays about Boston and what it means to the contributors, including Susan Orlean, Kevin Cullen, Mike Barnicle, Pico Iyer, and many more.
Download or read book Eden on the Charles written by Michael Rawson and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2014-10-06 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drinking a glass of tap water, strolling in a park, hopping a train for the suburbs: some aspects of city life are so familiar that we don’t think twice about them. But such simple actions are structured by complex relationships with our natural world. The contours of these relationships—social, cultural, political, economic, and legal—were established during America’s first great period of urbanization in the nineteenth century, and Boston, one of the earliest cities in America, often led the nation in designing them. A richly textured cultural and social history of the development of nineteenth-century Boston, this book provides a new environmental perspective on the creation of America’s first cities. Eden on the Charles explores how Bostonians channeled country lakes through miles of pipeline to provide clean water; dredged the ocean to deepen the harbor; filled tidal flats and covered the peninsula with houses, shops, and factories; and created a metropolitan system of parks and greenways, facilitating the conversion of fields into suburbs. The book shows how, in Boston, different class and ethnic groups brought rival ideas of nature and competing visions of a “city upon a hill” to the process of urbanization—and were forced to conform their goals to the realities of Boston’s distinctive natural setting. The outcomes of their battles for control over the city’s development were ultimately recorded in the very fabric of Boston itself. In Boston’s history, we find the seeds of the environmental relationships that—for better or worse—have defined urban America to this day.
Download or read book Heroic written by Mark Pasnik and published by The Monacelli Press, LLC. This book was released on 2015-10-27 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Often problematically labeled as “Brutalist” architecture, the concrete buildings that transformed Boston during 1960s and 1970s were conceived with progressive-minded intentions by some of the world’s most influential designers, including Marcel Breuer, Le Corbusier, I. M. Pei, Henry Cobb, Araldo Cossutta, Gerhard Kallmann and Michael McKinnell, Paul Rudolph, Josep Lluís Sert, and The Architects Collaborative. As a worldwide phenomenon, building with concrete represents one of the major architectural movements of the postwar years, but in Boston it was deployed in more numerous and diverse civic, cultural, and academic projects than in any other major U.S. city. After decades of stagnation and corrupt leadership, public investment in Boston in the 1960s catalyzed enormous growth, resulting in a generation of bold buildings that shared a vocabulary of concrete modernism. The period from the 1960 arrival of Edward J. Logue as the powerful and often controversial director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority to the reopening of Quincy Market in 1976 saw Boston as an urban laboratory for the exploration of concrete’s structural and sculptural qualities. What emerged was a vision for the city’s widespread revitalization often referred to as the “New Boston.” Today, when concrete buildings across the nation are in danger of insensitive renovation or demolition, Heroic presents the concrete structures that defined Boston during this remarkable period—from the well-known (Boston City Hall, New England Aquarium, and cornerstones of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University) to the already lost (Mary Otis Stevens and Thomas F. McNulty’s concrete Lincoln House and Studio; Sert, Jackson & Associates’ Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School)—with hundreds of images; essays by architectural historians Joan Ockman, Lizabeth Cohen, Keith N. Morgan, and Douglass Shand-Tucci; and interviews with a number of the architects themselves. The product of 8 years of research and advocacy, Heroic surveys the intentions and aspirations of this period and considers anew its legacies—both troubled and inspired.
Download or read book Remaking Boston written by Anthony N. Penna and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2009 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Remaking Boston chronicles many of the events that altered the physical landscape of Boston, while also offering multidisciplinary perspectives on the environmental history of one of America's oldest and largest metropolitan areas.
Download or read book Mapping Boston written by Alex Krieger and published by MIT Press (MA). This book was released on 1999 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lavishly illustrated tour of Boston through its cartography uses a wide historical, urban planning, and regional maps, as well as numerous illustrations, to show how the city was born, grew, and changed over the last three decades.
