Download or read book Inventing the Charles River written by Karl Haglund and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2002-11-22 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illustrated account of the creation of the Charles River Basin, focusing on the precarious balance between transportation planning and the stewardship of the public realm. The Charles River Basin, extending nine miles upstream from the harbor, has been called Boston's "Central Park." Yet few realize that this apparently natural landscape is a totally fabricated public space. Two hundred years ago the Charles was a tidal river, edged by hundreds of acres of salt marshes and mudflats. Inventing the Charles River describes how, before the creation of the basin could begin, the river first had to be imagined as a single public space. The new esplanades along the river changed the way Bostonians perceived their city; and the basin, with its expansive views of Boston and Cambridge, became an iconic image of the metropolis. The book focuses on the precarious balance between transportation planning and stewardship of the public realm. Long before the esplanades were realized, great swaths of the river were given over to industrial enterprises and transportation—millponds, bridges, landfills, and a complex network of road and railway bridges. In 1929, Boston's first major highway controversy erupted when a four-lane road was proposed as part of a new esplanade. At twenty-year intervals, three riverfront road disputes followed, successively more complex and disputatious, culminating in the lawsuits over "Scheme Z," the Big Dig's plan for eighteen lanes of highway ramps and bridges over the river. More than four hundred photographs, maps, and drawings illustrate past and future visions for the Charles and document the river's place in Boston's history.
Download or read book My Green Manifesto written by David Gessner and published by Milkweed Editions. This book was released on 2011-07-12 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All environmentalism is local: “A wonderfully readable book” about saving the planet by focusing first on our own habitats (The Boston Globe). Though environmental awareness is on the rise, our march toward ecological collapse continues. What was once a movement based primarily on land preservation, endangered species, and policy reform is now a fractured mess of back-to-the-landers, capitalist “green lifestyle” vendors, technology worshipers, and countless special interest groups. Inspired by a rough-and-tumble journey across country and down river, David Gessner, a John Burroughs Award winner, makes the case for a new environmentalism. In a frank, funny, and incisive call to arms that spans from the Cape Wind Project to the Monkey Wrench Gang, he considers why we do or do not fight to protect and restore wilderness, and reminds us why it’s time to join the fray. Known as an environmental advocate “reminiscent of Edward Abbey” (Library Journal), Gessner rebels against this fragmented environmentalism and holier-than-thou posturing. He also suggests that global problems, though real, are disempowering. While introducing us to lovable, stubborn Dan Driscoll, “a regular guy fighting a local fight for a limited wilderness,” he argues for a movement focused on local issues and grounded in a more basic, more holistic—and ultimately more effective—defense of home. “Funny and inspiring.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Download or read book Gaining Ground written by Nancy S. Seasholes and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-04-20 with total page 553 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why and how Boston was transformed by landmaking. Fully one-sixth of Boston is built on made land. Although other waterfront cities also have substantial areas that are built on fill, Boston probably has more than any city in North America. In Gaining Ground historian Nancy Seasholes has given us the first complete account of when, why, and how this land was created.The story of landmaking in Boston is presented geographically; each chapter traces landmaking in a different part of the city from its first permanent settlement to the present. Seasholes introduces findings from recent archaeological investigations in Boston, and relates landmaking to the major historical developments that shaped it. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, landmaking in Boston was spurred by the rapid growth that resulted from the burgeoning China trade. The influx of Irish immigrants in the mid-nineteenth century prompted several large projects to create residential land—not for the Irish, but to keep the taxpaying Yankees from fleeing to the suburbs. Many landmaking projects were undertaken to cover tidal flats that had been polluted by raw sewage discharged directly onto them, removing the "pestilential exhalations" thought to cause illness. Land was also added for port developments, public parks, and transportation facilities, including the largest landmaking project of all, the airport. A separate chapter discusses the technology of landmaking in Boston, explaining the basic method used to make land and the changes in its various components over time. The book is copiously illustrated with maps that show the original shoreline in relation to today's streets, details from historical maps that trace the progress of landmaking, and historical drawings and photographs.
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 Where Futures Converge written by Robert Buderi and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2022-05-10 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The evolution of the most innovative square mile on the planet: the endless cycles of change and reinvention that created today’s Kendall Square. Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been called “the most innovative square mile on the planet.” It’s a life science hub, hosting Biogen, Moderna, Pfizer, Takeda, and others. It’s a major tech center, with Google, Microsoft, IBM, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple all occupying big chunks of pricey office space. Kendall Square also boasts a dense concentration of startups, with leading venture capital firms conveniently located nearby. And of course, MIT is just down the block. In Where Futures Converge, Robert Buderi offers the first detailed account of the unique ecosystem that is Kendall Square, chronicling the endless cycles of change and reinvention that have driven its evolution. Buderi, who himself has worked in Kendall Square for the past twenty years, tells fascinating stories of great innovators and their innovations that stretch back two centuries. Before biotech and artificial intelligence, there was railroad car innovation, the first long-distance telephone call, the Polaroid camera, MIT’s once secret, now famous Radiation Laboratory, and much more. Buderi takes readers on a walking tour of the square and talks to dozens of innovators, entrepreneurs, urban planners, historians, and others. He considers Kendall Square’s limitations—it’s “gentrification gone rogue,” by one description, with little affordable housing, no pharmacy, and a scarce middle class—and its strengths: the “human collisions” that spur innovation. What’s next for Kendall Square? Buderi speculates about the next big innovative enterprises and outlines lessons for aspiring innovation districts. More important, he asks how Kendall Square can be both an innovation hub and diversity, equity, and inclusion hub. There’s a lot of work still to do.
Download or read book MIT written by Douglass Shand-Tucci and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2016-05-24 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was founded in 1861 as the cornerstone of Copley Square in Boston's Back Bay, then the center of a progressive, proto-globalist Brahmin culture committed to intellectual modernism and educational innovation. MIT founder William Barton Rogers's radical vision to teach by "mind and hand" was immediately successful. In 1916 MIT, growing by leaps and bounds, moved its campus to the nearby Charles River Basin in Cambridge, where it now stretches along the shore overlooking the Back Bay. MIT: The Campus Guide presents the history of the Institute's founding and its two campuses. Today, the campus is studded with buildings designed by noted architects such as William Welles Bosworth, Alvar Aalto, Eero Saarinen, I. M. Pei, Steven Holl, Charles Correa, J. Meejin Yoon, Frank Gehry, and Fumihiko Maki, among others. Alongside the architecture is a distinguished array of public art including works by Picasso, Henry Moore, Alexander Calder, Louise Nevelson, Frank Stella, Sol LeWitt, and Jaume Plensa.
Download or read book Building Old Cambridge written by Susan E. Maycock and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2016-11-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An extensively illustrated, comprehensive exploration of the architecture and development of Old Cambridge from colonial settlement to bustling intersection of town and gown. Old Cambridge is the traditional name of the once-isolated community that grew up around the early settlement of Newtowne, which served briefly as the capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and then became the site of Harvard College. This abundantly illustrated volume from the Cambridge Historical Commission traces the development of the neighborhood as it became a suburban community and bustling intersection of town and gown. Based on the city's comprehensive architectural inventory and drawing extensively on primary sources, Building Old Cambridge considers how the social, economic, and political history of Old Cambridge influenced its architecture and urban development. Old Cambridge was famously home to such figures as the proscribed Tories William Brattle and John Vassall; authors Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and William Dean Howells; publishers Charles C. Little, James Brown, and Henry O. Houghton; developer Gardiner Greene Hubbard, a founder of Bell Telephone; and Charles Eliot, the landscape architect. Throughout its history, Old Cambridge property owners have engaged some of the country's most talented architects, including Peter Harrison, H. H. Richardson, Eleanor Raymond, Carl Koch, and Benjamin Thompson. The authors explore Old Cambridge's architecture and development in the context of its social and economic history; the development of Harvard Square as a commercial center and regional mass transit hub; the creation of parks and open spaces designed by Charles Eliot and the Olmsted Brothers; and the formation of a thriving nineteenth-century community of booksellers, authors, printers, and publishers that made Cambridge a national center of the book industry. Finally, they examine Harvard's relationship with Cambridge and the community's often impassioned response to the expansive policies of successive Harvard administrations.
Download or read book Creating Camelot written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2013-09-05 with total page 58 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures of the Kennedys and important people, places, and events in their lives. *Includes an introduction. "Don't let it be forgot that once there was a spot for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot" In many ways, John Fitzgerald Kennedy and his young family were the perfect embodiment of the '60s. The decade began with a sense of idealism, personified by the attractive Kennedy, his beautiful and fashionable wife Jackie, and his young children. Months into his presidency, Kennedy exhorted the country to reach for the stars, calling upon the nation to send a man to the Moon and back by the end of the decade. In 1961, Kennedy made it seem like anything was possible, and Americans were eager to believe him. The Kennedy years were fondly and famously labeled "Camelot" by Jackie herself, suggesting an almost mythical quality about the young President and his family. Much of the glamor and vigor of Camelot, if not the majority of it, was supplied by First Lady Jackie Kennedy, whose elegance and grace made her the most popular woman in the world. Her popularity threatened to eclipse even her husband's, who famously quipped on one presidential trip to France that he was "the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris." Lady Jeanne Campbell put it best, writing for The London Evening Standard, "Jacqueline Kennedy has given the American people...one thing they have always lacked: Majesty." Americans were fascinated by the young First Lady's style, and the manner in which she glamorously positioned both the First Family and the White House in those years, and Jackie remains one of the country's most popular First Ladies. But it was in the face of adversity that she truly made her lasting mark, with the country taking its cue from her in the aftermath of the president's assassination. Having devised and lit the eternal flame at JFK's tombstone, Jackie also set about securing her husband's legacy, a time still fondly and mythically remembered as Camelot today, despite his legendary transgressions and infidelities. As it turned out, the '60s closely reflected the glossy, idealistic portrayal of John F. Kennedy, as well as the uglier truths. The country would achieve Kennedy's goal of a manned moon mission, and the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 finally guaranteed minorities their civil rights and restored equality, ensuring that the country "would live out the true meaning of its creed." But the idealism and optimism of the decade was quickly shattered, starting with Kennedy's assassination in 1963. The '60s were permanently marred by the Vietnam War, and by the time Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. were assassinated in 1968, the country was irreversibly jaded. The events of the decade produced protests and countercultures unlike anything the country had seen before, as young people came of age more quickly than ever. Creating Camelot chronicles the amazing lives and legacies of John and Jackie, weaving their lives and legacies together into one narrative. Along with pictures of the Kennedy family and important people, places, and events in their lives, you will learn about the John and Jackie like you never have before, in no time at all.
Download or read book Boston s Back Bay written by William A. Newman and published by UPNE. This book was released on 2006 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating look at the people, politics, and technology behind the massive landfill project that filled Boston's Back Bay
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 The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted written by Frederick Law Olmsted and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2013-11-30 with total page 858 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These papers document the personal and professional life of the foremost landscape architect in American history. Frederick Law Olmsted relocated from New York to the Boston area in the early 1880s. With the help of his stepson and partner, John Charles Olmsted, his professional office grew to become the first of its kind: a modern landscape architecture practice with park, subdivision, campus, residential, and other landscape design projects throughout the country. During the period covered in this volume, Olmsted and his partners, apprentices, and staff designed the exceptional park system of Boston and Brookline—including the Back Bay Fens, Franklin Park, and the Muddy River Improvement. Olmsted also designed parks for New York City, Rochester, Buffalo, and Detroit and created his most significant campus plans for Stanford University and the Lawrenceville School. The grounds of the U.S. Capitol were completed with the addition of the grand marble terraces that he designed as the transition to his surrounding landscape. Many of Olmsted’s most important private commissions belong to these years. He began his work at Biltmore, the vast estate of George Washington Vanderbilt, and designed Rough Point at Newport, Rhode Island, and several other estates for members of the Vanderbilt family. Olmsted wrote more frequently on the subject of landscape design during these years than in any comparable period. He would never provide a definitive treatise or textbook on landscape architecture, but the articles presented in this volume contain some of his most mature and powerful statements on the practice of landscape architecture.
Download or read book Pastoral and Monumental written by Donald C. Jackson and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2017-03-15 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Pastoral and Monumental, Donald C. Jackson chronicles America's longtime fascination with dams as represented on picture postcards from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Through over four hundred images, Jackson documents the remarkable transformation of dams and their significance to the environment and culture of America. Initially, dams were portrayed in pastoral settings on postcards that might jokingly proclaim them as "a dam pretty place." But scenes of flood damage, dam collapses, and other disasters also captured people's attention. Later, images of New Deal projects, such as the Hoover Dam, Grand Coulee Dam, and Norris Dam, symbolized America's rise from the Great Depression through monumental public works and technological innovation. Jackson relates the practical applications of dams, describing their use in irrigation, navigation, flood control, hydroelectric power, milling, mining, and manufacturing. He chronicles changing construction techniques, from small timber mill dams to those more massive and more critical to a society dependent on instant access to electricity and potable water. Concurrent to the evolution of dam technology, Jackson recounts the rise of a postcard culture that was fueled by advances in printing, photography, lowered postal rates, and America's fascination with visual imagery. In 1910, almost one billion postcards were mailed through the U.S. Postal Service, and for a period of over fifty years, postcards featuring dams were "all the rage." Whether displaying the charms of an old mill, the aftermath of a devastating flood, or the construction of a colossal gravity dam, these postcards were a testament to how people perceived dams as structures of both beauty and technological power.
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 Memory Lands written by Christine M. Delucia and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-01 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A powerful study of King Philip's War and its enduring effects on histories, memories, and places in Native New England from 1675 to the present
Download or read book The Boston Contest of 1944 written by Jeffry M. Diefendorf and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-03-05 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During World War II, many European government authorities and planners believed that the damage caused by bombing constituted a great opportunity to transform their cities. Even as the fighting continued, a great many plans were drawn up, and this has been the subject of much scholarship. However, what is often overlooked is wartime planning in cities not damaged in the war. United States cities were not bombed, but in Boston, one of its leading cities, the last years of the war brought a major effort to encourage both new plans to modernize the city and also means of implementing those plans. The wartime initiative to transform Boston had several sources. Both the Great Depression and the war had led to major measures by the federal government to try to deal with fiscal challenges and the need for new housing for the many people who relocated during the war because of the creation of new industries to help the war effort. Boston hoped it could benefit from these measures. Moreover, in the late 1930s, Harvard University had become a key residence for figures important in modernist planning, including Joseph Hudnut, Walter Gropius and Martin Wagner. These factors combined in 1944 to inspire what was called The Boston Contest. Its goal was to suggest solutions to many problems found in the metropolitan area. These issues included commercial and industrial developments, housing, transportation, education, recreation, welfare, urban finances, metropolitan government, and citizen participation in solving problems. This book, published in 1945 contains the top 3 prize winning entries and excerpts from 9 of the other nearly 100 entries. It gives a fascinating insight into the developing ideas of urban planning in the United States at a critical juncture.
Download or read book U S Geological Survey Circular written by and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Rough Guide to Boston written by Sarah Hull and published by Rough Guides UK. This book was released on 2011-03-01 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Rough Guide to Boston is the ultimate travel guide to this historic city. Seek out Boston's highlights with detailed information on everything from Fenway Park's "Green Monster" to the purple windowpanes of Beacon Hill. Spot the grasshopper weathervane on top of Faneuil Hall. Savour the city's best ice cream and lobster rolls. Walk in the footsteps of revolutionaries. Discover it all with up-to-date descriptions and maps pinpointing Boston's best hotels, eateries, drinking spots and shops. The Rough Guide to Boston also includes two full-colour sections documenting the city's zealous relationship with sports, plus a guide to Yankee cooking and eats. For out-of-city diversions, there is an additional in-depth chapter on the beach region of Cape Cod and the islands. Explore every corner of this engaging city with insider tips and illuminating photographs designed to help make your journey a uniquely memorable one. Make the most of your holiday with The Rough Guide to Boston.
