The Forgotten Half-Mile

Prior to the construction of the Charles River dam in 1910, the tides had brought in salt water that mingled with the fresh water of the river, and as the tides receded, brackish, stagnant water was left behind creating an unpleasant stench, especially when the refuse of neighboring homes was added – the whole thing not a very healthy situation. The dam blocked the tides from entering the river basin between Cambridge and Boston, and besides being important to the health and well-being of the city dwellers, led to the creation of an urban park with an esplanade along an expanded embankment, graced with trees and grasses and bordered by islands and small lagoons.

After two hurricanes in the mid-twentieth century caused flood damage to Cambridge and Boston along the Back Bay, the Massachusetts General Court approved the construction of a new larger dam at the mouth of the river, a half-mile downstream from the dam of 1910, with pumps to return the overflow of ocean water during a storm. Additionally, a study by the Army Corps of Engineers of the Watershed led to the recommendation to retain several acres of wetlands upriver to act as a sponge that would absorb excess rain- water upstream.

The half-mile section of the river between the first dam and the Gridley (named after Washington’s first engineer) became obscured by train tracks and the continuing construction of bridges as car traffic increased. Near the end of the twentieth century, the area along the “forgotten half-mile” was a “no man’s land” of weeds and views of bleak steel structures.

Then after the construction of the Big Dig was underway, efforts began to establish five park lands along the river to mitigate the upheaval caused by the construction, beginning with the creation of the 5-acre Paul Revere Park in Charlestown in 1999 and its later enhancement in 2007, on a small promontory of land where the Sons of Liberty signaled a British advance in the harbor that led to confrontations in Lexington and Concord and the ensuing battles of the American Revolution. The park is visible from the west side of the Charlestown Bridge where it crosses the Charles River, connecting Charlestown and Boston at North Washington Street and Causeway. Visitors using the Harbor Walk and the continuation of Boston’s Freedom Trail (marked by painted footprints), usually cross the bridge on the east side, often on the way to the Historical Charlestown Navy Yard.
The smaller Nashua Street “pocket park” across from the Suffolk County Courthouse was the second of the parks designed along the river as part of the Big Dig mitigation project. Tree-lined paths for walking and skateboarding and benches for relaxation, are interspersed with oval shapes created to resemble water drops. (see photo)

The recently completed NorthPoint Park across the river from the Nashua Street Park is beautifully described on the “Northpoint” website as a place that “artfully weaves hills, paths, and trees in a dynamic pattern,”(1), providing boat docks for kayaking and sailing, biking, and jogging, and play spaces for young children. Then at NorthPoint Park in the fall of 2014, at the base of supports for the Zackim Bridge, the Lynch Family Skateboard Park was dedicated and is now under construction. First envisioned by the Charles River Conservancy president and landscape architect Renata von Tscharner, this project has brought together many contributors. The park will serve a real need for those who need more space to follow their sport.

NorthPoint Park is accessible from a variety of approaches. From Paul Revere Park walk or bicycle over the seven hundred foot long, sinuous North Bank Bridge where it crosses the remains of the Miller River as it enters the Charles. Another approach is to ride the Lechmere MBTA Green Line to the recently renovated Science Park station or cross the Monsignor O’Brien Highway (Route 28) from the Museum of Science and walk beneath one of the arches of the Lechmere Viaduct and onto Musuem Way.
With the greening and enhancement of what was once the blighted half-mile between the old dam and the new Charles River Dam, a new Charles River Basin has emerged, offering another place of recreation and rest to the urban dweller and visitors to Boston.
(1) The HYM Investment Group, LLC. “Northpoint.”http://www.northpointcambridge.com/