Changing Faces of the Charles
To those who have visited Boston, the iconic scene of the Charles River Basin with its sailboats gliding near the Longfellow Bridge is like a sparkling jewel with the golden dome of the statehouse in the background on historic Beacon Hill.
This man-made basin or pond was created by the damming of the Charles River in the early 1900s to prevent the saltwater tides of Boston’s harbor from mingling with the fresh water of the river in an area that had once been part of a large estuary. The receding tides left behind unhealthy stagnant water. The first effort to hold back the tides was a wall made of wooden boards at the channel where the river flowed a half-mile into the harbor. This was replaced by the Charles River Dam in 1910 (a few feet from today’s Museum of Science) that provided a sufficient barrier until major storms in the 1950s and ’60s led the Army Corps of Engineers in 1978 to construct the larger Gridley Dam and locks a half-mile down stream where the river flows into the harbor. Six large pumps remove salt water in the event of a storm surge, and the three locks allow the passage of small craft leaving and entering the harbor.
Then the construction of Sorrow Drive in the early 1950s took away a portion of the riverbank. Landscape architects including Arthur Shurcliff then added narrow strips of land along the river’s edge where it ran parallel to the highway, creating the lagoons we see today. Close by is the Music Oval and Hatch Memorial Shell where many concerts have taken place. Now the Fiedler Dock provides a “jumping-off” point for those who wish to enjoy the water on specified days.
The basin is only one of the many places where the river has been adapted to meet the interests of the people. In the 1600s the first known dam was built upriver in Watertown to slow the river’s flow and create enough force to turn the wheels of a grist mill. Then the river’s water powered the machinery of textile mills at the Moody Street Dam in Waltham in 1817 and later a cotton and silk mill in Newton Upper Falls. Many towns grew up alongside the dams and adjoining mills.
Over many years since the landscaping of the river banks in Boston and Cambridge, we have seen the development of parks and trails in the riparian area along the river, starting in Milford where the river begins.
The Greenway from Watertown Square to the Waltham Museum of Industry was created in 2004 for pedestrians and cyclists to walk, run, or cycle along a cool green pathway. The nearby Riverwalk in Waltham leads pedestrians along the river from Moody Street to the Prospect Street Bridge.
The Riverfront Park in Watertown near Perkins School for the Blind opened in 2016 and offers assistive devices to visitors of varying abilities.
As described in a previous posting, Greenough Blvd. was widened while enhancing the border of the wetland area alongside Herter Park for use by cyclists, pedestrians, and runners.
A current project involving the Charles is to widen the Paul Dudley bike path on the Boston side of the river where it follows a sharp curve in the river. This is part of a much larger undertaking in which the Massachusetts Department of Transportation plans to improve the I-90 interchange that presently crosses over a viaduct in Brighton. Along with several other individuals and organizations, the Charles River Conservancy is contributing to this effort, with the recent leadership of founder and former president Renata von Tscharner and the recently elected Executive Director Laura Jasinski.
The ever-changing enhancements of the river and its borders have brought together many people with their ideas for greater accessibility and enjoyment of this treasure.
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