East Boston’s industrial waterfront
I found myself in East Boston this summer on a site visit for Harvard’s summer landscape architecture program. I immersed myself in observing the Jeffries Point area through photography, sketches, and recordings. Despite its proximity to Boston Harbor, there was a sense of disconnect between the neighborhood and the water. Fencing, security signage, decaying piers, and boarded up buildings discouraged people from lingering in the space. A private shipyard blocks the public from accessing the waterfront. An old fire station was boarded up, but vintage cars could be seen inside behind yellowed, dusty windows. While there were major pockets of green space along the waterfront, this corridor between them was paved with little vegetation.
However, further research revealed that this currently uninviting area had been a historic space of connection: it was once the site of a ferry terminal and narrow gauge rail line that linked East Boston to Boston and northern towns. From 1875 to 1940, the Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn railroad had carried up to 7 million passengers a year through a tunnel underneath East Boston, where today vacant lots and a fenced off waterfront remained. My final project envisioned a coastal park and green corridor that would pay homage to this industrial history through new avenues of physical and social connection.
