CultureNOW - Fort Point Channel: Peter Vanderwarker

Fort Point Channel

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ABOUT THE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS
"Once, Boston Harbor was a busy commercial port. Today, it’s no longer that; the port of Boston handles just 1 percent of East Coast shipping. But like many other American ports, it’s acquiring new uses: Its docks and landings are sprouting apartments and hotels, restaurants and trade marts, parks and performance spaces, commuter ferries and cruise ships, offices and artists’ lofts, museums and a courthouse. And there’s much more to come.

These two views trace the changing harbor. In the older photograph, a cluster of tugboats and barges crowds Rowes Wharf on the downtown waterfront. The crisscross pattern of railings, braces, spokes, and struts, seen on the tugs and on the carriage in the foreground, echoes the trusses of the Northern Avenue Bridge in the background. In the new photo, taken from the same spot, nothing survives but the bridge. We see the new Rowes Wharf, completed in 1987, one of the best of recent Boston developments. Here, an upscale hotel and condominiums gather around a public waterfront plaza, with docks for excursion boats and the water shuttle to Logan Airport.

In the center of the new view is the kind of object that English aristocrats used to call a ‘folly’ – a useless but decorative pavilion or temple, intended to add a romantic touch to a landscape. Rowes Wharf’s pavilion sports a derby-hat dome, possibly an attempt to look Bostonian by recalling the State House. It’s a good place for picnics or for waiting in the rain for your boat. At the left of the pavilion, we can see another domed building. This is the nearly complete federal courthouse, across the water in South Boston, due to open in September.

The Northern Avenue Bridge is now the subject of controversy. It’s in poor repair, and the car and truck traffic it once carried has been shifted to a newer bridge, the Moakley. People who regard themselves as pragmatists would like to see the Northern Avenue Bridge demolished. But it’s still a practical, heavily used shortcut for anyone walking or cycling between downtown and the rapidly developing area across Fort Point Channel. And it’s fun to look at. Designed to rotate like a turntable to let ships through, it’s an authentic reminder of an older Boston. The city will deserve our gratitude if it finds a way to preserve and renovate the old bridge."

-Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker, "CITYSCAPES - For Point Channel," Boston Globe, 5 July 1998

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Location

Fort Point Channel
Boston, MA 02210
United States

Nearby Items

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Evelyn Moakley Bridge Lighting		493 feet
Children's Wharf Park		519 feet
Congress St (Strauss Bascule) Bridge		675 feet
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BSA Headquarters		818 feet
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