South Boston Waterfront

At the end of our Eastern Canada and New England trip we stayed with my sister and her husband in Brookline, a neighborhood near Boston. One afternoon, she and I spent some time walking through the current developments along the South Boston Waterfront.

Boston’s compact and dense downtown is on the left. The South Boston Waterfront, located just southeast across Fort Point Channel from Downtown, includes the Fort Port neighborhood on the western edge; Fan Pier, the Seaport World Trade Center, and Boston’s Marine Industrial Park to the east. All of these locations are rapidly transforming the area from historic warehouses and industrial space into a creative, tech, and residential hub for the city. The map is misleading with regard to the major highways. I-90 is actually in tunnel through this area and under the harbor to the airport; and Route 1, courtesy of Boston’s somewhat infamous “Big Dig” is similarly underground and supplanted by the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway.

This landscaped open space weaves a green lung through the heart of Boston, a dramatic change from the previous elevated, noisy and dirty highway. It has also enhanced the properties between it and the harbor (to the left of and below the photo) since they now have, in effect, a garden on one side and water views on the other.

At the beginning of our walk we came across an interesting piece of public art.

A commentary on the pervasiveness of our digital world – though walking on the keyboards didn’t appear to send any messages or images. Numerous apartment buildings have recently been built or are in development in the Innovation District, offering residents apartment, condominium, and micro-unit options. Historic Fort Point hosts affordable artists’ units along with market rate “loft living” opportunities in former warehouses. Boston’s Harborwalk runs along the piers, connecting residents to the 45-mile waterfront path network.

The remaining maritime activities tend towards the genteel (and expensive); and much of the architecture exhibits its corporate character clearly.

One interesting residential building contrasted with the general corporate tone.

The adjacent Barking Crab provided a fun foreground; and the facade was fun up close.

It was hard to see clearly; but it appears that there is either a bicycle or bicycle furniture in almost every unit. The photo below is of a large photo; and in it you can see that the bicycle wheel actually offers a way to easily move the television around.

The waterfront walkway includes pretty good graphics, outlining the area’s history.

More artwork created a contrast between older dates and activities seen in silhouette and newer construction across the harbor beyond.

Offering a dynamic mix of opportunities and spaces, the South Boston Waterfront draws a huge range of businesses and events. Just inland from the Harborwalk, a burgeoning tech and biotech community is attracting organizations, entrepreneurs, and designers into a cluster of flexible office spaces and unique live-work buildings.

The Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) has been woven in as well, but given a position of prominence. It was still under construction.

While just about everything is new (there are only subtle reminders of the large railroad yard that used to service this part of the port), occasional, explicitly historic remnants have been preserved for interest.

This center pivot bridge carried rail tracks across a waterway. It wasn’t clear whether it will be put to some use and provide access or just remain as a visual element.

There’s no question that the South Boston Waterfront District has a development booster flavor and energy – and that they’re not shy about it.

But I’ll leave you with a small grace note before I “move on”.

My message would be that more of this would benefit the district.

Halifax – Maritime Museum

The museum was founded in 1948 as the Maritime Museum of Canada; but through several moves it developed into the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, and a part of the Nova Scotia Museum system. In addition to over 30,000 artifacts, the museum also has a collection of 30,000 photographs as well as a large collection of charts and rare books. A reference library, open to the public, is named after the Museum’s founding director, The Niels Jannasch Library. The museum has Canada’s largest collection of ship portraits

as well as a large collection of ship models.

SS Damottar Castle

Always impressive to see how much detail gets replicated.

The galleries surround a large open space filled with sailboats.

It’s really helpful to be able to see them from so many different angles.

 

It helps also being able to so clearly see the interior construction,

especially in a couple of cases where the exterior skin of the hull has been removed.

Much of this is also what you would find at many maritime museums; but two parts of this museum are absolutely unique to Halifax.

Sinking of the Titanic

A special permanent exhibit explores the sinking of RMS Titanic with an emphasis on Nova Scotia’s connection to recovering the bodies of Titanic victims.

This exhibit of a ‘found’ teacup shows some of the romance and fashion that was associated with the new class of steamships, in this case one from the Quebec Steamship Company, a “tangible reminder of the pride, opulence and attention to detail that was common in steamship companies at the turn of the century.”

There was also a lot of bravado about the advancement of steamship technology.

During construction, the Titanic was heralded as unsinkable. “Marine tragedies would be a thing of the past“.

A close-up of the section gives a sense of the massiveness of the construction, revealed by comparing the size of the engine room below to the cabins above.

The museum has the world’s foremost collection of wooden artifacts from Titanic, including one of the few surviving deck chairs.

The Titanic exhibit also includes a child’s pair of shoes which helped identify Titanic‘s “unknown child” as Sidney Leslie Goodwin, previously unidentified for 100 years.

The other dramatic event presented by the museum was explosive.

Mont-Blanc Explosion

December 1917 saw one of the greatest disasters in Canadian history, when the SS Mont-Blanc, a French cargo ship carrying munitions, collided with the Belgian Relief vessel SS Imo in “The Narrows” between upper Halifax Harbour and Bedford Basin.

In this case, the significance of the Narrows was that it required the shipping lanes to be located quite tight to the shore line where limited maneuvering room made collisions more likely. The resulting Halifax Explosion, devastated the Richmond District of Halifax, killing approximately 2,000 people and injuring nearly 9,000 others.  The blast was the largest artificial explosion before the development of nuclear weapons.

Significant aid came from Boston, strengthening the bond between the two coastal cities.

One unique story made the event intensely personal. A young girl was lifted by the force of the blast and carried a quarter of a mile through the air – and somehow survived.

As an adult many years later she commemorated the event by creating this quilt of her “flight” and other events of the day.

This bowsprit commemorated our events of the day and we headed out for dinner.

Next time a side trip to Peggy’s Cove and Lunenburg.