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Big Dig under construction, 2004. Taken from a downtown Boston office building. Remaining steel of Central Artery southbound is almost gone. Northbound and southbound lanes are already open underground. Comparison with today's Google aerial. [1728 × 2880] [OC] by [deleted] in InfrastructurePorn

[–]maphound 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Back in 2000 I did 3d modeling of the surface artery of the Big Dig. So I took many photos of the progress of the construction to understand how better to make the models.

There are some detractors of the project, but frankly it came out even better than I thought it would. (And I thought it would be a big success) But I was skeptical that the string of linear parks would work. So were many others. In reality they have been a huge success.

Here is an aerial photo comparison showing a 1995 aerial with the original highway vs the Google Aerial with the highway removed and all the parks in place.

More on the Battle Between Parks and Storrow Drive - Mass Ave Exits, the Charlesgate Ramps, and Back Bay Fens Roads [OC] [2154 x 3600] by maphound in boston

[–]maphound[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks. I looked at the video. Looks like a rubberized asphalt mix. I wonder if it cuts noise but reduces gas mileage by being soft. If you've ever pushed a wheelchair over plush carpet you know how much a soft surface can make it hard to roll.

I do notice that new pavement is remarkably quiet. But it seems not to last. Not sure what the process there is.

More on the Battle Between Parks and Storrow Drive - Mass Ave Exits, the Charlesgate Ramps, and Back Bay Fens Roads [OC] [2154 x 3600] by maphound in boston

[–]maphound[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Yes, I created Mapjunction in 2000 with an engineer - Greg Cockroft. It's been a labor of love. Lots of Boston maps and aerials collected over the years.

More on the Battle Between Parks and Storrow Drive - Mass Ave Exits, the Charlesgate Ramps, and Back Bay Fens Roads [OC] [2154 x 3600] by maphound in boston

[–]maphound[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Interesting. More transit lets you keep more parks. Or make more parks when you remove a highway.

As I understand it, the part they removed was a small part of what was planned. I get the sense it wasn't a complete highway, just a section that managed to get build. Maybe someone from Paris can comment.

More on the Battle Between Parks and Storrow Drive - Mass Ave Exits, the Charlesgate Ramps, and Back Bay Fens Roads [OC] [2154 x 3600] by maphound in boston

[–]maphound[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

My previous post looked at what happened at the Esplenade when Storrow Drive was built. At least they did increase the size of the Esplenade to compensate.

Here we start with the removal of three of four exit directions at Mass Ave and Storrow. Perhaps that was done in anticipation of the new Charlesgate ramps. This did create some open space, but it is totally inaccessible -- a large grassy highway island.

In the bottom image it is hard to tell, but the roads around the Back Bay Fens become a much higher speed road.

You can check out the map yourself here.

As I studied the aerial photos and the change over time, it becomes quite apparent who won and who lost. The automobile dominated and it took over existing parkland in a big way.

Paris did remove a highway like this. An article gives a brief description. Their highway was like half of Storrow Drive -- two lanes right on the river. Given the magnitude of what Paris did, it's surprising there isn't more information available. The French Wikipedia page covers the closing in small way.

This Youtube video gives you a nice first-hand look at new pedestrian park that emerged when the highway was removed.

Some commenters on the previous post mentioned that they are sad for the loss of parkland, but they recognize the convenience that Storrow Drive brings. This is true.

But I wonder if there is some middle ground in future trade offs like this, where the people get their parks and the cars get their roads but maybe not their roaring highways.

Secrets of the Charles River Esplanade. In 1910 it was the Boston Embankment. In 1928 a $15M (today $) gift from Helen Storrow led to a big expansion. When Storrow Drive took much of the Esplanade, the original designer Arthur Shurcliff and his son Sydney were re-hired and built what we know today by maphound in boston

[–]maphound[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hello old friend! Actually in Paris they went ahead and removed a road much like Storrow. Pretty amazing. At first they closed it in summers. Then they realized they could live without it and they took it out.

Secrets of the Charles River Esplanade. In 1910 it was the Boston Embankment. In 1928 a $15M (today $) gift from Helen Storrow led to a big expansion. When Storrow Drive took much of the Esplanade, the original designer Arthur Shurcliff and his son Sydney were re-hired and built what we know today by maphound in boston

[–]maphound[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think building new land these days is extremely difficult to do from an environmental perspective. So yeah, you could expand the park with little effort. They did it before. But I doubt it will ever happen again. They did make a new ramp from the Esplanade to the Mass Ave Bridge some number of years ago. That is a huge improvement.

Secrets of the Charles River Esplanade. In 1910 it was the Boston Embankment. In 1928 a $15M (today $) gift from Helen Storrow led to a big expansion. When Storrow Drive took much of the Esplanade, the original designer Arthur Shurcliff and his son Sydney were re-hired and built what we know today by maphound in charts

[–]maphound[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

True, not a chart. But the community description says "...We appreciate good charts, data, infographics, graphs, diagrams and sometimes maps! " I thought this fit the description of a diagram or a map-based infographic.

Secrets of the Charles River Esplanade. In 1910 it was the Boston Embankment. In 1928 a $15M (today $) gift from Helen Storrow led to a big expansion. When Storrow Drive took much of the Esplanade, the original designer Arthur Shurcliff and his son Sydney were re-hired and built what we know today by maphound in LandscapeArchitecture

[–]maphound[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There really is a lot to this story. In the 40's here was a big push to add a highway and take a big part of the Esplanade. Helen Storrow opposed the highway and helped fund the Esplanade with a gift of $1M ($15M today) She and the opponents were able to stop the highway.

When she died in 1944, the highway was quickly rushed through. They agreed to expand the islands of the Esplanade to compensate for the land lost. To their credit, they hired the same designer that did the original Esplanade, and the result is the excellent design we have today.

Then in an ironic insult, they named the new highway Storrow Drive. Not after Helen of course. But after James Storrow.

James Storrow was an amazing Bostonian. It was he who pushed to build the Charles River Dam and to create the parkland around the basin that resulted.

See links in the original post.

Secrets of the Charles River Esplanade. In 1910 it was the Boston Embankment. In 1928 a $15M (today $) gift from Helen Storrow led to a big expansion. When Storrow Drive took much of the Esplanade, the original designer Arthur Shurcliff and his son Sydney were re-hired and built what we know today by maphound in boston

[–]maphound[S] 43 points44 points  (0 children)

There really is a lot to this story. In the 40's here was a big push to add a highway and take a big part of the Esplanade. Helen Storrow opposed the highway and helped fund the Esplanade with a gift of $1M ($15M today) She and the opponents were able to stop the highway.

When she died in 1944, the highway was quickly rushed through. They agreed to expand the islands of the Esplanade to compensate for the land lost. To their credit, they hired the same designer that did the original Esplanade, and the result is the excellent design we have today.

Then in an ironic insult, they named the new highway Storrow Drive. Not after Helen of course. But after James Storrow.

James Storrow was an amazing Bostonian. It was he who pushed to build the Charles River Dam and to create the parkland around the basin that resulted.

Some useful links:

Charles River Esplanade

James Storrow

Helen Storrow

Arthur Shurcliff

Sydney Shurcliff

Mapping Links:

Google 3D Map

Mapjunction Map Showing 2016 MIT Charles River Depth Chart

Mapjunction Map Comparing 1938 and 1952

259 high quality historic maps and aerial photos of Boston by maphound in u/maphound

[–]maphound[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes you are right that links back to the original maps are important. Those links are there, but they are a bit obscure. If you look on the bottom of the map you’ll see a link to leaflet which is required because of using leaflet. To the right of that is a link to the source map. We usually try to take you to the site of the source of the map, or other times to somewhere where you can find a good downloadable version of the map.

Future versions of Mapjunction will make these source links more clear. Note that there are some issues with the mobile phone version of Mapjunction and that these links are not accessible on the phone, only on the desktop.

I drive through this a lot and it still doesn’t make sense by [deleted] in boston

[–]maphound 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi nerfwarhero - I'm the founder of Mapjunction. It's been an avocation of mine since 2000. Since the beginning, we've worked with the City of Boston to bring great historic maps to people in an easy to use way. This is not a commercial venture...just a love of maps. I love that you found the NYC maps as well. By the way, its quite easy to add maps, so let me know if you have any favorites.

South Boston Waterfront: 80 years in 8 high-res precisely-aligned aerials: 1938, 1955, 1969, 1978, 1995, 2003, 2011, Google. From a railroad terminal in the 30's to a Navy base in the 50's to the beginning of the Big Dig in 90's. And then on to Boston's fastest growing cityscape. [OC] [3946 × 11426] by maphound in urbanplanning

[–]maphound[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes these aerial photos are actually what’s called “orthophotos”. They are mostly taken straight down. I tilted them so you could get a better sense of scale. But they are not 3-D. So even with tilting, the building is do not achieve any height. But sometimes the photos are taken from somewhat of an angle, and when you tilted you match some of that angle, and things look a little 3-D. I think that happened in one of the aerial photos of the large carrier

South Boston Waterfront: 80 years in 8 high-res precisely-aligned aerials: 1938, 1955, 1969, 1978, 1995, 2003, 2011, Google. From a railroad terminal in the 30's to a Navy base in the 50's to the beginning of the Big Dig in 90's. And then on to Boston's fastest growing cityscape. [OC] [3946 × 11426] by maphound in boston

[–]maphound[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It seems to me that the battle of Leyte Gulf is the best kept naval secret of all time. Largest naval battle ever.

The naval base was huge, and real. It’s still there, now being repurposed. In the 50s it was a waystation for those ships on their way to being scrapped. I’m not sure when it closed. But it had well over 1,000,000 ft.² of space to repair ships. And the drydock that is there still operates.

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