What was proposed and what was built.

[Ron Newman]

Gillette is very dependent on the channel for cooling -- they would never have allowed this proposal to advance.

[vanshnookenraggen]

You gotta admit it's a pretty brilliant plan in some respect. It's an alternative that does more good than harm to Chinatown, builds a huge new market, diverts the Roxbury channel (which was eventually done), and creates a new bus terminal in the best possible location. Kinda surprised they didn't do this.

[vanshnookenraggen]

Originally Posted by BostonUrbEx

^ If someone were proposing that today, I'd be fucking pissed. It certainly ain't pretty now (well, the part near the PO Annex and Gillette aren't anyway. But there is just so much potential to be had there. It would be an outrage to think of losing the channel nowadays.

You have to remember how much of a polluted backwater it was back then.

[JohnAKeith]

Here's an image of the Fort Point Channel / Southeast Expressway area of Boston, pre-Turnpike and pre-Central Artery.



I believe the black line going top to bottom is the Washington Street elevated which goes up into Chinatown and Downtown Crossing. That would mean the next street to the left would be Harrison, and Albany to the left of that. Upper left would be where the New York Streets neighborhood once existed. The bridge to the upper left would be the West Fourth Street bridge (not the Broadway bridge, which would be just out of view).

Not shown b/c not built is Castle Square housing project and the majority of Tufts / New England Medical Center. And, of course, the Ritz Carlton Towers, lower right, at the corners of Tremont and Boylston streets.

It's amazing to see where the Southeast Expressway was, before it was built.

What was here before then? It's too south to be where Chinatown was, right? Light industrial?

From the MIT Libraries Flickr photostream.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mit-libraries/

[Ron Newman]

What's that little tributary channel running off to the top left of the photo?

The photo shows several blocks of cleared land at left middle -- was this in preparation for the Central Artery or Turnpike extension?

[Charlie_mta]

The linear cleared area on the very left along the water was the construction activity for the SE Expressway. The square-shaped cleared area in the center left of the photo was for the New York City Streets urban renewal project.

The tributary running off to the left was Dorchester Creek, which extended south of Southampton Street.

[FK4]

It's too bad the Fort Point Channel/Roxbury Canal had to get filled in a s much as it did. As for that area, it'll be great when Dot. Ave. eventually gets reopened.

Here's another NY Streets photo from the same period, opposite vantage point:

[czsz]

Originally Posted by BostonUrbEx

^ If someone were proposing that today, I'd be fucking pissed. It certainly ain't pretty now (well, the part near the PO Annex and Gillette aren't anyway. But there is just so much potential to be had there. It would be an outrage to think of losing the channel nowadays.

But think: instead of a Big Dig we could have just had a Providence-style surfacing of the channel!