Inventing the Charles River
by Karl Haglund

The Charles River Basin, extending nine miles upstream from the harbor, has been called Boston's "Central Park". Yet few realize that this apparently natural landscape is a totally fabricated public space. Two hundred years ago the Charles was a tidal river, edged by hundreds of acres of salt marshes and mudflats. Inventing the Charles River describes how, before the creation of the basic could begin, the river first had to be imagined as a single public space. The new esplanades along the river changed the way Bostonians viewed their city; and the basin, with its expansive views of Boston and Cambridge, became an iconic image of the metropolis. The book focuses on the precarious balance between transportation planning and the stewardship of the public realm. Long before the esplanades were realized, great swaths of the river were given over to industrial enterprises and transportation -- mill ponds, bridges, landfills, and a complex network of road and railway bridges. More than 300 photographs, maps and drawings illustrate past and future visions for the Charles and document the river's place in Boston's history.

ZN3078    Inventing the Charles River                           $49.95

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