Back When it was Cool: Charles River, Boston, January 1968

Winter of 1968

With the summer midday heat here in Vicksburg hovering around 34° or 35° C (95° F), one thinks of cool. In my stuff (of which there is far too much), I found some Kodachrome slides of the frozen Charles River in Boston. I took these in January of 1968, when I did not know anything about photography but was excited by views and vistas. My grandmother was visiting (the lady from my Escape from Berlin article), and we went to the Top of the Hub observation deck in the Prudential Tower. I can't recall if we ate lunch up there. 

Charles River view west with Cambridge across the river

Charles River view northeast towards Charlestown with Longfellow Bridge in the center

The handsome multi-arch bridge is the Longfellow Bridge, built in 1901. A friend remembered how badly rusted the steelwork had become some 20 years ago. The structure received an almost total rebuild in the early 2000s. Beyond the Longfellow bridge is the Charles River Dam, on which is located Boston's Museum of Science.

Back Bay in foreground with the Charles Basin and MIT campus across the river

Decades ago, I taught sailing in the Charles Basin at Community Boating. This public sailing organization has run programs for adults and children here since 1946. Summer was lazy and laid-back. We filled baggies with water and threw them at other boats. During those sailing days, I sometimes walked across town to Durgin Park Restaurant for a cup of chow-dah and a 95 cent luncheon. Then home via the MBTA on Dime-Time (yes, only 10 cents).

In autumn, the winds picked up and the fun increased. If a boat went over, a motor boat came out to pick us up and right the capsized sail boat. Then they took us to a doctor in Back Bay who administered tetanus shots. There was none of that get permission from your parents stuff - you got a tetanus shot. How times have changed. 

But best of all, the Charles River has been drastically cleaned. Once a national scandal for its pollution, the river now hosts fish, eagles and other wildlife. This is a dramatic example of the benefits of federal waterway protections by means of the EPA's Charles River Initiative.

Topographic Notes

Let us step back into topographic history. Much of the flat land area today in Boston is artificial land fill. We often use the term "reclamation," as if we are reclaiming the land from the sea or river, waging battle on the evil forces of nature. 

Landfilling in Boston since 1630 has more than doubled the urban area (unfortunately, at the expense of destroying what must have been highly productive wetlands). The figure above is adapted from Rosen, Brenninkmeyer, and Maybury (1993).

The Charles River Basin and the neighborhood that you see in the snowy pictures above is artificial. The tidal river between Boston and Cambridge was formerly an expanse of mudflats which were exposed twice daily and renowned for mosquitoes and nasty aromas in summer. The original 1910 dam converted the basin into an agreeable fresh-water body, along which fashionable homes, a landscaped esplanade, and institutions of higher learning were located (Whitehill 1968). 

Museum of Science on original Charles River Dam

Little of the original dam can be seen because a busy highway crosses it and the Museum of Science was built on the dam in 1950. 

New Charles River Dam and pump house, completed in 1978

The new Charles River Dam is multi-function project. Not only was it designed to protect against unusually high tide or surge in Boston Harbor moving upstream into the basin but also to maintain a restricted range of water level in the Charles River Basin. Large pumps can pump rainwater and runoff from the river side of the dam out into the harbor side (on the left in the photograph). The pumps first operated during the Northeast Blizzard of '78. 

Back Bay in 1944, before construction of the Prudential Tower

The Back Bay has been Boston's most fashionable neighborhood since the marsh ands tidal flats along the original Charles River were drained and filled, with construction starting in 1859. From Wikipedia:

Setback requirements and other restrictions, written into the lot deeds of the newly filled Back Bay, produced harmonious rows of dignified three- and four-story residential brownstones (though most along Newbury Street are now in commercial use). The Back Bay is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is considered one of the best-preserved examples of 19th-century urban architecture in the United States. In 1966, the Massachusetts Legislature, "to safeguard the heritage of the city of Boston by preventing the despoliation" of the Back Bay, created the Back Bay Architectural District to regulate exterior changes to Back Bay buildings.

My wife's mother and parents lived in the Back Bay before World War II, but I do not know the address. If you worked in downtown Boston, this would be elegant and convenient.

Visit Boston, walk in the Back Bay, admire the fashionable and expensive stores, lunch at a bistro, have your hair done at a spa, and consider how history surrounds you.

References

Rosen, P. S., Brenninkmeyer, B. M., and Maybury, L. M. 1993. “Holocene Evolution of Boston Inner Harbor, Massachusetts,” Journal of Coastal Research, Vol 9, No. 2, pp 363-377.

Whitehill, W.M.  1968.  Boston, A Topographical History.  Second edition, enlarged, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 299 p.

The snow pictures are from Kodachrome II film, probably taken with my dad's Canon rangefinder camera (unknown model) and its 50mm ƒ/1.9 Canon Serenar lens. My dad's 1944 Kodachrome is from a Perfex camera (unknown model).

From the Archives: Boston, Massachusetts, in 1944

My father spent part of the World War II working for the US Navy in Puerto Rico. He returned to Boston in 1944 when his contract was over. He had always been a keen photographer and took many pictures of relatives and their friends. I looked through his Kodachrome slides and found only four of Boston. He probably thought that everyone photographed Boston and that mundane city scenes were uninteresting. It is a pity, because mundane street scenes take on a documentary importance as the years and decades pass.

Charles River from Cambridge, Massachusetts

Boston and Charles River from Cambridge

Boston Garden and Swan Boat (pedaled by human power)

Boston harbor, Anscochrome transparency

These photographs look so innocent, so tourist-like. But consider the geopolitical conditions of 1944. The world was at war. In the Soviet Union, Soviet armies were painfully beating back the German army in immense battles during which tens of thousands on both side perished. Russian and Ukrainian peasants were starving in their destroyed villages, and German civilians in the homeland were also close to malnutrition. In the Pacific, American troops were slowly clearing islands of Japanese occupiers at horrifying cost. In China, millions were starving. But in Massachusetts, children sailed on the Charles River, and the Boston Garden was clean and blooming with flowers. A civilian could buy Kodachrome film and get it processed. (It is possibly that my dad bought the Kodachrome at the Navy base in Puerto Rico at his former job, but nevertheless, he felt secure enough in its availability to take casual pictures.) War must have felt far away, although Americans were unified in beating the Axis powers.

I believe these photographs were from his American-made Perfex 35mm camera. In the future, I need to scan many more of my dad's 1944 frames of family events and casual gatherings.

I have written about Boston before (click this link about Quincy Market). I wish I had taken far more pictures of ordinary scenes. You can also type "Boston" in the search box.