Charlesgate
They paved paradise and put up a Storrow ramp
By adamg - 5/19/11 - 10:36 pm
Nowadays, Charlesgate mostly brings to mind the crumbling ramp system connecting Storrow Drive and the roads of the Fenway - its underside a transient homeless camp next to a mucky "pond."
But once it was a bucolic connection between the Muddy and the Charles rivers, part of Olmsted's creative plan for both creating a key part of the Emerald Necklace and flushing out the Muddy.
Compare the above photo, from the Library of Congress's collection, and taken sometime between 1890 and 1901, to this Google Street View. The only thing the two have in common is the still standing residential building.
Some people want to tear down the Bowker overpass, built in 1967, and restore Charlesgate to its Olmstedian ideal.
A disease to watch out for
By adamg - 6/20/08 - 2:30 pmBostonZest discusses efforts by state and city arborists and local volunteers to protect elm trees on the Commonwealth Avenue mall and along the Esplanade and Charlesgate from the dreaded Dutch Elm Disease:
... When we have a few days of hot weather, the elm bark beetle will come out of hiding and begin spreading the disease. That's when volunteers look to the treetops for signs of distress. "We call it flagging, which is the yellowing of the leaves on a certain section," said Greg Mosman, Boston's city arborist. ...
Charlesgate: Vortex of doom
By adamg - 6/19/07 - 8:05 amMany years ago, I had just dropped my girlfriend off at church for Easter services and was heading back to Brighton when some jerk from New Hampshire plowed through a red light at Charlesgate and ran right into the front of my beloved Chevy Nova. Mats Tolander provides the latest proof that that whole interchange is just evil - photos of a two-car smashup this morning around 6:40.
The accidental photographer
By adamg - 11/22/06 - 8:00 amMats Tolander seems to be making a hobby of photographing the aftermath of accidents at Charlesgate and Comm. Ave. Of which there are apparently many from which to choose.
