Fort Point Channel

The wheels on the bridge go round and round - well, they used to, anyway.

Read about the "retractile draw" design that makes the bridge unique.

Library of Congress photos.

H/t Doug Shugarts.

The Atlantic Cities reports on the new "streets seats" going in.

The Globe reports on the commendation for Officer Edward T. Norton for his action in saving a woman who wound up in Fort Point Channel on Friday.

Both are examples of sawtooth design, which, at least in the case of Millennium Place, allows for more profit-maximizing "corner" units. Utile explains.

Northern Avenue Bridge in 1930, from the BPL Leslie Jones collection.

The Globe reports on plans to outfit the hulky old bridge into something more aesthetically pleasing.

Photo posted under this Creative Commons license.

Stephanie Giunta practices being a TV reporter at the very end of Long Wharf early this afternoon.

The folks at the Fort Point Pier, meanwhile, watched as Fort Point Channel rose and then began to flow over the seawall (it's hard to tell, but that's Vivien Li of the Boston Harbor Association and Fort Point resident Anne Salemme on the right):

Fort Point Channel resurgent

Video of the Tea Party Museum's Beaver on its entry into Fort Point Channel this morning, with the Northern Avenue bridge swun open to let it through.

Via DotRat, who also has a clip of the ship further out in the harbor.

Good Morning Gloucester has photos of the Beaver, the first of three ships meant for the Tea Party Museum, leaving Gloucester on its way to Fort Point Channel.

It's scheduled to arrive in the channel tomorrow morning, on the anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord.

Stand on the Summer Street Bridge and look toward South Boston, and Fort Point Channel looks like a long rectangle, ending in a wall just past the Gillette plant.

In fact, the channel continues for a few more blocks, as a narrower drainage channel, ending at the Boston Water and Sewage Commission Wet Weather Sewage Discharge Outfall Number 70.

You can stroll the Harbor Walk to what looks like the end of Fort Point Channel and admire the re-painted remains of a giant train bridge that crossed there before the Ted Williams Tunnel remade that area (and from which you can still watch the trains arriving at and departing from South Station):

Victoria Welch spotted this guy this morning gazing at Fort Point Channel - from down on one of the tracks once used to swing the bridge open:

I don't know how he got down there, but I hope he was just curious about the view.

No, not the Green Line extension. NorthEndWaterfront.com reports the Boston Conservation Commission is wagging its collective finger at the state over the continued non-existence of a usable dock at Atlantic Wharf on Fort Point Channel, despite a state promise to have one built as part of mitigation for the Big Dig.

Greg MacKay photographed the Congress Street Bridge and the nearing-completion Tea Party Museum.

Copyright Greg MacKay. Posted in the Universal Hub pool on Flickr.

Hello, we must be going.

The sign welcoming you to Fort Point is one of the last things you see before you cross the Summer Street bridge from Fort Point into downtown (the other side of the sign says "Welcome to South Boston").

Every day, it looks more likely that this time, the Tea Party Museum will actually reopen. On Tuesday, some roofers were busy up on, well, the roof.

The Fort Point Pier opened today:

With its broad floating dock having a planked deck surface only 12.5" inches above the waterline, generous in cleats and other potential tie-up points, Fort Point Pier is perfectly suited as a FREE, public launch point to Boston Harbor for kayak, canoe, stand-up paddle board (SUP), sit-on-top (SOT), rowboat, scull, surf ski and windsurfer/sailboard.

The pier offers all amenities necessary for easy onshore parking, pickup, drop-off, and portage of a kayak or similarly lightweight watercraft.

Greg MacKay spent some time by Fort Point Channel earlier this week.

Copyright Greg MacKay. Tagged as universalhub on Flickr.

The Zoning Board of Appeals yesterday approved plans to convert the old C-6 police station on D Street into apartments for veterans.

Coupled with a planned extension to the building, the new project will provide 23 apartments - 11 studios, 10 2-bedroom units and 2 apartments with one bedroom apiece.

Two residents said the project would bring Level 3 sex offenders into a neighborhood already saturated with subsidized housing.

Separately, the board approved Trillium Brewery's plans to turn space at 369 Congress St. in Fort Point into a brewery turning out 1,000 barrels of craft beer each year.

The Boston Fire Department reports two BFD divers recovered a body from Fort Point Channel by the Congress Street bridge tonight. Boston Police report the body appears to be that of a male in his early 40s and that a preliminary investigation shows no visible signs of trauma.

Joanne Chang just tweeted about an incident at her Fort Point Channel Flour:

No wonder bathroom @ F2 keeps clogging-plumber found pair of sunglasses when he pumped pipes. Guess sign saying "TP only pls" not big enough.

The Fort Point Channel Blog details the proposed 184-unit building at 319 A St. Rear.

Karen Cord Taylor finds much to like about the SimCity-like development happening on the 1,000 acres between the Reserved and Fort Point channels, but worries about what isn't being defined in the plans:

So far no plans call for schools, a community health center, post offices, a Y, baseball fields, a soccer pitch, public tennis courts, a skating rink or libraries - public realms as important as green spaces where you sit and enjoy fountains. ...

I got particularly worried when Fan Pier's website touted Morton's Steakhouse and Starbucks Coffee as amenities. Don't we have higher aspirations for our city than eating and buying stuff?

Vikas Anand shows us the holiday Hood bottle.

Copyright Vikas Anand. Tagged as universalhub on Flickr.

The Lawrence Eagle-Tribune is running an obituary for Eugene Losik, who disappeared from the Mariott Long Wharf this past February.

The obituary confirms that the body found floating in Fort Point Channel earlier this month was that of the 25-year-old North Andover engineer, last spotted by a friend standing in front of the waterside hotel early on Feb. 20, after attending a birthday party with his girlfriend.

UPDATE: Body identified as that of Gene Losik.

A Boston Police boat recovered a body from the channel, near the Children's Museum, around 10 a.m. today. The body was first sighted in the harbor near Rowes Wharf, but winds and currents pushed it under the Northern Avenue and Moakley bridges and into Fort Point Channel.

The Northern Avenue bridge was opened to let police and Coast Guard boats into the channel to assist firefighters, themselves on scene in a Zodiac inflatable boat.

Fort Point Blog reports BTD is working to increase the number of resident-only parking spaces in the neighborhood, but has rejected local requests to start issuing Fort Point resident stickers, rather than continuing to give residents South Boston stickers:

Their position is that South Boston is one neighborhood and will not be separated.