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Red and green along the waterfront
By adamg on Wed, 04/15/2015 - 8:59am
With some time to spare after licensing-board hearings, and with decentish temperatures yesterday, I wandered along the South Boston waterfont, where, in addition to what seemed like every single construction worker in New England putting up new towers, one could also see glimpses of what used to be.
There's a limit to all the new luxury housing and high-priced office space going up along the water, and that limit is the 100-year-old Boston Fish Pier, where actual fishing boats, such as the ones above, still dock and workers process tons of seafood.
In Fort Point, round BWC plaques mark the buildings erected around the turn of the last century by the Boston Wharf Co. (see the BPL collection of Boston Wharf Co. photos) - which first filled in the land the buildings sit on, then built the warehouses to store goods from the ships that docked at the wharves the company also built. The buildings stood the test of time; the wharves didn't.
Back on the harbor, one thing that once seemed like it would also endure is Anthony's Pier 4. But the old seafood place closed in 2013 and now it sits forlorn and crumbling behind a chain-link fence, awaiting its destruction to make way for a park as part of the Pier 4 development.
Out on the harbor, a red-striped Coast Guard cutter passed between a tug boat and a green buoy:
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Comments
the days and night
The Days and Nights of Adam Gaffin..
My name is Gaffin
And I cover the waterfront.
The Port Cafe (lower center)
The Port Cafe (lower center) on a traffic-free waterfront in 1956. Submitted by Barb Hudson.
Did you eat at NoNames?
I believe it is still there - and a great place to take the kids.
No, I didn't, and yes, it's still there
I had some clam chowder at James Hook - where I found out how much a knuckle sandwich would cost (at $55 a pound for lobster knuckle meat - a lot!) and sat behind that sure sign of spring: A family of German tourists (I am always running into German tourists whenever the kidlet's not around, which is unfortunate, since she's the one who's now in her fourth year of taking German).
A little more time?
Next time I recommend Yankee Lobster. It's right next to the Bank Pavillion, past the World Trade.
Seconded!
Then head just past the circle to the Harpoon Tap Room for beers you won't see in your local packy and awesome pretzels that rival those in the beer gardens of München!
The No Name has really gone
The No Name has really gone down hill in the past 10-15 years. It's no good now. For a restaurant so close to where the fresh fish comes in, the quality is sub par.
The Dry Dock is the way to go!
Man, they really missed an
Man, they really missed an opportunity when they sold the waterfront to the highest bidders/highest builders. Glad to hear they're putting in a park at Anthony's, at least. It's so depressing down there now!
who is "they"
and when did they sell it?
Joe Moakley and the ICIA
It's all a conspiracy!
The biggest error in that part of town was building that stupid space port convention center which is used a few times a month instead of a whole new neighborhood of apartment buildings which would be inhabited daily and wouldn't require a $1b handout.
a 1 billion dollar bailout
a 1 billion dollar bailout after 1 billion to start, the MCCA is like a crackhead, constantly coming back for more money that they promise will be the last. They are already on record as wanting more tax money to build the hotels that the convention hall was supposedly supposed to spur private investment in to build. Other than the salaries of MCCA staff, what then is the point of this? All that wasted land, we put the Bayside Expo Center (privately funded) out of business and still have to subsidize the Hynes? I saw close the MCCA and convert it to a homeless shelter and transition housing center.
Schedule?
Used a few times a month?
http://massconvention.com/events/2015/04/bcec
Anthony is the person who
Anthony is the person who sold a lot of the land there, first the land where the courthouse sits, a prime spot for a public space used for a high security court is sad.
And therein lies a tale...
Anthony Athanas made an agreement to sell a huge amount of land (all parking lots right on the waterfront) to the Pritzker family of Chicago, and then Anthony tried to welsh out on the deal because he wanted even more money. The Pritzkers sued and Anthony lost nearly everything he had. I think he even lost the land under his restaurant.
The other big owner there was Frank McCourt, who bought 24 acres of old railroad yards from bankrupt Penn Central in the 1970s. McCourt's big plan, 15 years ago, was to buy the Red Sox and put a new ballpark on his parking lots in Southie. When the Sox management sold the team to John Henry instead, McCourt moved to Los Angeles and bought the Dodgers. (According to Wikipedia, McCourt even sold his house in Brookline to John Henry.) McCourt's land was on the inland side of Northern Ave., and along Seaport Blvd. Wikipedia says that, in essence, McCourt swapped some of the land in Southie to Rupert Murdoch, in exchange for the Dodgers, which Murdoch owned at the time.
The real shame is that the
The real shame is that the waterfront was 20 years late developing because of our last mayor.
hairymary
I'm sorry but I laff every time I see your screen name... because that's the same name I use to describe many gay bears I know! (Hairy Mary's!)
Are you one too?
If you are "friends" with a
If you are "friends" with a few bears, does that make you a power bottom?
I am sure this won't get posted by the biased admin.
Biased admin can only laugh
What's my prize for winning this bet?
One giant thumbs up and a
One giant thumbs up and a thank you.
I'm not going to ask where
I'm not going to ask where that thumb has been.
Rose
To quote the pilot of Golden Girls
"If you have to ask Rose, it does not matter anymore"
PS - Not even close.. not even close at all.
Santoro's?
Was there once a Santoro's Sub shop around there? Maybe where the Courthouse is now? And torn down in the 80's or early 90's? Just trying to knock some cobwebs from the ol' brain.
Thanks.
The original Pier 1 area is
The original Pier 1 area is currently operated as a parking
lot by Park St Lock Inc. Some of the area is covered with
cobblestones and the remainder is partially paved. The por-
tion of this area that fronts on Fort Point Channel is used
for docking facilities by A. C. Cruise Line, which operates
excursion boats. Santoro's Submarine Shop is located at 50
Northern Avenue. The one-story restaurant is heated by gas
piped in from the street. An electrical transformer which
provides power to light poles in the parking lot area is
attached to the back of the structure (15) . An existing
one- story warehouse shown on Figure 2 is used by Anthony's
Pier 4 Inc. as a warehouse and several refrigerator trucks
for cold storage are located adjacent to the structure. A
fenced-in area with a concrete pad is visible at the end of
the structure closest to Northern Avenue, and was formerly
used to support refrigeration equipment. The railroad spurs
and larger one-story warehouse shown on Figure 2 are no long-
er present. Two lines of old abandoned railroad cars are
presently stored parallel to the original limit of Pier 1.
Within this area of the site a drainage pipe collects surface
water drainage from a series of drain drop inlets and carries
the flow into the Harbor.
HBC Associates -5- 11 December 1984
Full text of "Report on old and hazardous materials site evaluation, piers 1, 2 and 3, northern avenue, Boston, Massachusetts"
https://archive.org/stream/reportonoldhazar00hale/reportonoldhazar00hale...
Decentish???
Decentish???
Gaffinism.
Gaffinism.