Land for a City on a Hill: Professor Alex Krieger's iconic tour of Boston

Watch as Alex Krieger, professor and former chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design, takes viewers on his iconic tour of Boston. Stopping at locations key to the growth of the city-from East Boston, which was once five islands that were consolidated in the late 18th to 19th century, to the Shawmut and South Boston Peninsulas-Krieger speaks of the historic and contemporary geographical, infrastructural, and racial conditions of Boston, a city in “constant need to create land.”

[@JohnShields-xx1yk]

1960 born in Boston,this is a comprehensive overview of Boston's growth. Intelligent commentary. Thank you.

[@lucyjohnston6838]

I NEVER watch 30 min videos and I watched this all the way through! I would love to see more professor walking tours like this! The editing was great

[@normanwyatt8761]

I can remember going to Boston in the 1940's when the tallest building was the Custom House tower.......Affordable WALDORF restaurants were on every other street........Essex Deli on the corner of Essex St. and Washington St. sold hot pastrami sandwiches for 85 CENTS and half-sour and dill pickles were on every table for free......I'd go back to those simple days in a heart-beat.......

[@frankschmitzer5824]

Wasn't there a cafeteria downtown that was really well known? Can't remember name . .

[@bensanders7392]

Could a factory worker or other type of manual laborer( not college educated) actually afford to live there at one point?

[@DeNichols-old]

This tour was such an insightful introduction to Boston when I was a Loeb Fellow at the GSD. Thank you for capturing Prof. Krieger's wisdom via this video.

[@jerrya.oneillballads6372]

What a fascinating, entertaining and informative tour. Thank you so much.

[@bhenke]

I regularly bicycled the Emerald Necklace for 50 years. Sure wish I could still do that. Wonderful video!

[@user-uo7fw5bo1o]

I grew up in Scituate and after college lived in the Boston area until 1999/2000 and I got to witness the Big Dig get seriously underway. I also remember when the Seaport or Innovation District was still the Commonwealth Flats and it was mostly parking lots, abandoned railroad tracks, and disused wharves. But the Norwegian Seamen's Chapel was there as was Anthony's Pier 4, the Commonwealth Pier (an expo center), and the No-Name Restaurant made statewide famous by Jerry Williams of WRKO.

[@richardhale2117]

I've lived in Boston for 40 years and still learned a lot from Professor Krieger. Well worth the 34 minute investment!

[@bensanders7392]

Thank you professor. I'm from the south and appreciate this lesson, this field trip lecture. Very informative.

[@PennStacker]

I’m from phila pa. Visited Boston last year. It’s a beautiful and amazing city! Going back soon.

[@thegteam4349]

Fascinating video. Thank you. Imagine all that land in the SeaPort District sat vacant for decades, today it's insanely valuable real estate. Amazing how cities transform.

[@auggieeast]

It wasn't that valuable until the Big Dig was finished, and downtown was no longer strangled by the Central Artery and could expand, and the new transportation links focused new development there. It was pretty ugly back then. Parking lots and fishing boats. Bob Kraft wanted to build the new Patriots stadium there, but got shot down by the South Boston City Counciler, a very regrettable decision after the Patriots became The Patriots.

[@user-uo7fw5bo1o]

​@@auggieeast I believe the city councilor was Dapper O'Neill? I remember him from the Robert Mapplethorpe controversy!

[@KevinRMoore]

Wicked cool, thank you for this film!

[@questioning_stuff]

Enjoyed this video very much. Thank you, prof. Krieger!

[@christinasotiriadou5288]

Thank you for the wonderful presentation of Boston!

[@doodmonkey]

Lived in Boston most my life. Fascinating watching the Big Dig happen.

[@robwhitney9849]

So great!

[@bobwalder2187]

Great Video! Thank you so much !

[@takingittothestreet1]

He’s engaging and informative…..Well done sir!

[@slashclash21bharat]

Thank you for this compelling presentation. .🙏.

[@paulsuprono7225]

I remember that 'parking' as I progressed from South Station to South Boston. Probably a whole different world today ! 😘 🇺🇲 🤠

[@frankschmitzer5824]

Very wonderful. This really helped me understand Boston, especially the Dorchester area (South Boston). Thank you very much.

[@michaelwalsh1035]

Dorchester is the largest neighborhood of Boston and has nothing to do with South Boston, except bordering it. Dorchester was once a separate town and was incorporated into the City of Boston in the 19th century. South Boston has always been part of the City of Boston.

[@myradioon]

Great video. Boston was a global maritime hub. McKay built the Flying Cloud in 1851 - fastest clipper around the Horn. Clipper ships were first '"invented" up the Mystic River in Medford, MA. Starting in the 1820's/30's Thatcher Magoun, Paul Curtis and the 12 shipyards in Medford were the first to use designs what would later become the Extreme Clipper. Chelsea/East Boston where McKay's yard was, were part of the same shipbuilding environment.

[@user-uo7fw5bo1o]

Medford wasn't the only place that built tall ships. There was a shipyard on the North River in Scituate MA that built them (not necessarily Clippers) and one of them was the Columbia named after the famed explorer and infamous exploiter. From the Wiki: The river between Oregon and Washington State was "Named Columbia River in 1792, by Captain Robert Gray of Boston, after his ship 'Columbia', which entered the mouth of the river in May of that year."

[@myradioon]

@@user-uo7fw5bo1o You are correct. Many of the Great Ship Builders of Medford (Thatcher McGoun etc.) originally came from the South Shore shipyards. They came to Medford to start their own yards after the Revolutionary War as the land around the Mystic river had mostly been undeveloped as it was owned by British Tories going back to the Mansion of the first Governor of the Mass Bay Colony - Ten Hills Farm. The 12 Medford builders/shipyards were the first to start experimenting with designs that became the Clipper. Soon shipyards all over MA/NH/MAINE made and sent Clippers to California/Pacific NW. I own a house built by George Fuller (originally from Duxbury MA) in 1834 who had a shipyard across the street on the Mystic. He built the Ship "California" mentioned in "Two Years Before the Mast". As you noted MA shipbuilders ships names were near historic in early California and the Pacific NW. The firms that bought and sent early merchant/company ships to the West Coast were nearly all out of Boston. The shipyards on the South Shore were the near birthplace of MA shipbuilding.

[@arthurdove553]

Great tour

[@paulsuprono7225]

25:00 . . . There's my school ---> UMASS - Boston 🇺🇲

[@Isaactorres60]

Amazing video.

[@joan100483]

Great tour. I would add that during WWII Italian prisoners of war were imprisoned on Columbia Point.

[@honeybee1888]

Agree that the new Seaport Innovation district does not have the type of charm that old Boston has - but, diversity is good, and 50 years from now it will be thought of as, well, Innovative!

[@KevinRMoore]

my 10 year old Mom lived in the Irish housing projects in South Boston, "Southy", Columbia Point was a landfill. Mom talks about how the local children would go there to throw rocks at the Warf Rats

[@auggieeast]

Pretty funny to be mentioning cruise ships after that recent cruise ship out of New York heading south for the tropics had to turn around because of the bad weather and came to Boston (and Portland) in the winter instead.

[@machsolid6402]

I’ve lived here all my life and watched most of the changes but you left out perhaps the biggest one which was the mandated superfund cleanup of the harbor. All the places you were strolling, which are nice now and all the real estate you highlighted and the commuter boats to the south shore, used to be not so nice because the harbor was basically a giant open sewer. I graduated from UMB in the 80s and we didn’t go visiting Columbia point next door. I live right on the harbor and everyone wants waterfront now. Not so much back then. Lots of people claim the fishing was better back then go figure .

[@paulsuprono7225]

20:00 . . . Went to school, not far south of South Boston ---> University of Massachusetts - Boston. 🤗 🇺🇲 👍

[@geolloyd1351]

good job

[@jeffcronin1994]

Informative tour, imaginative presentation. Columbia Point also had many Hjspanic residents, and other housing projects were mostly Irish. Why are the politically connected NIMBY protesters of Brattle Street in Cambridge "good citizens," and the politically powerless, poor and working-class Irish of So. Boston--who had no say over where their children went to school--racist and despicable? Undoubtedly, horrible racist events were part of the protests against forced busing, but the larger story is more complicated and unfortunate.

[@briansieve]

Good stuff. Thank you. That Kennedy Library seems fairly unremarkable. It looks like a factory attached to an office tower.

[@marg233]

BL 17:48

[@paulsuprono7225]

WHAT is to happen, as Global Warming progresses ? Boston's shoreline will rise, potentially FLOODING past progress of Boston's growth ! 🧐 🇺🇲 🤔

[@user-uo7fw5bo1o]

With the underground new Central Artery choked with traffic I'm sure a lock and dam will be built that will include a new expressway from Rt. 93 in Milton to the Northeast Expressway in Revere. And STILL there will be no North South Rail Link! 😠😡🤬

[@williamjameslehy1341]

Boston should ban five-over-one housing blocks.

[@user-uo7fw5bo1o]

They should, and the city and the inner suburbs should build more of those old fashioned middle-class apartment houses!

[@colclumper]

no

[@sharonmchugh7730]

It ain't affordable 🤣😂