The Boston History Project: Creating Boston's Back Bay

[@MarkEspinola]

Many Bostonians are not cognizant of this amazing geographic (landfill) history of the City of Boston. As someone who was born and raised in south Dorchester I thank you for posting this amazing, well presented historical data.

[@johnshields6852]

Born in Boston in 1960 it's amazing how much land is filled in, if you ever saw it's original geography you'd be shocked.

[@patman147]

I love Anthony Sammarco video's! He is a great historian.

[@brendadrew834]

Thanks for the history! Amazing how it looked before! I was born in Boston in 1948 at the Boston Lying -in Hospital, today's Brigham's hospital. My parents were married at the Church of the Advent on Beacon Hill where my late mother lived during the 1930s when she worked for Judge Brandeis. They lived on the Back Bay after they got married in 1939. My uncle by marriage grew up in Jamaica Plains graduated from Northeastern U and worked for a noted psychiatrist on the Back Bay! I understand that Commonwealth Ave. was designed after the boulevards of Paris from what I've heard. Boston does remind me of a cross between Paris and London with the bridges going over a river. Cheers from Yankee New England where I have deep roots that go back to 1648, the William Drew family from Sharpham, Devonshire England ..Drew country in Portsmouth and Dover, New Hampshire! ♥💙🍺🍺

[@attsealevel]

Great Tour and Summary!!! Something not mentioned is that almost a thousand pump and monitor stations now maintain the water table throughout the back bay, south end and base of beacon hill. Without strict monitoring, a majority of those buildings would've collapsed over the years (some already have). Most are built on wood pilings (tree trunks) that suppport their foundations. Those pilings extend through land fill, organic silt and sand, all the way to the marine clay (about 25 - 70 feet deep depending on the address). If those pilings are exposed to air (for even 10 minutes), bacteria will activate and they will rot. The city of Boston spends 10s of millions to ensure their safety via this network of sophisticated pumps.

[@mikemccarthy6953]

Fascinating. Where are some of these pumps / monitoring stations located? I've seen pumping stations in other nearby cities, like Cambridge and Newton, but I can't think of any in the back bay.

[@EdwardM-t8p]

I didn't know some of the buildings had collapsed over the years. I only know that Weylu's Wharf had to be torn down because the concrete in the concrete piles had literally turned to cement pudding and some had started to fail noticeably.

[@crashstitches79]

This is great! I love it when a history video does it right, with lots of maps and visual reference material. Keeps me from having to look them up while watching. Top marks, dog. Cheers from a Texan with Mass roots.

[@csn6234]

Massachusetts to Texas? Jeez, I'm sorry.

[@dantesanford7065]

Anthony's work is really great.

[@dhatchbernier]

My family is from Back Bay and it remains my favorite urban neighborhood in Boston to this day.

[@christopheryoung1878]

Thanks for this excellent, illustrated history of these Boston landmarks!

[@hollywoodhiggins1576]

I’m sitting the Boston public gardens watching this an my mind is blown! I never knew any of this!

[@takeurpowerback2995]

Thank you for posting this video. I was born in Boston and my grandmother used to live on Victoria Avenue in South Braintree. My mom used to work for a lawyer in town and all those street names you mention are places she mentioned to me when I was a little kid. The memories are so sweet and I just can’t tell you how much I appreciate this video❤️💙💜

[@jeffreysantner3717]

It was, at the time, the largest urban development project on Earth since the pyramids. The Big Dig, also in Boston is the current champ.

[@csn6234]

China: 抱紧我的青岛 (Hold my Tsingtao).

[@rebecca8525]

The changes that the Big Dig brought to Boston were nothing compared to how filling in the Back Bay changed Boston.

[@giannithestud1]

I love the sweater

[@theicyridge]

This is a fantastic overview.

[@EdwardM-t8p]

I love these videos! Anthony Sammarco is one of the finest historians in New England if not the World 🌎🌍🌏

[@Frankybroadcast]

Very very cool video. I never knew the history of that neighborhood. Impressive

[@michaelmangraviti6772]

Idk how it looks so big in these photos but feels so small when you’re there. Still a beautiful story of an incredible engineering feet

[@rebecca8525]

It is fascinating to see the pictures of Boston before the Back Bay was filled in! Too bad cameras hadn’t yet been invented when the American Revolution happened. I would have loved to have seen what Boston looked like back then.

[@chrizizdaman]

I've always wanted to visit Boston. It's one city that's high on my bucket list of places to see.

[@eviloverlordsean]

having lived across the Charles in Medford for 11 years, I can tell you firsthand Boston is a treat... very walk able and a really good transit system to get around easily. Happy traveling!

[@riproar11]

Boston is one of the top cities in the USA. It has lots of history, old architecture, universities, museums and oceanside. Over the past ten years it has had so much growth and areas that were once avoided have become hip.

[@takeurpowerback2995]

It’s fun to go to Salem on Halloween if you ever get the chance but Boston is always a beautiful place. Hope you get there soon❤️

[@riproar11]

Boston is the place for seafood! One of the most delicious foods on Earth that you have to try are batter-fried whole belly Ipswich clams (not strips, which suck). I've tried many places in Boston, but the best are at The Salty Dog at Faneuil Hall. Skip the place inside that claims to have the best value as they don't compare in taste. Don't waste your money on clam chowder in a bread bowl as it's just a gimmick and you get less. Boston Sail Loft makes a great mug of chowder! Legal Seafoods is overpriced with smaller portions. For beer - visit Harpoon Brewery and Beerworks (incredible batter-fried pickle spears with dill cream sauce)

[@dutchmaster1999]

Ehhh.... It’s changed a lot. Yea it’s got history but the people are so far removed from that. I don’t think it’s worth flying across the country for MA native

[@micromanager1650]

I lived in Beacon Hill and Back bay for many years in graduate school and my first years as a banker. This guy has a beautiful Brahman accent.

[@simplekustomsbyeddiepapand1838]

Great history!! In the greatest city . thanks for sharing

[@Sandhill1988]

I love my home, miss you bean town.

[@micromanager1650]

Nobody calls it beantown, dope.

[@maureenmackin1338]

I'm sure beantown misses you too!

[@lizzyl-k5396]

This is so cool!

[@ronaldtartaglia4459]

Fascinating, thank you

[@callmecarmella]

Sidebar.... a lot people have no idea that Brookline is not Boston. Although it is connected by Jamaica Plain and Alston/Brighton ( which are all considered Boston) Brookline is separate and apart. Great video, I love my city.

[@joevignolor4u949]

On April 19, 1775 British troops left their encampment on Boston Common and boarded small boats along the edge of the marsh where Charles Street is today. They then rowed west through the marsh and then northeast across the Charles River to where they landed in Cambridge. They then proceeded on foot west to Lexington and Concord and the rest is history.

[@ambreenkhan9932]

Great information on the city of Boston! 👍

[@StevenTorrey]

I've always wondered why the landfill didn't settle so irregularly. Seems more like a prescription for structural collapse than anything else.

[@MiguelRomero-zd3nb]

I love the video PD: This man has a thick New England accent

[@csn6234]

He has a thick New England accent? Ya don't say. And here I was, thinking he was from New Orleans.

[@BallymurphyBabe]

You didn’t mention in the photos that were of Commonwealth Avenue.

[@edwardsmith4557]

Hello. We lived in Norwood back in 1982. Worked in Boston. I have a question about the Museum of Science area. I seem to recall that area being kinda wind open. With the Leachmere green line running by the museum. We visit Boston several years ago and that area looked very different. Very built up. Has that area been really developed since the early 1980s? Thanks.

[@benpatience3533]

I live in Wellesley. In the 1860s Wellesley was part of Needham. Neighbors on my street told me where our street is; land was taken away for the filling of the Back Bay.....I am not so sure. After watching this video today, I biked down Gould Street in Needham. I passed the abandoned right of way of the RR which I presume hauled fill from Needham into the Back Bay. I didn’t see anything on Gould Street today which looked as though it might’ve been a landfill.

[@EdwardM-t8p]

No, that was where the Commonwealth levelled 12 acres of hills, and took and dumped their soil as landfill into the befouled marshes and flats of Back Bay.

[@thebenroyshow]

Anyone know the name of the song playing in the background of this video? Great overview of Boston's 'land-making'!

[@wrightgregson9761]

if i am hearing Anthony correctly, i have a question: Technically, i dont think it was a damming of the Charles river, but damming a shallow bay that extended off or the river itself.

[@ScarlettFire341]

agree, the Muddy River fed the Charles and Back Bay tidal flood plain

[@scrappydog7741]

Ah, I remember it like it was yesterday, the noxious effluvia and the gondola cars running 24 hours a day. Good times, good times.

[@sebastientumahai9560]

Boston is and was America’s best atheistic city outside of New Yorks’ grandeur and skyscrapers. Bostons mix of North America planning with historical European style buildings and urban planning is a great mix. Only if most Americans cities looked like Boston

[@jackson3014]

Very cool!

[@ericveneto1593]

When was Roxbury annexed?

[@Tainopisno1]

That was all marshes like in east Boston in back bay and Kenmore and parts of Dorchester, Charlestown and southwest but they filled it in back then cause it was a peninsula with the charles river flowing into it and there was a spring too and the natives use to live in that area and called noston Shawmut.

[@stevenj2380]

Something that makes it hard to follow are maps showing a limited area, or close up of maps. Maps of original Boston published in some guides or quick references show it almost like an amoeba with an antenna sticking out lower left, nothing anywhere around it. Another, no matter a number of visits and walking around quite a bit, are street maps from major sources and tourist maps which do not show city lines. Boston has no end on these maps. This is quite common, but at least for NYC, due to geography and mapmakers 'giving in', the city line at The Bronx, and Queens at Nassau County frequenlty are show,

[@TomMarsh1010]

Everyone take a drink on “What is today...”

[@elizetes7313]

Tks

[@TheRadioAteMyTV]

That was informative. What I can't figure out after hearing him, is when do Boston people keep their Rs and when do they drop them? He said "mawhses" but then he said "arcane". both words have the R in the first part, yet in one it was gone and the other emphasized. What's the secret? Or is it what's the seecwit?

[@ScarlettFire341]

we're just lazy - some of us have the "r's" and some don't and then do - depends on the weather lol

[@uncleruckus6692]

GLOSSTA!!

[@mlr4524]

What an environmental nightmare it would have been. Glad we don't have video footage of it happening. Heartbreaking.

[@beagangraham1443]

WOW

[@tomtalley2192]

Back before the river marsh was filled in, the poorer people built on the water side of Beacon. The wealthier people built away from the water side, And the odor. Wonder how the wealthy felt after it was filled?

[@cohen860]

If I'm not mistaken, those who worked as servants had smaller row homes in back of the larger mansions. I seem to recall driving down the streets and the main ones would alternate with the ones having the servants' homes.

[@paulb562]

Old Atlantis. + New Atlantis. hello.

[@KBOSGroundAgent]

Dudes sweater is killing me. Looks like that Back Bay white priviledge wear.

[@branon6565]

Billy Spears...wow, only a white dude who's a true piece of sh*t would bring up so-called "white privilege"....you libtards are all deserved of being forced to forfeit your ability to chew solid food thru painful, violent physical brutality....

[@markdempseyq4699]

Why is it wrong to white nowadays

[@Person-mh6xq]

Branon Fontaine totally unnecessary to make this political which is what you tried to do. His comment was, indeed, inappropriate...but so was yours - and even worse with the unnecessary libtard comment. Let people enjoy the video without you getting nasty.

[@jackjohnson7396]

Racist?

[@the.orthodox.photographer2272]

@@Person-mh6xq The commenter he replied to literally brought up politics first

[@indigoglooracleandmore5253]

It’s Charles Street to Kendall Square not Kenmore.

[@edwardcronin943]

Ahh no. He was right. Learn your geography glo chick.

[@adamgordon6435]

Those are consecutive red line stops, but that's not what he's talking about.

[@ИринаКим-ъ5ч]

Allen Brian Perez Joseph Harris Lisa

[@Normabbot27]

Who else thinks he’s kinda hot?

[@jackgrimaldi8685]

no one.

[@eliasadhana9158]

Only you!😂

[@stenbak88]

So sad to see how much was destroyed bc of humans

[@the.orthodox.photographer2272]

Oh shut up

[@AntonioCostaRealEstate]

That explain the crooked door frames on apartments by Beacon Street with the back towards the Charles. And yet the suckers from outside still buy those condos paying hand over fist. Meanwhile Roxbury , with larger lots and backyards , is eschewed by these new arrivals on the account of prejudice.

[@Person-mh6xq]

Antonio Costa “the suckers from outside” you say? And I say: let people live how and where they want to live if they can afford it. They are not suckers. Everyone knows the price of real estate based on city center proximity vs further out or the suburbs. Your bitter comment adds nothing to this excellent and informative video.

[@bboywolf]

@@Person-mh6xq you need to get back to the kitchen kyla and stop commenting. His comment was on point. If you're from Boston proper then you should have no issue with the comment

[@cornpop44]

Prejudice... i think you mean ghetto. Its not racist to not wanna get shot.

[@cornpop44]

Great point in the beginning though

[@peterschulze491]

Herald is GARBAGE next!! LOL

[@andrewsmith5730]

no wonder boston smells soo bad...i thought it was liberals but now i know better...

[@Person-mh6xq]

andrew smith go away, Andrew. Or grow up.

[@ScarlettFire341]

he's right you know

[@DanielAquarian]

I can’t believe how much of our history is total flim flam. These little historical lectures as mostly cartoons distracting inquiring minds away from the actual events of our past. 🕳

[@ScarlettFire341]

”The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history” George Orwell -- The only thing new in this world is the history you don't know. - Harry Truman - (that has been hidden)

[@johnscanlan9335]

When are Bostonians EVER going to learn to speak English properly?

[@mariannesouza8326]

John Scanlan 😂

[@cornpop44]

NEVAA KID FOGEDABOUDIT

[@wllm4785]

Hmmm, Boston Herald? I wouldn't repeat anything stated in this video in public unless you fact checked them first.

[@jamesc7925]

Boston is a nice city, except for all the patriots fans