1800s (& Prior)
The court case that determined that harbor lines were constitutional (name and date)
Commonwealth v. Alger, 1851
The municipal office that implements climate resilience plans and projects
Climate Ready Boston (or the Office of Climate Resilience)
The ultimate cost of the Big Dig
$15 billion
"Unfortunately, for all the ambition and promise, there’s been little progress on Climate Ready Boston. Today, most of the climate projects recommended for completion by 2030 have yet to be included in Boston’s recent capital plans, including the current one, which extends to 2029 ... How could this happen?"
Liz Rickely, "What Happened to Climate Ready Boston?"
When was Storrow Drive built?
1950-1951
The legal precedent that allowed wharf construction to the boundary of low tide
The Ordinances of 1641-1647
The law that established that new waterfront developments must have public purposes or water-dependent uses
Chapter 91 (or the Massachusetts Public Waterfront Act)
A city planner, later state Secretary of Transportation
Fred Salvucci
"If you look at any optimistic scenario for surviving climate change; it involves building stuff on a totally unprecedented scale."
Ian Coss, The Bid Dig Podcast, "Part 1: We Were Wrong"
The name of the wealthy philanthropist who did not want highways near the Esplanade in the 1930s
Helen Storrow
Name one company that relied upon landmaking in the 1800s
Potential examples:
Boston Wharf Company, South Boston iron foundry (Alger's company), Boston & Roxbury Mill Corporation
The office that approves Chapter 91 perimits
Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection
The two companies hired by the state to manage the Big Dig's construction
Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff
"Nothing, at that time, had ever been said about any claim on the part of the State to any portion of the flats as belonging to the State as vendible property, the same as in the case of its terrene territory."
Seth Adams, A Protest Against the Claim of the Commonweath
The name of the park next to the Esplanade, which catalyzed development of the Fenway area/BU campus area in the late 1800s
Back Bay Fens
The state board that managed landmaking after 1868
Harbor Commissioners
Name one suggestion for Chapter 91's updates that CLF offers
Clarify or revise definitions within the waterways regulations
Encourage flood control measures that improve resiliency on a neighborhood- or area- wide scale
Clarify or revise certain provisions within the waterways regulations
The public authority that oversaw construction and handled federal funding in the 1990s
The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority
"We ask an extraordinary amount of our public leaders and managers. The visions of others, inherited through administrative changes and the vicissitudes of public life, may place dedicated public servants in the position of overseeing undertakings for which they have neither sufficient organizational strength nor long-term institutional support. And yet they persevere."
Wendy Haynes, Boston's Big Dig Project: A Cautionary Tale
The portion of the elevated highway near the Esplanade
Bowker Overpass
Name an example of landmaking in Boston from the 1800s (not including properties in South Boston)
Potential examples: Back Bay, Charlestown Mystic Wharf, East Boston railroad terminals
Name one way that Chapter 91 was updated in 1986
New restrictions on height, setback, and density
Environmental groups, state officials, and other representatives fought over the highway's crossing over the Charles River, which resulted in...
The Zakim Bridge
"Historically, such 'proper public purposes' focused predominantly on advancing maritime commerce and providing public access, but the public purposes recognized today are far broader. Private uses, including commercial ones, have been allowed to occur on Commonwealth tidelands and intertidal lands that are impressed with the public trust, subject to the requirement that the project serve a proper public purpose."
Deanna Moran, Heather Miller, and Peter Shelley, Climate Change & the Massachusetts Public Waterfront Act
The name of the Esplanade's landscape architect in the 1930s
Arthur Schurcliff