A fascinating look at the people, politics, and technology behind the massive landfill project that filled Boston's Back Bay

Sociologically speaking, the Back Bay is Boston's fashionable residential quarter -- or so it was until the great depression of 1929 began the gradual conversion of its aristocratic dwellings to more modest uses. Occupying about two hundred acres in the center of the greater filled region, the limits of this smaller area are the river, the Public Garden, Boylston Street, and Fenway Park. The Back Bay is interesting to Bostonian and visitor of the present day for a variety of reasons. Some will look at the area as a remarkably complete example of nineteenth century American architecture. Some people with a sociological interest will study the area's changes in property use and occupancy over the last thirty-five years and try to foresee the role the Back Bay is to play in the future development of the metropolitan center. Still others are concerned with the area as a convenient place to live or with property values and tax rates. With a precision almost unique in American history, the buildings of the Back Bay chart the course of architectural development for more than half a century. - Introduction.

“Tells the story of Boston’s growth in the 19th century, a time of immense cultural and physical expansion in the city.” —The Patriot Ledger Venture back to the Boston of the 1800s, when Back Bay was just a wide expanse of water to the west of the Shawmut Peninsula and merchants peddled their wares to sailors along the docks. Witness the beginning of the American Industrial Revolution; learn how a series of cultural movements made Boston the focal point of abolitionism in America, with leaders like William Lloyd Garrison; and see the golden age of the arts ushered in with notables Longfellow, Holmes, Copley, Sargent and Isabella Stewart Gardner. Travel with local historian Ted Clarke down the cobbled streets of Boston to discover its history in the golden age.

One of the largest development projects in nineteenth-century America, Boston's Back Bay was essentially a tidal basin until the construction of the Mill Dam (present-day Beacon Street) just after the War of 1812. By 1837, the area bounded by Charles, Boylston, Beacon, and Arlington Streets was filled in and laid out as the Public Garden, later the site of Boston's famous swanboats. In the late 1850s, the massive infill of the Back Bay commenced, and the earth collected from the hills of Needham was deposited in the city's "west end" for nearly four decades. As the new land began to reach Muddy River, the streets assumed a grid-like plan. The grand avenues eventually comprised Victorian Boston's premier neighborhood, and became home to the most impressive religious, educational, and residential architecture in New England.

Meet the Pratt clas. Driven men. Determined women. Through six turbulent generations, they would pursue a lost Paul Revere treasure. And turn a family secret into an obsession that could destroy them. Here is the novel that launched William Martin's astonishing literary career and became an instant bestseller. From the grit and romance of old Boston to exclusive -- and dangerous -- Back Bay today, this sweeping saga paints an unforgettable portrait of a powerful dynasty beset by the forces of history...and a heritage of greed, lust, murder and betrayal.

"..a vivid and absorbing account of one man's efforts to construct a building that would create "a new way of life for Bostonians-and Americans-to live." Not only does Henry Lee Higginson (best known for founding the Boston Symphony Orchestra) and his housing gamble come to life, but a whole social class, indeed, all of nineteenth-century urban America, spread themselves before us in the narrative. Perspectives abound,. Anecdotes enrich. Details, statistics, and little-known facts amaze." -- From jacke

Why and how Boston was transformed by landmaking. Fully one-sixth of Boston is built on made land. Although other waterfront cities also have substantial areas that are built on fill, Boston probably has more than any city in North America. In Gaining Ground historian Nancy Seasholes has given us the first complete account of when, why, and how this land was created.The story of landmaking in Boston is presented geographically; each chapter traces landmaking in a different part of the city from its first permanent settlement to the present. Seasholes introduces findings from recent archaeological investigations in Boston, and relates landmaking to the major historical developments that shaped it. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, landmaking in Boston was spurred by the rapid growth that resulted from the burgeoning China trade. The influx of Irish immigrants in the mid-nineteenth century prompted several large projects to create residential land—not for the Irish, but to keep the taxpaying Yankees from fleeing to the suburbs. Many landmaking projects were undertaken to cover tidal flats that had been polluted by raw sewage discharged directly onto them, removing the "pestilential exhalations" thought to cause illness. Land was also added for port developments, public parks, and transportation facilities, including the largest landmaking project of all, the airport. A separate chapter discusses the technology of landmaking in Boston, explaining the basic method used to make land and the changes in its various components over time. The book is copiously illustrated with maps that show the original shoreline in relation to today's streets, details from historical maps that trace the progress of landmaking, and historical drawings and photographs.