Get your cameras ready!

I love skylines! I especially love the Boston skyline! So I was very thrilled when I realized that there are actually two different breathtaking skylines. There is the beautiful view of the city's skyline from Charles River but now I think that the skyline from Boston Harbor is even better! I'm not sure if there are other cities, which can offer the same... My favorite waterfront building is the Custom House Tower, the 1910's "internet". That tower plus a telescope were all you needed in order to know what ships and what goods were about to arrive in Boston Harbor...

Our field trip began in the Christopher Columbus Park, Boston's first waterfront park. Then we finally got on the boat and we all saw this amazing Boston Harbor skyline. I actually still can't imagine how bad the waterfront used to be before the "Big Dig", because the Harbor is so clean and the Greenway so beautiful, but well, it cost a lot of money, too: project "Big Dig" was finished five years behind schedule and a couple of BILLION dollars over budget. At least it created over 20,000 jobs! Oh, and the best is that the project was financed by federal taxpayers... :)

The second big project in order to improve Boston was the Boston Harbor Project. Much less expensive but also of extreme importance to the city. The project turned the harbor from one of the dirtiest to probably the most beautiful and cleanest harbor in the country.

Here is another before-after picture of the waterfront:

The harbor used to be Boston's most important source of wealth. Shipping was very important. Now shipping is not as important as it used to be, but the harbor remains to be a very important place. Nowadays visitors and tourists come to see the harbor.

While on the boat, Prof Berman told us very interesting stories and anecdotes about literally EVERY island we saw (there are 34, but we didn't see all of them). Too bad that it was very windy and I could not always hear everything. I really liked Spectacle Island, which used to be two "drumlins" (a new word for my english vocabulary!)

To me it was very fascinating to see the 'projects' in Quincy: Housing for the poor by the ocean!

After the boat trip we went to Quincy Market, where our first field trip ended. I hope that the next one will be just as exciting, educating and fun!

See you in class,

Christian