Maps of-boston

Maps of Boston

An exhibition at 9th Floor of Boston City Hall August 31– December 31, 2013

BostonRedevelopmentAuthority

City of BostonThomas M. Menino, Mayor

Maps of BostonThe purpose of this exhibition is to showcase images and illustrations in our map collections that demonstrate the changes to the City of Boston throughout history. We are selecting citywide maps, as well as maps of Roxbury, the South Boston Waterfront, and the Greenway. These maps tell the story of the changing cityscape over time and are digital reproductions of actual historic maps.

Contributors The Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public LibraryBeacon Capital PartnersMayor’s Office of Arts, Tourism and Special EventsBoston Redevelopment Authority: Urban Design Technology Group,

Office of Digital Cartography and GIS, Economic Development and the 9th Floor Hallway Committee

BostonRedevelopmentAuthority

City of BostonThomas M. Menino, Mayor

A Plan of Boston and its environs

Date: 1775Publisher: Dury, AndrewThis map depicts Revolutionary War Boston

and the vicinity. It was the best contemporaneous map of the military situation just after the Battle of Bunker Hill and prior to the British evacuation of the city.

Source: Boston Public Library Norman B. Leventhal Map Center

Wall 2 1 ready to print

Boston Old and New

Date:1880Author: Winsor, JustinPublisher: Heliotype Printing Co.Noted historian and librarian, Justin Winsor

created this unique map by superimposing the outline of the original Shawmut Peninsula onto an 1880 map of Boston. Though drawn without the assistance of computers or aerial photographs, the map remains one of the most vivid diagrams of the radical transformation and enlargement of the Shawmut Peninsula during the 19th century.



Boston Old and New

Date: 1776

Boston Environs and Vicinity With the use of computers, current streets

are overlaid on this historic shoreline map.

Source: Boston Redevelopment AuthorityOffice of Digital Cartography and GIS

Wall 2 3

Boston and its Vicinity

Date: 1819Author: Hales, John GrovesPublisher: Hales, John GrovesThe neighborhood boundaries of Boston as

depicted in 1819.



Map of Boston Vicinity

Date: 1859Author: Walling, Henry FrancisPublisher: Baker, F. A.• Walling, a Boston-based engineer and

surveyor, specialized in publishing landownership maps of individual towns, cities, and counties in New England, but particularly Massachusetts. One example is this extremely detailed map of Boston and vicinity, showing town boundaries, property owners, roads, railroads, and topography.

• Like many of his other maps, it could be purchased as a folded map stored in a handsome case, or as a wall hanging mounted on rollers. His maps varied greatly in size, some as large as five or six feet square. Information included in these maps was obtained from traveling along existing roads; direction was determined by the surveyors compass and distance by the odometer wheel.



Map of Boston

Date: 1876Author: A. Williams & Co.Publisher: A. Williams & Co.The neighborhood boundaries of Boston as

depicted in 1876.



Boston Streets & Neighborhoods

Date: 2011These neighborhood boundaries of Boston

are for planning purposes only, not the official neighborhood boundaries for the City of Boston. This map is based on zoning neighborhood district s and zip code boundaries.


Wall 2 7

Boston Figure Ground Map

Date: 2012A figure-ground diagram is a two-

dimensional map of an urban space that shows the relationship between built and unbuilt space. It is used in analysis of urban design and planning. A figure-ground illustrates a mass-to-void relationship, and analysis of it identifies a "fabric" of urban structures. This figure-ground map of Boston shows different urban fabrics from dense and organic in the North End to loose and fragmented in the South Boston Waterfront. It also shows major open spaces such as Emerald Necklace, Southwest Corridor and the Greenway.


Wall 2 8

Boston Streets & Neighborhoods

Date: 2011Boston streets and transit. This is a very

popular map which is available at the BRA’s map counter.


Wall 2 9

1975 General Land Use Plan

Date: 1975Originally from the 1960’s General Plan, each

color represents a land use category. This map was the graphic representation of all major land use policies and recommendations set forth in the 1965/1975 General Plan for the City of Boston and the Regional Core. Since the Plan is a general statement of long range development goals, this map should be viewed as a flexible guide rather than an unalterable commitment to new land use development over the next decade.


Wall 2 10

Illustrative Re-Use Site Plan for the Regional Core

This is detailed land use from the General Plan, done by hand.


Wall 2 12

2005 General Land Use Map

Description: Land Use in 2005Data Source: MassGIS 2005, The Sanborn

CompanyThis map was created using digital data in a

Geographic Information System (GIS).



Map of City of Roxbury

Date: 1849

This map shows Roxbury as it existed as a town in 1849. Dudley Square is visible on the right-hand side.



Map showing Roxbury becoming a part of Boston

Date: 1883This map represents annexations of Roxbury,

Dorchester and West Roxbury to the City of Boston. Roxbury was annexed to Boston January 6, 1868.

Source: City of Boston


Dudley Square Figure Ground Maps: 1899/2011

These two figure-ground maps show the Ferdinand building(shown in red) in its context. Upper map is based on Bromley Atlas of 1899—three years after the Ferdinand building was built. The urban fabric was much fine-grained and street edges were well-defined then. The map of 2011 shows a much looser urban fabric with street edges harder to be identified. One of the reasons for this difference is that many institutions have replaced traditional residential uses in the Dudley Square area.

Source: Boston Redevelopment AuthorityUrban Design Department


Transformation of Ferdinand’s Building in Dudley Square

Built in 1896, the Ferdinand building sits, “flanked” by Warren and Washington Streets in Dudley Square. This is the future headquarters for the Boston Public Schools, continuing the revitalization of the neighborhood.

Source: Photo upper right -Google Maps Inc.Photo middle right-City of BostonRendering lower right-Sasaki Associates, Inc.Photo upper left-Boston Public Library, Print

DepartmentPhoto lower left-Isabel Leon, Photographer,

Mayor’s OfficeWall 4 16 ready to print

Figure-Ground Maps of the Greenway: 1940/1990/2010

These Figure-Ground Maps of the Greenway are re-created based on a diagram used in Urban Design Guidelines for the Central Artery Air Right Parcels by the Boston Redevelopment Authority Urban Design Department. In the 1990’s map, the Central Artery project cut through urban fabric of Boston. Today, the Greenway re-knit the urban fabric with a series of open spaces.



Greenway

2011

Source: Boston Water & Sewer Commission


Greenway

This is a top view from Boston Redevelopment Authority’s 3D model showing projects under construction, under review and future planning around the Greenway area.



Greenway

Date: 2009 (top)Aerial photo from Pictometry

Date: 2013 (bottom)Matching view from Boston Redevelopment

Authority’s 3D model showing projects under construction, under review and future planning around the Greenway area.

Source:Pictometry

Boston Redevelopment AuthorityUrban Design Department Wall 5 20 ready to print

Greenway

Date: 2009 (top)Aerial photo from Pictometry

Date: 2013 (bottom)Matching view from Boston Redevelopment

Authority’s 3D model showing projects under construction, under review and future planning around the Greenway area.

Source:Pictometry


Aerial Photos of Boston

Date: (left)First Aerial photo of Boston.

Date: 2010 (right)Matching view from Google Maps

Source:Boston Public Library

Google Maps

Wall 5 22

View of Boston Harbor 1870 & 2013

Date: 1870 (top)Author: Fuchs, F.Publisher: Weik, JohnThis view of Victorian Boston portrays a

prosperous city undergoing rapid change. Industries are beginning to crowd portions of the waterfront. Clipper ships brought fame to Boston in the 1850s; the steamship subsequently decimated New England’s wooden shipbuilding industry; and the shipping trade was also declining due to the arrival of the railroads in the 1830s. This city was now firmly in the grasp of a new mode of transportation.

Date: 2013 (bottom)This rendering of the City using the Boston

Redevelopment Authority’s digital 3-D model, shows future development of the City from a similar angle. Boston’s economy continues to transition, marked by new development serving the innovation economy.



Bird’s Eye View from the North 1870 & 2013

Date: 1870 (top)Author: Bachmann, JohnPublisher: L. Prang & Co.

Date: 2013 (bottom)This rendering of the City using the Boston

Redevelopment Authority’s digital 3-D model, shows future development of the City from a similar angle.



Boston

Date:Author: Bradford, T. G. (Thomas Gamaliel)Boston's transformation and growth from a colonial

port city originally confined to the physical limitations of the Shawmut Peninsula are outlined on this map.

Starting in the 1790s, bridges were built to connect Boston to the growing urban settlements of Cambridge, Charlestown, South Boston and South Bay.

Bostonians began to increase the peninsula's useable land areas by extending and filling in between wharves, and reclaiming the Mill Pond and tidal flats, along the peninsula's narrow neck. During the 1830s with the introduction of railroads into the New England area, Boston developed a viable transportation alternative to ocean and coastal shipping.

The map was engraved by G.W. Boynton, Boston's leading engraver during the mid-1800s.



Plan for the occupation of flats owned by the Commonwealth in Boston Harbor

Date: 1868Author: Massachusetts. Board of Harbor and

Land CommissionersPublisher: Massachusetts. Board of Harbor

and Land CommissionersDuring the seventeenth and eighteenth

centuries the land was added to accommodate the growing town. Most of this land was created by a process called ‘warfing out’—extending the wharves out from the shore and then filling the slips or docks between them. Warfing out was facilitated by the Massachusetts unique riparian law which gives shoreline property owners the right to own the adjacent tidal flats down to the low tide line or 1,650 feet from the line of high tide, whichever is closest to the shore, a law passed in the 1640’s to encourage building of the wharfs.



Aerial Photo of South Boston

Date: 2010

Source: Google Maps


Rendering of 3D model for South Boston

Date: 2013This is an aerial view from Boston

Redevelopment Authority’s 3D model showing projects under construction, under review and future planning in the South Boston Waterfront area.



South Boston

Date: 1994

The Ted Williams Tunnel was under construction.



South Boston

Date: 2001

Highway and tunnel project continues. Federal Courthouse, Seaport Hotel, World Trade Center East and West Offices were completed. Boston Convention and Exhibition Center(BCEC) site was being cleared.

Source: MassGIS


South Boston

Date: 2005

Boston Convention and Exhibition Center(BCEC), Institute of Contemporary Art(ICA), Manulife Headquarters, Channel Center and Park Lanes Seaport were completed.

Source: MassGIS


South Boston

Date: 2011

Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel, One Marina Drive, The Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel and Liberty Wharf were completed.



South Boston

Date: 2013This is a top view from Boston

Redevelopment Authority’s 3D model showing projects under construction, under review and future planning in the South Boston Waterfront area.



Maps of-boston

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