I happened on this area last year while working on a project, and I found it very fascinating. It's one of the "must see" spots along The Boston Harborwalk on the Fort Point Channel. Depending on where you sit, you can have either a view of the Gillette World Shaving headquarters, the freeway and commuter rail, or where the MBTA houses Redline trains not in use. Rolling Bridge Park was desgined by the Central Artery/Tunnel Project and the Mass Turnpike Authority as mitigation for disruptions during construction.
Rolling Bridge Park has the second highest amount of open space in The Boston Harborwalk tour. I appreciate that the MTA wants to increase open space around this very industrialized area, but it seems more to me like an odd testament of human accomplishments. To their credit, there really is no way to off set the cables, buildings, steel and concrete, that completely engulf this park. These trappings of industrialism make everything within the park seem unrealistic, and therefore, frivolous by design. The trees do not function as park trees; they function as street trees.
In a way, this is an industrializ-ed park. It's as if someone sat down, made of formula of what a park needs, and made it an overlty efficient open space. All the different park "staples" that were placed here do not function in a park capacity themselves, but of the idea of a park. It's like wanting to travel the world, but going to Disneyland's "It's a Small World" instead.For more photos, you can go to my Flickr account.
3 comments:
This is a fascinating site... it's one of those, "what were they thinking?" situations
living in a city; open space sounds like a good thing, but density, its opposite, is not neccisarily a bad thing either, which it is commonly associated.
If the designers of this park, if there were any, thought of enclosing this place instead of opening the place up- it would result in an entirely different experience- maybe you wouldn't see as much of that industry as you do now, oh and a place to sit would be nice too!
I think I saw that place, it looked incredibly strange and out of context.
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