Back Bay
Grid of grand nineteenth-century streets built on nearly seven hundred acres of engineered landfill.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Boston's Back Bay opens in 1814, when real estate merchant Uriah Cotting convinced city leaders to fund a mile-long tidal dam meant to turn the Charles River's ebb and flow into free power for dozens of factories. It follows the scheme's slow collapse into a stagnant, foul basin that a city health committee branded a great cesspool by 1849, and the decision to bury the problem starting in 1857. Trainloads of gravel arrived from hills and eskers out in Needham, hauled in around the clock for decades.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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