Back Bay Fens
Engineered salt marsh with hidden tide gates and sewage interceptors, disguised as parkland.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Back Bay Fens in Boston opens with an 1870s engineer's verdict on the basin as the filthiest marsh and mud flat in Massachusetts, and the odor map Boston's board of health drew to mark this spot for stink. You'll hear why the city hired Frederick Law Olmsted in 1878 not to design a park but to build a piece of plumbing disguised as scenery, and how a tide gate, a sewage interceptor and salt marsh grass were meant to work together. The guide also traces why Olmsted insisted the place be called the Fens rather than a park.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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