Boylston Section
Community-run plots of raised beds on land reclaimed from marsh, tended continuously since the Second World War.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Boylston Section of the Fenway Victory Gardens in Boston follows the seven acres of rented topsoil reclaimed from marshland along the Muddy River, and a name scratched off a ballot the night before a Victory Garden Board election in the late 1960s. It traces what a gardener running for that seat was accused of doing to his neighbors' plots, and how the community judged him without a trial. Look for the padlocks and wire mesh guarding today's beds, still a running theme decades later.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Back Bay Fens
Engineered salt marsh with hidden tide gates and sewage interceptors, disguised as parkland.
Louisburg Square
Fenced private green ringed by brick townhouses, still maintained by the residents who own it.
Spectacle Island
Capped former landfill turned harbor park, with drumlin hills, five miles of trails and a lifeguarded swimming beach.
Commonwealth Avenue Mall
Tree-lined boulevard park built on nineteenth-century landfill, with elms and historic statues.
South Boston Waterfront
Reclaimed harbor mudflats turned glass-tower district, once a rail yard and fishing wharf, now among the priciest real estate in the city.
Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University
Living tree museum with a temple-born bonsai collection nearly three centuries old.