One Canal continues the restoration of the Bulfinch Triangle

The Images:



Image 1: Looking down one side of the Triangle, along North Washington Street,
from Haymarket Square.

 

Image 2: Looking down the other side of the Triangle, along Merrimac Street,
from Haymarket Square.

Image 3: Looking across the One Canal site from Valenti Way toward downtown,
with the Government Center Garage in between.

Image 4: The One Canal site from Haymarket Square.

Image 5: Rendering of the completed project, almost same viewpoint
as Image 4. Credit: Trinity Financial/Icon Architecture.

The Location: One Canal Street, Bulfinch Triangle, Boston, MA.

The Story: A whole lot of what is now land area in Boston was once part of the coves and bays that surrounded the original, clover-like Shawmut Peninsula when John Winthrop and crew sailed into Massachusetts Bay and set up shop in 1630. The area we're in here lies just to the north of the heart of downtown and it was originally part of the North Cove, which opened out into the place where the Charles River and the harbor met. Over the course of the next two centuries, North Cove was gradually filled, starting with a dam along what is now Causeway Street, hence the name (to the upper left in the RTUF sketch and the location of TD Garden and North Station), after which the cove was renamed to the Mill Pond, and then the filling of the entire area to the south and east of that dam in the early 19th century pursuant to a plan drawn up by Charles Bulfinch. The triangular layout of the plan is what gave the Bulfinch Triangle its name, with the three sides of the shape made up by Merrimac, North Washington and Causeway Streets. With the advent of railroading in the middle of the 19th century, the area to the north and west of Causeway Street was subsequently filled and the river completely dammed, and what was left of North Cove was finally gone.

Come forward another century, and the Bulfinch Triangle itself was eviscerated by the construction of the elevated Central Artery in the 1950s, which split the district in two and took down three full blocks of buidlings in its very heart.

Image 6: Constructing the elevated Central Artery; view looking north
from North Washington Street, Old Boston Garden/North Station in the
background on the left. Credit: The Boston Globe.

Replacement of the old elevated highway with the Big Dig's system of tunnels and the surface Greenway offered the opportunity to restore the ruptured urban fabric all along its length, and nowhere has that opportunity been better capitalized on than in the Bulfinch Triangle. Two new mid-rise residential buildings have already been built on reclaimed former highway parcels (they're labeled the Avenir and Simpson developments in the sketch below). And now we have Trinity Financial's long-delayed One Canal project rounding out the top tier of the triangle with a 12-story mixed-use building that will wrap around the North Washington frontage and fill out the entire block of Valenti, Canal and North Washington. It has taken time, but the Bulfinch Triangle has been effectively restored. Government Center Garage and North Station -- you're next.


RTUF Sketch:

(Blog Post No. 2014-7)