|
Dock square is at the site of Bendall's Cove which evolved into the Town Dock, a reeking cesspool, and then into Quincy's Market. The cove was a narrow finger of water easily converted into Bendall's Dock where ships from England could be off-loaded from both sides. The surrounding area naturally grew up as a market and commercial zone as it has remained to this day. The shoreline etched in the plaza marks the original high tide level of Bendall's Cove circa 1630, as established by soil sampling. Ships became larger and deeper-draft and the shallow Town Dock became inadequate. Wharves constructed out into the harbor for these ships surrounded and constrained the original dock and it was gradually, but altogether too slowly, filled in. Faneuil Hall, Boston's first official market building, was built on the land made in the southern part in1742. Contemporary maps show the dock adjacent to the north. As the dock got smaller, it got stinkier. From Seasholes (03): The part of the Town Dock that remained open after 1729, polluted not only by refuse but also by an underground sewer that drained into it, was described by contemporaries as a "very stinking puddle" and "nauseous & offensive". Pollution from an underground drain was also one reason for undertaking the Faneuil Hall (Quincy) Market project near the Town Dock in the mid-1820s. Josiah Quincy was Boston's second mayor after the city was incorporated in 1822. He was a strong leader who consolidated executive power to accomplish worthy goals. He saved the city (Quincy 03). He hired street cleaners to collect human and animal waste and garbage from the streets, he consolidated and improved the sewers, and he drove Boston's first big public works project - Quincy's Market. The market area in 1823 was a mess. In addition to the cesspool-dock, streets were narrow, buildings old and run-down, and there wasn't enough room. Mayor Josiah planned to consolidate ownership, tear down the failing wharves, and fill in the dock for a proper market with flanking warehouses that would extend from Faneuil Hall to the new Harbor quay. The market as built is not symmetric because three of Nathan Spears's heirs expected to get very rich selling their property to the city. The mayor moved the market house location to align its north wall with Faneuil Hall north wall, widened south market street to 102 ft and narrowed north Market Street to 65 ft placing the Sears property in public road right-of-way to be taken at the original (cheap) appraised price. The reclaimed land and the dock were cleared all the way down to the upper layer of the Boston Blue Clay hardpan behind cofferdams which kept out the sea. Gridley Bryant was the stone contractor. Some of the foundation granite came from the nearby Quincy quarries. The white granite for the market building was brought from Chelmsford, 37 miles down the Middlesex Canal, across the river, through the newly filled Bulfinch Triangle, past the hay market, to the remnant of Mill Creek, and thence to the seawall where ox teams pulled it the remaining few feet. Alexander Parris was a perfect match for Mayor Quincy's vision of a grand market house with his highly respected background in engineering, his interest in Greek revival, and his experience under Bulfinch. Parris intended to give customers a view of the length of the colonnade without the usual obstruction of bulky columns, stacks of bricks, or masonry load-bearing walls. He partially suspended the floors from trusses that ran the length of the building. 24 of the 60 columns on each side contain an iron compression post to support the truss. Within the remaining hollow columns were tie rods that supported the floors. This design left the cellars relatively open. The finished market house was a colossus for its day: 535' long including porticoes, 50 ft wide, 54,000 sq ft above the raised basement. The colonnade suspension system, the elliptical dome design, and the solid granite columns had no known precedent in America and were marvels to both layman and professional builder. The columns on the ends are20' 9" (^.3 m) long, 3' 6" (1 m) diameter at base, and 2' 10" (86 cm) at top. Each weighs 15 tons and was quarried from one of several huge boulders found in the north part of Westford (near Chelmsford). Prison convicts from Charlestown were engaged in the "boring, spinning, grinding, smoothing, and dressing the columns." (p 90). Facing granite was dressed by hand by the same prisoners. Unlike our last big public works project, Quincy's market was completed on budget and on time without raising taxes. It was paid for by auctioning parcels of the consolidated land in the warehouse plots. Rectangular notches in the gray granite in front of Faneuil Hall represent old building lot lines in Odin's Block from the 1819 Hales Map of the market, lots that were consolidated by Mayor Quincy. The pink granite marks the streets used by pedestrians, horses, and occasional wagons. (Granite Etching: Artist - Ross Miller, Landscape Architect: John Ryther 1996) Streets were the spaces where buildings weren't and were not planned. "Straight" wasn't important. This quotation from Quincy (03, p 9) explains everything. As the town expanded, no thought was given to overall planning. Boston was shaped by the needs of its inhabitants. From its birthplace at the head of the Great Cove, starting from the Town Dock, the settlement gradually moved north and south, following the shoreline. For many years not a single building appeared on the eastern slope of Tramountaine. Boston's earliest streets followed the curves of the hills, crossing their slopes at the easiest angles. Cows were driven to pasture on Boston Common, along paths that circumvented the blueberry bushes on Beacon Hill. Horses laden with grain or corn were led across the low banks of Copps Hill to the gristmill. Thus, the narrow and winding streets, with their curious twists and turns of this rugged promontory, came about by means of shortcuts and convenience; they remain substantially unchanged in the downtown Boston of nearly four centuries later. |