Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau Press Contacts

For Immediate Release

Media Relations & Tourism Sales Department of the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Larry Meehan, Vice President of Media Relations & Tourism Sales, lmeehan@bostonusa.com, 617-867-8231; Stacy Shreffler, Media Relations & Tourism Sales Coordinator, sshreffler@bostonusa.com 617-867-8203.

December 2007 Edition

Rose Kennedy Greenway Construction 2007-2008

One of the world’s great urban parks is under construction in Boston.

The mile-long Rose Kennedy Greenway , now under construction, will include several miles of new and refurbished sidewalks, 600 street lights, nearly 900 trees with irrigation, numerous plazas and 14 new parks with public art, water features, three new museums, and visitor information centers.

The Rose Kennedy Greenway is the final phase of the Central Artery/Tunnel Project. Better known as “The Big Dig” the largest and most complex highway and tunnel project in the nation's history, construction of the parks is already underway and are anticipated to be complete during 2007-2008.

Parks & new Museums on the Greenway

North End Park : The first of the three Greenway parks – the North End Park, is actually two parcels combined with the restored Hanover Street, which contains a portion of the Freedom Trail, The North End Park will reconnect the urban fabric that was severed by the Central Artery 50 years ago between the grand civic space of downtown and of Boston's oldest neighborhood. Click here: North End Park

Chinatown Park : The one-acre Chinatown Park is being created from parts of Kingston Street, Edinboro Street and an exit ramp off the old elevated highway. The new park will provide a forecourt to the Chinatown Gate, which serves as the symbolic entrance to the neighborhood. The park will offer flexible space for staging community activities such as festivals, markets and performances as well as other neighborhood gatherings. The twin concepts of passage and progression - physical passage through space and the symbolic passage of Asian immigration to Boston - sparked the park's design theme. The theme of passage will be represented by elements that have significance in the Asian community, such as gates, stones, streams and waterfalls. A contemporary red steel gateway at the Essex Street entrance to the park will complement the existing gateway at the park's opposite end. And the promenade through the new gate will connect with the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway as it heads toward the waterfront and North End. Plantings will feature culturally significant plants like bamboo, willow, Chinese Cherry, ginkgo, black pine, azaleas and peonies. The park has been designed by Carol R. Johnson Associates of Boston in association with Turenscape of Beijing. Click here: Chinatown Park

Wharf District Park : the five-block area reaching from Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park to High Street and the Boston Harbor Hotel, is being designed by Virginia -based EDAW, one of the world's largest landscape design firms, and Boston-based Copley Wolff Design Group. Many designers feel the Wharf District is the ‘heart’ of the 30-acre Kennedy Greenway Park on the land once covered by the highway, and is therefore the most important. The design will include beach grass, wave patterns, and fountains whose water would synchronize with the ocean tides. The park will feature a spiral shape fountain. Click here: Wharf District Park

“Walk To The Sea”: Just above State Street the Greenway will be bisected by the ¾-mile “Walk To The Sea” walkway originally designed by architect I. M. Pei 40 years ago. The Walk to The Sea begins at the Suffolk Courthouse Plaza on Beacon Hill and continues east through City Hall Plaza to Faneuil Hall Marketplace, through Marketplace Center east to the end of Long Wharf. A Visitor Center is being designed where the Walk to the Sea & The Greenway intersect.

Boston Harbor Islands Visitor Center : Stephen Yablon Architect, a New York City firm, has won a competition to design the 2,500-square-foot Boston Harbor Islands Visitor Center on Boston’s Rose Kennedy Greenway. The $3 million building will serve as a gateway to the Boston Harbor Islands National Park, and is expected to be one of the first structures to be completed on the greenway. The pavilion is slated to open in 2008.Yablon’s design is a sheer, glass box set on a stone base surrounded by a shallow reflecting pool. It will contain the park’s visitor center, a cafe, and bookstore. Display screens, visible from the interior and exterior, will be embedded in the structure's walls. Click to view: Boston Harbor Islands Visitor Center

Adjacent to the Greenway: The new waterfront Boston Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) opened in December 2006. On Boston’s waterfront , three blocks east of the Greenway, the new 65,000-square-foot museum include spectacular galleries, a 325-seat performing arts theater with glass walls that face Boston Harbor, and high-tech education and digital media facilities. The cantilevered design for the museum integrates the city's public harbor walk. Click to view: Institute of Contemporary Art

Adjacent to the Greenway: HarborWalk, a continuous 46-mile public walkway along Boston’s water's edge that is under construction one block away from the Greenway , When completed, the HarborWalk will stretch some 46.9 linear miles along wharves, piers, bridges, beaches and shoreline from Chelsea Creek , north of downtown Boston to the Neponset River, south of downtown Boston. A collaborative effort among City and State agencies, private property owners, residents and harbor advocacy groups. City and State regulations require that new development be set back from the edge of the water, and that a portion of the setback area be improved as a public pedestrian path -- the HarborWalk. The HarborWalk is being constructed incrementally in segments by the City, State and private waterfront-property owners. By the end of 2006, approximately 80% of the planned 46.9 miles of HarborWalk is accessible by the public. Click here: HarborWalk

Under The Greenway: New Silver Line coach from airport terminals to South Station: The one-year anniversary of the Boston’s Silver Line bus - which travels in an underground 18-minute loop connecting the airport terminals, the World Trade Center, the Moakley Federal Courthouse, and Boston Convention & Exhibition Center. One way fare is $1.70. The new dedicated bus system - the Silver Line- connects visitors underground at South Station which contains the Red Line Underground and Amtrak national rail service. Click here: New Silver Line

On the Greenway: The Boston Museum Project on the new Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway will be located on the one-and-a-half -acre Greenway site on the northeast corner of Faneuil Hall Marketplace along Clinton Street to the Columbus Waterfront Park the heart of the historic waterfront adjacent to Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market. The new 164,000-sq.ft. museum and cultural center, will showcase stories of Boston’s diverse and creative people, focusing particularly on the last 200 years, which receive less attention than Boston’s Revolutionary War period. and include galleries, theatres, restaurants, orientation and education spaces, a series of learning centers and meeting rooms, a grand hall for large public meetings, a museum store and a grand public concourse running the length of the site.The museum will offer 33 spaces that can be used by the communities of Boston for performances, meetings, educational programs, community exhibits, celebrations and special events. The new Museum will join the developing new Wharf District park and cultural district. Within five minutes walk: water transportation to the Harbor Islands, Faneuil Hall Marketplace, the Aquarium, the Freedom Trail, The New Center for Arts and Culture, the Children's Museum and the new waterfront Institute of Contemporary Art, and planned Botanical Garden. The tentative design, by architect Moshe Safdie, is a dramatic departure from traditional Boston architecture: an elongated, curved half tunnel evoking the image of the hull of a sailing ship. It would rest on an incline of park land covering two highway ramps. Click here: Boston Museum Project

On the Greenway: The New Center for Arts and Culture, a brilliant centerpiece on the Rose Kennedy Greenway between Rowes Wharf on the waterfront and the Financial District. The New Center embodies the goals of the Greenway--to unite the Boston of the 21st Century and create common ground for all. The New Center will provide facilities to allow its central idea - using the arts and humanities to build community and common ground - to soar in the multi-cultural world of the 21st Century. It includes a transformable performance theatre that can accommodate dance, theatre, music, lectures and film; museum-quality galleries that can host a wide array of exhibitions; hands-on exploration areas as well as seminar and meeting rooms. The building will also include a cultural café, a rooftop terrace and a magnificent atrium which will be a gathering space where visitors can connect, discover and celebrate. Lively outdoor plazas featuring a culture café, fountains and sculpture extend from each end of the building bringing the creative energy of the Center and its exhibits to the street. Click here: New Center for Arts and Culture

On the Greenway: Massachusetts Horticultural Society is the designated developer of a major parcel planned for a “Garden Under Glass” attraction in the future. Most recently the Society has announced it will proceed in developing a collaboration for interim horticultural uses for its downtown Boston Greenway parcels, with funds from a local foundation. Areas of collaboration include programming, design, and marketing efforts for the parcels.

Adjacent to the Greenway: Boston Tea Party Museum Expansion June 2008: Adjacent to the Kennedy Greenway at Congress Street, $15 million is being invested in expanding the Boston Tea Party attraction complex featuring the newly-discovered Robinson Half Chest, a completely renovated Boston Tea Party Ship & the addition of two new Tall Ships, replicas of 1773 ships. Click here: Boston Tea Party Museum

Adjacent to the Greenway: New Sea walls, new ferry terry terminals, new docking facilities: In addition to the Greenway major shoreline restoration is being completed in the Charles River Basin, Fort Point Channel, Rumney Marsh and Spectacle Island, as well as in significant stretches of the Boston Harborwalk. New sea walls are being constructed in the lower Charles River Basin, Fort Point Channel and Spectacle Island. In addition, the Project is making major contributions to the Boston Harbor water transportation infrastructure and services, including new ferry terminals at North Station and the Fort Point Channel; a new major pier and docking facility on Spectacle Island; improvements to the current docking facilities at the World Trade Center, Long Wharf and Charlestown Navy Yard.