What’s New Attractions in BostonUSA 2008

New Children’s Museum, New Boston HarborWalk, New Waterfront ICA, New Trails, New Parks & New Connections for Visitors

 

Produced by the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau to provide media & tour professionals worldwide.  www.BostonUSA.com is Boston’s Official Visitor Information web site. Media & Tour Contact: Larry Meehan, Vice President of Media Relations & Tourism Sales Tel: 617- 867-8231, e-mail: lmeehan@bostonusa.com;

 

The Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau is a partner of Discover New England, Tourism Massachusetts & a member of the VisitUSA United Kingdom Committee and a sustaining member of the Travel Industry of America.

2008 Edition 

 

Contents

 

  1. Chinatown Market Tour Opens October 13, 2007
  2. Boston Harbor Cruises presents Codzilla, 40 mile per hour boat ride in the Boston Harbor
  3. Boston’s Children’s Museum 2007 will complete its $45 million expansion & renovation
  4. New waterfront Institute of Contemporary Art opened December 10, 2006 ….
  5. WGBH 2 Headquarters 2007 new three story, two-building  $87 million headquarters for WGBH TV in Brighton
  6. Boston Harbor Walk 2007 + When completed, the HarborWalk will stretch some 46.9 linear miles 
  7. African Meeting House 2007: The oldest African church building standing in America :$4.5 restoration
  8. Bunker Hill Monument 2007: The 163-year-old Bunker Hill Monument  is undergoing a $3.7 million renovation
  9. MFA 2010: The Boston Museum of Fine Arts America Wing expansion
  10. The mile-long Rose Kennedy Greenway 2008
  11. ¾-mile  “Walk To The Sea”  walkway
  12. The North End Park 2007: Boston’s new “front porch” park & Freedom Trail connector
  13. Chinatown Park 2007: The one-acre Chinatown Park: The Gateway & Kingston Street, Edinboro Street
  14. Wharf District Park 2007: The ‘Wharf District Park” the five-block area reaching from Christopher Columbus
  15. Boston Abolitionist’s Walking Trail 2007: a new eight (8) site  walking trail from Beacon Hill to the BPL  
  16. Boston Harbor Islands Visitor Center 2008: designed by Stephen Yablon Architect: a new Gateway 
  17. Boston Tea Party Ship & Museum 2009: Major renovation and new ship replicas at Congress Street Bridge at
  18. The New Center for Arts & Culture 2010: Rose Kennedy Greenway at Boston Harbor Hotell .
  19. The Boston Museum Project 2011:

 

NEW! Chinatown Food Tour - Opened October 13, 2007
Are you intrigued, yet a little intimidated by this fascinating, colorful neighborhood in the heart of downtown Boston? Are you wild about Asian food, but easily confused by the huge variety of unfamiliar ingredients in the markets? If so, this tour is your key to unlocking the mysteries that lie beyond the Chinatown Gate. Follow, as your guide leads you through this vibrant, energetic “village.”  

Learn the differences between the many regional cuisine's of China. Find out where to buy and how to select the finest authentic ingredients. Complete your stroll with a delicious Dim Sum Luncheon, hosted by your guide. Learn the ins and outs of ordering from the roaming carts and stationary stalls, and the unique rules of Dim Sum etiquette. Schedule and Rates:Thursday and Saturday 9:30am to 1:00pm
Admission is $60 per person, plus 5% tax - dimsum included.
Advance ticket purchase is required.
 

 

 

Codzilla has arrived. And Boston Harbor will never be the same. Now there are more thrills, more laughs and more speed than you ever imagined as you zip across the ocean at up to 40 miles per an hour. But don't worry. A ride on Codzilla is as entertaining as it is thrilling. The wind roars. The music blares. And the waves will splash as the crew recounts the legendary tale of how Codzilla came to Boston. This wet and wild ride is 40 minutes of full blast, sensational fun for the entire family. The Four Secrets of Codzilla, Revealed -1. Codzilla seats (or was that "eats"...whatever) 135 people, so reservations are recommended. 2. With two turbo-charged diesel engines, Codzilla roams the ocean with 2800 horsepower. (we're not talking sea horses my friend.) 3. Before boarding Codzilla, secure all headwear, eyewear, wigs, toupees, and pitiful comb-overs. No refunds will be issued for bad hair days. 4. Codzilla is a wet ride and bears no claims for wet feet, wet pants or wet t-shirts. If you're a fan of "easy-listening" stations, be prepared to cover or plug your ears. We will not turn down our music- don't even think about asking.For more information please click here.

 

Boston’s Children’s Museum 2007: on Boston’s waterfront will complete its $45 million expansion & renovation featuring a new three-story 23,000 sq ft addition, a new theatre & 50,00 sq ft of renovated space for arts, culture, sciences, & health exhibitions in April 2007. Click here: Boston’s Children’s Museum

 

 

 

 

New waterfront Institute of Contemporary Art opened December 10, 2006. Architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro's bold architectural vision for the project and the dramatic waterfront location has created a dynamic state-of-the-art center for performances and educational activities, as well as a contemplative exhibition space for contemporary art. The cantilevered design for the museum integrates the city's public harbor walk into the building and produces shifting views of the waterfront throughout the galleries, theater and public spaces. The new waterfront Boston Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) features 17,000 sq. ft. exhibition space; a 325-seat performing arts theater with glass walls that face Boston Harbor, a media center; educational facilities and the new Wolfgang Puck Water Café. The ICA is the first art museum to be built in Boston in almost 100 years. Click here: Institute of Contemporary Art

 

 

 

WGBH 2 Headquarters 2007:The new three story, two-building  $87 million headquarters for WGBH TV in Brighton will feature a large, light-filled, two-story public hall that will serve as a staging point for tours and events. The 3,562-square-foot visitor nexus will offer interactive kiosks and a wall of video images. The new  1,800-square-foot FM performance center will accommodate a wider range of ensembles, broadening the exposure we can provide to deserving classical, jazz, blues, and Celtic artists, both established and emerging. WGBH's new 200-seat theater will accommodate screenings, concerts, lectures, teacher-training sessions, and other gatherings .The theater will offer state-of-the-art imaging and sound, including captioning and descriptive video. Click here: WGBH 2 Headquarters

 

 

 

 

 

  1. Boston Harbor Walk 2006-2007 + When completed, the HarborWalk will stretch some 46.9 linear miles along wharves, piers, bridges, beaches and shoreline from Chelsea Creek to the Neponset River. Boston HarborWalk connects the city's waterfront neighborhoods and downtown district, stretching from Chelsea Creek to the Neponset River, through East Boston, Charlestown, North End, Downtown, South Boston and Dorchester. The Boston HarborWalk features a series of observation points and a linear path, where the public has the opportunity to view at close range the exciting operations of a working industrial port. The Boston Harborwalk is now 80% complete (November 2006).  The Boston HarborWalk also connects to new and existing networks of inland trails, which will link the HarborWalk to established parkways and open space networks, including the Emerald Necklace system, the Charles River Esplanade, and the Rose Kennedy Greenway. In the future, the South Bay Harbor Trail will offer Boston residents a new and exciting way to access the Boston Harbor on foot or bicycle. The trail will extend from the Ruggles MBTA station and winds its way through Lower Roxbury, the South End, and Chinatown to reach the HarborWalk at the Fort Point Channel.

 

African Meeting House 2007: The oldest African church building standing in America, The African Meeting House $4.5 million restoration will be complete in April 2007.The restoration is one part of their bicentennial. Built in 1806, The African Meeting House, a designated National Historic Landmark is the oldest black church edifice still standing in the United States, the first house of worship built for people of African descent in Boston, and the largest meeting space owned and controlled by people of color for much of the nineteenth century. Built in 1806, the African Meeting House is the first black church building built in Boston and the oldest African Meeting House still standing in the country, a true showcase of black community organization and an enduring testimony to black craftsmanship. This church, school and meeting house, was the site for many legendary gatherings that led to the termination of the heinous institution of slavery. Some of those gatherings included the 1832 founding of the New England Anti-Slavery Society by William Lloyd Garrison, founder and editor of The Liberator; the goodbye address by Maria Stewart who in the 1830’s dared to be the first woman to rise and speak before an audience of both men and women, and it was in this sacred building that in 1863 Frederick Douglass recruited troops for the 54th   and 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry the first all black regiment to fight in the Civil War as depicted in the movie “Glory” starring Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman. By 1855 the country was ramping up to the Civil War, the Abolitionist Movement was in full gear and the activities of the organized black community of Boston played a major role in bringing slavery to an end in the United States. The Museum has enlisted the expertise of John G. Waite Associates, Architects of Albany, New York to prepare a Historic Structure Report and to provide historic architectural design services and Shawmut Design and Construction was recruited to manage the construction of this delicate treasure. The restoration project includes:  An addition to be added to the rear of the building to support a new elevator for handicap access to the sanctuary and main room; Removing the mechanicals from the current interior location and the construction of a new underground mechanical vault; Raising the ground floor to its original 1855 position; The historic restoration of the windows and interior and the existing building façade; and the restoration and repair of several of the original pews and the remainder to be replicated. The location of the African Meeting House at 46 Joy Street in Boston’s historic Beacon Hill neighborhood presents a challenge to the construction crew, working in a tight urban location. A five-foot-wide space allows the only access to the courtyard, the site of the new addition. December 6, 2006 The Museum of African American History commemorated the history of this majestic building where monumental events leading up to the decimation of slavery have taken place. Click here: African Meeting House

 

  1. Bunker Hill Monument 2007: The 163-year-old Bunker Hill Monument  is undergoing a $3.7 million renovation and a new Bunker Hill Museum, to be completed on June 17, 2007…

 

  1. MFA 2010: The Boston Museum of Fine Arts America Wing expansion broke  ground November 14, 2005. The design, by world-famous architect Sir Norman Foster, will enlarge the 95-year-old landmark to 681,000 sq. ft. and will renovate 75,000 square feet of the existing Museum building. Highlights of the expansion include a spectacular new wing for Art of the Americas, extensively renovated Art of Europe galleries, generous new space for Contemporary Art, a major enclosed Glass Courtyard for year-round enjoyment, a new Gund Gallery for special exhibitions, larger, state-of-the-art Conservation facilities, and significantly improved visitor services and amenities. Throughout the expansion the MFA will continue to present major exhibitions.

 

  1. The mile-long Rose Kennedy Greenway 2008: The Rose Kennedy Greenway builds upon Boston's remarkable history of greenspaces like Boston Common, the Fenway, the Public Garden, the Charles River Esplanade, and Post Office Square. The Greenway 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, two new museums (possibly a third), other visitor facilities including visitor information centers. The 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. The first Greenway parks, North End Parks, Chinatown Park and Wharf District Parks are slated to open between summer of 2007 and spring 2008.
    Click here: Rose Kennedy Greenway

 

  1. ¾-mile  “Walk To The Sea”  walkway : Just above State Street the Greenway will be bisected by the ¾-mile  “Walk To The Sea”  walkway 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.

 

The North End Park 2007: 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 2007: 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 2007: The ‘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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boston Abolitionist’s Walking Trail 2007: An eight (8) site  Trail that can be easily walked in one half hour has been created. The trail begins at Boston’s Museum of Afro-American History at 46 Joy Street on Beacon Hill and the next seven sites are  (1) William Cooper Nell's Boardinghouse 3 Smith Court (2) Robert Gould Shaw and 54th Regiment Memorial Corner of Park and Beacon Streets (3) Park Street Church Corner of Park and Tremont Streets (4) Wendell Phillips Statue Boston Public Garden, Boylston Street Mall (5) Charles Sumner Statue Boston Public Garden, Boylston Street Mall (6) William Lloyd Garrison Statue Commonwealth Avenue between Exeter and Dartmouth Streets and concludes at (7) Boston Public Library 700 Boylston Street.  Click here to view Map & Information: http://www.wordsofthunder.org/trail_map.htm The City of Boston has an incredible history of independence, resistance, and freedom. The Revolutionary War and other major battles made the question of freedom a burning topic for all its citizens, both black and white. From the early 1800s through the Civil War, Boston was the center of the radical abolition movement in the United States and home to the nation's largest free black community. Activists, both men and women, both black and white, founded anti-slavery movements, held conferences, wrote and spoke vigorously, and raised funds for the cause. Here, recruiters formed all-black platoons and William Lloyd Garrison published The Liberator. The Liberator became the country's dominant newspaper promoting the abolition of slavery, providing access to information about the activities of free blacks and whites working together for the emancipation of enslaved people.

 

Boston Harbor Islands Visitor Center (Opening date to be determined): 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 here: Boston Harbor Islands Visitor Center

 

 

 

 

Boston Tea Party Ship & Museum 2009: Major renovation and new ship replicas at Congress Street Bridge at Boston's Fort Point Channel New interpretive facility is being constructed in its place. Museum spaces will be expanded to approximately twice their current size and will offer a multitude of easy to understand exhibits, video presentations, living history programs, and memorabilia that tell the story of the Boston Tea Party. Two traditional tall ships will be added to the current tall ship the Brig Beaver - replicas of the Dartmouth and the Eleanor - that will then give the site the full complement of the ships that took part in the Tea Party. Onboard the historic ships, visitors will explore authentically restored ship's decks, crew's quarters, and cargo holds. The wharf areas will also provide significant additional space for exhibitions, receptions and displays. There will be a new Boston Tea Room food service area which will be open for free public access during the day and will serve group functions at night. The new Boston Tea Party site will be able to accommodate groups of up to 500 persons for cocktails, dinner and events. There will be two new enclosed show spaces that will allow us to more efficiently handle larger visitor and school groups The Robinson Half Chest will be prominently showcased at Historic Tours of America’s® new Boston Tea Party Ship & Museum scheduled to begin construction shortly. The project, designed by McManus-Peterman Architects, Cambridge, is located off the Congress Street Bridge at Boston's Fort Point Channel. When complete the history center will include three replica ships - the brig Beaver, Dartmouth and Eleanor, the three ships boarded by patriots during the Boston Tea Party - an interactive museum, a theater, two meeting house assembly rooms for visitor orientation, a tea room, a banquet facility and a themed retail store.Prior to the renovated Tea Party Museum's reopening, the chest will be secured in a climate controlled location. Click here: Boston Tea Party Museum

 

The New Center for Arts & Culture 2010: Rose Kennedy Greenway at Boston Harbor Hotel, the New 67,000-sq. ft. Center will provide facilities which will enable its central concept: using the arts and humanities to build community and common ground. 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

 

 

 

 

The Boston Museum Project 2011: The Boston Museum Project has been selected by the MTA Authority as the official developer for Parcel 12 of the new Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, a wonderful building site in 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

 

 

 

### What’s New in BostonUSA? is produced by the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau ###