Spectacle Island is the first of Boston Harbor Islands that we have visited. We traveled there by ferry via Long Wharf in downtown Boston next to the aquarium. The islands were originally a drumlin field. When glaciers continued to melt, the ocean started to fill in around them. Spectacle is two islands with a sand bar inbetween. This shape resembled a pair of glasses, giving the island it's name.
Many of the Boston Harbor Islands have sordid histories but Spectacle has a long list of various unsavory activities that occured there. It was a quarantine station for the sick of Boston, hosted a horse rendering factory (which may be where the 49 Ocean horse-hair plaster comes from...), a summer resort destination for gambling and women, a grease reclamation plant and the site of a washed up murdered mistress.
The North Drumlin of the island is the highest point of the Boston Harbor Islands, including Boston Light. The reason for its height is the years of environmental neglect and its use as a landfill and for excavated material from the Big Dig. Between the two sets of dumping the island grew 145' in height now standing at 157' high. Recently, after the landfill was capped, topsoil was added and reclamation plants planted.
It is now where many of the Harbor Island events are located.
Books and the website we've been gaining knowledge from include:
www.bostonharborislands.org
Discovering the Boston Harbor Islands: A Guide to the City's Hidden Shores by Christopher Klein
The Boston Harbor Islands: A History of an Urban Wilderness by David Kales
The Islands of Boston Harbor by Edward Rowe Snow
Many of the Boston Harbor Islands have sordid histories but Spectacle has a long list of various unsavory activities that occured there. It was a quarantine station for the sick of Boston, hosted a horse rendering factory (which may be where the 49 Ocean horse-hair plaster comes from...), a summer resort destination for gambling and women, a grease reclamation plant and the site of a washed up murdered mistress.
The North Drumlin of the island is the highest point of the Boston Harbor Islands, including Boston Light. The reason for its height is the years of environmental neglect and its use as a landfill and for excavated material from the Big Dig. Between the two sets of dumping the island grew 145' in height now standing at 157' high. Recently, after the landfill was capped, topsoil was added and reclamation plants planted.
It is now where many of the Harbor Island events are located.
Books and the website we've been gaining knowledge from include:
www.bostonharborislands.org
Discovering the Boston Harbor Islands: A Guide to the City's Hidden Shores by Christopher Klein
The Boston Harbor Islands: A History of an Urban Wilderness by David Kales
The Islands of Boston Harbor by Edward Rowe Snow
the four granite piers to the right of this photo is what are left from the rendering factory. the beach is almost completely artificial.
deer island in the background on the left- the waste treatment facility. and a few islands including long island on the right.
view into the inner harbor
there were (wee) cannons fired between the two ships as we watched them come out and turn around heading back into the inner harbor
the ferry landing and planted grasses along the shore
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