* B O S T O N
* S K Y L I N E *
Back Bay and Charles River
The Boston skyline looms beyond the Back Bay residential district in this view taken from the Charles River. In the foreground lies the yacht basin and Community Boating docks, where Bostonians can learn to sail on the river for a very modest price. Behind the water is the long park known as the Esplanade, home to joggers and sunbathers during the warm half of the year. The park shows the touch of autumn in the late-October foliage of russet oak and golden maple.
The Back Bay was one of Boston's first residential districts to be built on fill; the old Fort Hill was shoveled into horse wagons and brought, load by load, over to fill the Charles River marshes. By the 1870s, a whole new district of town had opened up; one of the most beautiful in America, absolutely flat, with streets laid out in a grid, and gracious Victorian mansard architecture in the manner of Napoleon III's Paris. Handsome parks, distinguished churches, and trendy shops make Back Bay a favorite haunt of Beantown residents and tourists alike. The skyscrapers are the old John Hancock Building (with antenna), the new Hancock Tower (blue thermopane) in Copley Square, and the Prudential Center, on Boylston Street at Massachusetts Avenue.
Photo copyright © 1990 by Larry Neilson