The Ultimate Spectacle
What did it take to convert a decaying pile of trash into what Boston’s mayor calls the harbor’s newest jewel?

By George Hazelrigg, ASLA

Today, Spectacle Island is the new gateway for the 34 islands constituting the Boston Harbor Islands National Park Area. Since its June 2006 opening, the park has been a big hit with the public: After only a month, Spectacle Island attracted more visitors in a weekend than the hitherto most visited island in the harbor, Georges Island. The summit of the island’s north drumlin—the highest point in Boston Harbor—offers a spectacular 360-degree panorama that includes Boston’s skyline and lends itself to kite flying. Three kite weekends were already scheduled for the park’s inaugural season. Informal jazz sessions are held on Sundays at the visitor center. Visitors enjoy hiking the trails amid abundant plantings and wildlife. Children now routinely swim in the beach area.

But 20 years ago, Spectacle Island lay abandoned, an open toxic dump known for its smoldering fires and contaminants leaching into the waters of one of America’s dirtiest harbors. After a long history as a quarantine station, summer resorts with gambling and prostitution, and a plant that rendered horses into glue, Spectacle Island served for 47 years as a Boston city dump. It closed in 1959.

Then, in the late 1980s, Massachusetts initiated a $4.5 billion Harbor Cleanup, including construction of a modern sewage treatment plant on nearby Deer Island. At the same time, planning was under way for Boston’s Central Artery Tunnel (CA/T, the “Big Dig”) project, which would need to excavate 16 million cubic yards of dirt, clay, gravel, and debris. The CA/T needed to identify sites where it could be deposited economically. Agreements with city and state agencies led to the deposit of more than 3.5 million cubic yards of Big Dig material on Spectacle Island from 1993 through 1997, requiring more than 4,400 barge trips. In return for a site to deposit its material, the CA/T promised to cap the landfill and build trails, a marina, and a visitors center.

The task was daunting. The main trash dump area, in a “saddle” between the island’s two glacially formed drumlins, formed a large 60- to 65-foot vertical cliff of exposed refuse on the island’s east side. To accommodate the CA/T material, a containment dike made of compacted glacial till and large boulders had to be constructed far enough out to achieve a 3:1 slope. To build 3,100 feet of seawall along the shoreline for erosion protection, 600,000 tons of stone were brought in.

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