Cultural Landscape Report for Charlestown Navy Yard, Boston

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CULTURAL LANDSCAPE REPORT FOR CHARLESTOWN NAVY YARD Independence, the shoreline within the future yard site contained two landing points for British troops on 17 June 1775 during the Battle of Bunker Hill. Once the colony achieved independence, the decimated center of Charlestown was rebuilt farther to the west than the original site. In 1800 the U.S. Navy began to acquire pasture and marshland to the east. Construction of the first buildings in the yard was largely dictated by the natural topography of the land and tidal shoreline. Early development of the yard was concentrated on the western portion of the parcel, at the foot of Breed’s Hill and edge of the marsh, which served as a timber basin. The Commandant’s House (Quarters G), Marine Barracks (Building I), and Navy Store (Building 5) were among the earliest structures. Haphazard development occurred in the central and eastern portions of the yard where areas were designated for use by the U.S. Army and U.S. Treasury Department. Beginning in 1816, the commandant of the yard and site engineers began to address landscape improvements and overall site organization. Street trees, fruit trees, a gun and cannon park, and parade ground created a campus-like setting in the western portion of the upper yard in front of the Commandant’s House (Quarters G). A legislative requirement for a master plan in 1828 resulted in a classical grid pattern imposed on the yard’s irregular developments. By mid-century, new structures, improved roads, and the associated filling, dredging, and regrading, adhered to the grid, creating a more unified appearance to the yard, which was even more pronounced with the construction of a granite block boundary wall in 1824. At the close of the Civil War, the yard had tripled in size but lacked a logical organization. Sail making lofts operated next to steam-power plants, wood storage sheds stood next to iron plating factories. Cannon, shot, and anchor parks contained obsolete materials that had been destined for ships. In the 1880s, the yard operations shifted from the construction and repair of ships to the manufacturing of supplies, including rope, sail, chain, and anchors. During this period, many buildings associated with ship construction fell into disrepair or were dismantled, including partially-built vessels. Following nearly thirty years of minimal activity, yard operations gained momentum during and after the Spanish- American War in 1898 and further intensified when American troops entered World War I in 1917. Shipways for steel vessels replaced wooden shiphouses; gas and oil tanks replaced coal storage facilities; and electric lights replaced gas. Construction of a second, larger dry dock, a marine railway, and extension of the bulkhead line into the harbor allowed the yard to repair and outfit both large and small ships. Seventeen trade shops supplied some 450 vessels between 1917 and 1918, with an average of fifty ships a day arriving and departing from the yard. Once again, yard activities diminished after World War I, but certain changes were vital to keep abreast of major innovations. Adapting from wind to steam to oil-powered vessels and from wood to iron to steel construction required constant changes to the yard's industrial landscape. During the Great Depression, federal relief programs established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt transformed the yard into a modern shipbuilding facility. After sixty years of supply manufacturing, Charlestown built its first modern warship, a destroyer, in 1931, with thirteen additional destroyers built over the next six years. While some portions of the yard changed dramatically, the upper, western end of the yard retained a residential character with brick buildings, tree-lined streets, ornamental shrubs, and a central flagpole and bandstand area. During the late 1930s, some 1,400 workers employed through the Works Progress Administration completed many projects in the yard, including the replacement of the porches and addition of a kitchen wing on the Commandant’s House (Quarters G), new porches and stair towers on the Marine Barracks (Building I), improvements to tennis courts, paving of streets, pier improvements, and interior reconstruction of the Navy Store (Building 5). Construction more than doubled in the 1940s with the outbreak of World War II. Known as the “destroyer yard,” the yard also produced escort vessels (commonly known as destroyer escorts), landing ships, barracks ships, submarines, and many smaller vessels. An estimated 6,000 vessels were built, repaired, overhauled, converted, or page 4
INTRODUCTION outfitted between 1939 and 1945. A work force of 50,000, including some 7,700 women and 2,300 African Americans, worked around the clock in three eight-hour shifts. Before and during World War II, new buildings filled a large portion of the remaining open ceremonial and recreational space in the yard, both in the residential area and the former timber basin area east of Dry Dock 2. Most notable was the dominating World War II Temporary Storage Building (Building 198), erected between the Marine Barracks (Building I) and the Dry Dock Engine House (Building 22). After the war, production slowed and the yard shifted its facilities to sonar and radar technology. In the 1960s, the yard also outfitted vessels with missiles, antisubmarine warfare devices, and conducted fleet rehabilitation and modernization overhauls to extend the usefulness of the Navy’s aging and dwindling fleet. By the early 1970s, work was greatly diminished and closure was imminent. The Marine Railway and Ropewalk (Building 58) were closed in 1971 and the entire yard was officially closed on 1 July 1974. When closed, the yard was divided into two parcels, with approximately 100 acres transferred to the Boston Redevelopment Authority and the rest to the National Park Service. Additional parcels not owned by the Navy, including the Hoosac Stores, were subsequently transferred to or acquired by the NPS, increasing the NPS portion of the yard to some thirty acres. 1 Under National Park Service management, numerous features were altered, removed, or added to improve circulation and facilitate park operations. The Marine Corps Administration Building (Building 136), World War II Temporary Storage Building (Building 198), Transportation Garage (Building 204), and the Marine Railway were removed. In the early 1980s, Gate 4 and Fifth Street were expanded to accommodate vehicle traffic. The associated construction of the Chelsea-Water Street Connector required the relocation of the boundary wall, which resulted in a loss of open space along the front and side lawns of the Commandant’s House (Quarters G). Numerous buildings were rehabilitated for new uses, including the Dry Dock Engine House (Building 22) as the USS Constitution Museum and the Pitch House (Building 10) as a restaurant. Despite the many changes, clusters of notable nineteenth and twentieth-century buildings remain, as well as industrial structures including piers, dry docks, light towers, grit hoppers, and portal cranes. The site is also home to USS Constitution and USS Cassin Young. The park’s General Management Plan for the Charlestown Navy Yard (revised 1987) states that all surface areas and structures within the National Historical Park will be included in a “historic zone.” SCOPE OF WORK AND METHODOLOGY This report was completed in 2005. Research was conducted at a cursory level, relying on many of the existing studies completed at the yard. The CLR consists of four major sections: Site History; Existing Conditions; Analysis of Significance and Integrity with a summary of landscape characteristics and features; and Treatment with guidelines and recommendations. The Site History section is divided into chapters based on national trends or major changes in the yard, either due to changes in technology, funding initiatives, or wartime needs. The Existing Conditions section provides a description of extant landscape characteristics and features. The Analysis of Significance and Integrity section reviews the current site documentation with respect to the National Register of Historic Places, examines the integrity of landscape characteristics, and lists contributing characteristics and features, including natural features, spatial organization, circulation, structures, vegetation, and small-scale features. The Treatment section describes four treatment alternatives, preservation, rehabilitation, restoration, and reconstruction, and the justification for the selected treatment, rehabilitation. Guiding principles and specific recommendations are paired 1 The 1973 yard plan (399-155) indicates the following: hard land – 83.9 acres, water – 46.07 acres, total 129.97 acres, plus Marine Corps land – 1.34 acres, for a total of 131.31 acres. Steve Carlson, correspondence, 18 July 2002. page 5
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5. REVIVAL OF THE YARD AND WORLD WA
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SITE HISTORY 5. 1898-1934 The railr
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Figure 5.4: Brick paving of First A
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Figure 5.8: Dry Dock Engine House (
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Figure 5.12: In 1918, surface impro
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Figure 5.13: Dry Dock 2 under const
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Figure 5.17: North and east sides o
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SITE HISTORY 5. 1898-1934 Figure 5.
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Figure 5.23: The Commandant’s Hou
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Figure 5.27: Marine Barracks (Quart
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Figure 5.30: Digitally enhanced pla
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WATERFRONT SITE HISTORY 5. 1898-193
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SITE HISTORY 5. 1898-1934 In 1929,
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Figure 5.37: The former Chapel (Bui
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Figure 5.42: The Stable (Building 2
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Figure 5.47: The south facade of th
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SITE HISTORY 5. 1898-1934 Dock 2. T
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6. WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION AN
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SITE HISTORY 6. 1934-1945 side entr
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Figure 6.1: WPA repairs and improve
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Figure 6.5: A locomotive crane in 1
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Figure 6.9: The Commandant’s Hous
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Figure 6.13: WPA crews improving th
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Figure 6.16: Looking west down Henl
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SITE HISTORY 6. 1934-1945 page 119
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OLMSTED CENTER FOR LANDSCAPE PRESER
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Cultural Landscape Report for Charlestown Navy Yard, Boston

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