Below is a panoramic view of Squantum seen earlier on this bright, blue sky Saturday, where the east wind whipped up whitecaps across the blue sea which mirrored those clear skies:
(Click to enlarge)
This view of this incredible place on a gorgeous late summer day shows off what modern Boston Harbor is all about….a scene of great contrasts, as some of the places that have historically been the harbor’s dirtiest and nastiest now look so beautiful! I feel fortunate to be a beneficiary of the progress this city has made at cleaning up the harbor.
Consider the following: The large pipe of the east shaft of Boston’s 1880s-vintage sewer system is in the foreground- a system that would dump raw sewage daily into the outgoing tide as late as the early 1980’s. But today, this long-shut system sits as a relic in front of glistening, clean water surrounding our cityscape in the background. To the left is Thompson Island, and further behind that lies the high drumlins of Spectacle Island. The latter, once the home of a toxic dump and rendering factory, is now home to the tree-lined trails of a National Park. Barely visible behind Spectacle are the blades of Deer Island’s wind turbines, generating renewable energy for a water treatment plant that keeps the harbor’s waters clean.
