The Central Artery Project, known unofficially as the "Big Dig," was an enormous urban planning project that re-routed Interstate 93, the highway that runs through the downtown Boston, into a 3.5 mile tunnel. Intended to reduce congestion on the Central Artery and to reunite downtown with the waterfront, the project has been extremely controversial for its financial, political, engineering and urban planning failures. We're looking at the birth and near death of the Central Artery: the 50-year life span of an urban organism. In the older photo, the young Artery is munching its way through downtown Boston like a hungry lizard. Its out-flung ramps look like pushing feet. And with its sinuous shape, the Artery really was a sort of invading reptile. It was constructed in stages during the 1950s, an era when many cities were deciding that they must accommodate the automobile or die - no matter what the cost. Some 50 acres of downtown Boston were demolished in its path, an area the size of Boston Common. Here we see an Artery that is on its last legs. That is literally true, because the steel columns that now hold it up are crutches. They rest on temporary construction while the work of the Big Dig goes on beneath the surface. Note the big concrete shoes at the base of the columns. So skilled is the engineering that the Artery continues to function unimpaired, as if the largest civil engineering project in American history were not going on directly beneath it. At another point along the Big Dig route, even a corner of South Station is similarly jacked up on temporary props. We see a much changed Boston to the left of the Artery. Gone is the dense mass of low buildings, dark and crowded but human in scale. -Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker, "CITYSCAPES - The Central Artery", Boston Globe, 2001
