ABOUT THE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology stands in Cambridge on land that was once a tidal mud flat. Developers acquired 215 acres of Cambridge riverfront muck in the 1880s, hoping to create valuable real estate in emulation of the earlier Back Bay landfill across the Charles River. They built a granite seawall and planned a riverfront park and town houses. But they went bust in the panic of 1893. The land, partly filled, lay vacant until 1910', when MIT, then located in Boston, bought 46 acres for a new campus'.
MIT's president visited George Eastman, the founder of Eastman Kodak Company, to seek a contribution toward new buildings. According to legend, Eastman asked "How much do you need?" and the president named the highest figure he dared, as a starter for negotiations, only to be amazed when Eastman wrote a check for the full amount. Architect Welles Bosworth, an MlT graduate, created a grandiose stage set of domed and columned limestone palaces. They look like Caligula's dream of an imperial capitol, but they are mere camouflage for a practical, flexible network of corridors and tall, well-lit labs and classrooms. The older photo shows the vacant fill about 1900, with factories beyond it. The new view shows Bosworth's campus as well as more recent buildings by I. M. Pei and other architects.
-Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker, "CITYSCAPES - Massachusetts Institute of Technology", Boston Globe, 20 March 1994
