Previously, I wrote about Boston’s Long Wharf in terms of its purpose and construction. Today, I want to address the buildings that have existed on Long Wharf over the years. Some have come down. Some have been replaced. Others remain pretty much as they have always been for centuries, although repurposed for modern use.
During the early nineteenth century, large granite warehouses went up along the east-west facing wharves of the Boston waterfront. By 1800, the wharf shops were selling West India products like rum, sugar, and molasses here. The 18th-century painter John Singleton Copley spent his childhood on Long Wharf, where his mother ran a tobacco shop.
Today, several brick and granite buildings that hark back to the 18th century still remain on the wharf, along with a large 20th century addition to the group. Going from west to east, they are:
Marriott Long Wharf Hotel
Atlantic Avenue at 296 State Street
Cossutta and Associates
1980 – 1982
This building has always stood out for me because the architects did such a good job of fitting it into its surroundings while making the most of a difficult site. Originally, this part of Long Wharf held a row of five-story brick buildings. The construction of Atlantic Avenue demolished four, along with a small, one-story wooden building.
The Marriott Long Wharf Hotel
The brick hotel stretches from west to east along Long Wharf’s original length, reinforcing the thrust of the wharf into the harbor. Its use of brick echoes Boston’s many, many brick buildings, thus making it seem less a new structure than the repurposing of an old one.
The hotel’s “stepped form” rises from 49 to 104 feet by relation of its scale to its neighbors. It is set back on the south and east sides to open views to the Chart House and Waterfront Park. It rests on about 500 precast, pre-stressed concrete piles, about 14 inches square and with an average height of 90 feet, bearing on bedrock. Its bolted steel frame is designed to handle earthquake loads. You can sleep there without worries.
The Gardiner Building / Chart House Restaurant
60 Long Wharf
1763, 1812
Renovation: Anderson, Notter, Feingold — 1973
The Gardiner Building / Chart House Restaurant
This is the only remaining one of the colonial brick warehouses built on Long Wharf. It originally served as John Hancock’s counting house. (This is where my confusion arose in the previous post.)
The Gardiner Building is the wharf’s oldest surviving structure and well worth a look inside. (Don’t forget to have come chowdah while you’re there.)
The building has the simplicity characteristic of the time with a slate roof over six-over-six paneled windows. The windows are framed with shutters and granite lintels and sills.
The Custom House Block
Isaiah Rogers
1845 – 1847
The Custom House Block
Following on the construction of his Commercial Wharf building, Isaiah Rogers designed the four-story Custom House Block from sturdy granite. He built it to last.
The ground floor holds large posts and lintels made of single blocks of stone. The center holds a single block of pyramidal roof that rises one story above the building to define the arched center entrance. The brick rear façade, looking totally different, holds several gabled windows.
The block was rented to the government for the use of customs inspectors, among whom worked the author Nathaniel Hawthorne. For many years the building served as the port’s immigration detention station.
Sheet piling and clay kept the cellars beneath the Custom House Block tight and dry. When flooded by an extremely high tide, the cellars drained automatically through hollow logs fitted with clapper valves.
Long Wharf Park
Sasaki, Dawson & LeMay
1979
Finally, where Long Wharf meets the sea, we have Long Wharf Park. This is basically a large plaza that offers wonderful views of the harbor, yachts moored in the marina, the Seaport, Logan Airport, and East Boston. At high tide, you can also sit on the edge and dangle your feet in the water.
Photo By Chris Wood, CC
Marked by a tall flagpole, the park includes a pavilion that provides both shade on a hot sunny day and shelter from the rain. Also, look down to find a compass rose embedded in the pavement.
The most recent addition to the park is the Middle Passage Port Marker. Installed in October of 2020, the Middle Passage Port Marker,
“describes the role Long Wharf and the Massachusetts colony played in enslaving millions of Africans, beginning in 1638 when the first documented enslaved Africans were brought here on the slave ship Desire. Then, starting in 1645, there were nearly 200 slaving voyages from Boston.”
The marker stands on the edge of Long Wharf. After that, we have only water and the Boston Harbor Islands.
Chart House Eagle
