Photographs and text help chronicle the evolution and development of the streets of Boston.

Nearly everywhere you look in Boston, you'll discover fascinating old-meets-new juxtapositions--some of the greatest landmarks of American history sit side-by-side with icons of modern American life. Discover America's oldest major city, its legendary locations, colorful neighborhoods, and thriving history in this newly updated second edition. Specially commissioned contemporary photographs, including some previously unpublished images, are paired with archival images of the same locations for a unique tour of Boston over the centuries. Examine amazing then-and-now photographs of the Old North Church, where two lanterns were seen blazing from the steeple on April 18, 1775, essentially signaling the start of the American Revolution. Planning a tea party? There's no better place to make arrangements than at the Old South Meeting House--this stately old building gained notoriety as the planning venue for the Boston Tea Party of 1773. Fenway Park--home of the Red Sox--is a historic monument unto itself. See America's oldest operating baseball stadium back in its heyday, and how Boston's beloved anachronism looks today having survived many attempts to build a new Fenway Park. Tour the Paul Revere house, still standing at 19 North Square, and check out the Bunker Hill monument and U.S.S. Constitution, "Old Ironsides," berthed in Boston Harbor.

Boston's South End, built on mostly man-made land, had become the city's premier neighborhood by the 1850s and featured many parks embellished with cast-iron fountains and distinctive fences. Over the next century, the South End became a thriving melting pot of ethnicities, races, and religions. Boston's South End shows how this area's brick row houses, lush green parks, upscale restaurants, and Boston Center for the Arts have made the South End both an attractive destination and a popular residential area.

South Boston, once a part of Dorchester, was annexed to the city of Boston in 1804. Previously known as a tight-knit community of Polish, Lithuanian, and Irish Americans, South Boston has seen tremendous growth and unprecedented change in the last decade.

Why and how Boston was transformed by landmaking. Fully one-sixth of Boston is built on made land. Although other waterfront cities also have substantial areas that are built on fill, Boston probably has more than any city in North America. In Gaining Ground historian Nancy Seasholes has given us the first complete account of when, why, and how this land was created.The story of landmaking in Boston is presented geographically; each chapter traces landmaking in a different part of the city from its first permanent settlement to the present. Seasholes introduces findings from recent archaeological investigations in Boston, and relates landmaking to the major historical developments that shaped it. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, landmaking in Boston was spurred by the rapid growth that resulted from the burgeoning China trade. The influx of Irish immigrants in the mid-nineteenth century prompted several large projects to create residential land—not for the Irish, but to keep the taxpaying Yankees from fleeing to the suburbs. Many landmaking projects were undertaken to cover tidal flats that had been polluted by raw sewage discharged directly onto them, removing the "pestilential exhalations" thought to cause illness. Land was also added for port developments, public parks, and transportation facilities, including the largest landmaking project of all, the airport. A separate chapter discusses the technology of landmaking in Boston, explaining the basic method used to make land and the changes in its various components over time. The book is copiously illustrated with maps that show the original shoreline in relation to today's streets, details from historical maps that trace the progress of landmaking, and historical drawings and photographs.

With a foreword by Robert Campbell.