Long Wharf, Massachusetts
| Long Wharf and Customhouse Block | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| National Register of Historic Places | |||
| National Historic Landmark | |||
 The quay seen from the water |
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| location | Boston , Massachusetts , United States | ||
| Coordinates | 42 ° 21 '37.1 " N , 71 ° 2' 55.3" W | ||
| surface | 3 Acres (1.2 ha ) | ||
| Built | 1710-1715 | ||
| NRHP number | 66000768 | ||
| Data | |||
| The NRHP added | November 13, 1966 | ||
| Declared as an NHL | November 13, 1966 | ||
The Long Wharf is an historic wharf in Boston in the state of Massachusetts of the United States . It was built at the beginning of the 18th century and once protruded up to half a mile into Boston Harbor . Today it is much shorter and mainly serves as a pier for passenger ferries and excursion boats. Since 1966 it has been listed as a National Historic Landmark on the National Register of Historic Places under the name Long Wharf and Customhouse Block .
history
The Long Wharf is located at the end of State Street east of Atlantic Avenue and thus allowed direct access from the port to the Boston city and commercial center from the start of its construction. In its peak phase, the quay offered berths for 50 ships, making it the largest of the city's 80 bank structures. At the beginning of the construction work in 1710 it was decided that a 9 m wide public footpath should run along the quay on the south side and a 1.2 m wide public footpath on the north side. In between, the warehouses and trading houses were arranged in such a way that a passage in north-south direction ran between them. With a view to a uniform appearance, the buildings were not allowed to exceed a height of 6.5 m and a roof height of 1.5 m. A 4.8 m wide north-south passage was also planned to allow smaller ships to pass through. The extreme end was reserved for the city to build fortifications . Since a fire in 1711 had destroyed most of Upper State Street, there was enough filling material available so that the first warehouses were built on the new 16.5 m wide quay in the same year and construction could be completed in 1715.
The remaining part of the quay is almost rectangular today and, with a width of 85 m, protrudes around 195 m into the harbor basin.
Historical meaning
Long Wharf was the longest wharf in colonial America until 1756 and was only surpassed by the ports of New York and Philadelphia until the end of the 18th century . It therefore formed the organizational center for the Boston sea trade, where both coastal and international trade was carried out. As a functional structure, the quay was subject to constant changes, depending on the current requirements of the Boston sea trade. Even today, the - now privately owned - Customhouse Block from 1848 indicates the city's past as a prosperous trading center. The Chart House from the 1830s is also a witness of this era.
The location of the bank structure in the immediate center of Boston quickly helped the quay to great success, as docking ships could be unloaded directly into the warehouses and loaded again from them. It is therefore no coincidence that the Boston financial center was established in the area where the quay meets the shore . Since the quay was also open to the public, the city's residents could also shop there directly, so that Long Wharf served as a marketplace long before Faneuil Hall was built. In 1830, the first locomotive imported from England to the USA landed there.
The quay also played an important military role in the history of the city; Among other things, the victors of the siege of Louisbourg in 1758 landed there and celebrated. In 1770, British troops landed at Long Wharf to enforce royal rights, which eventually ended in the Boston Massacre . Wounded from the Battle of Bunker Hill were taken to the wharf in 1775, and the British evacuated the city from there a year later. In July 1776 the ship, coming from Philadelphia, landed at Long Wharf with the proclamation of the United States' Declaration of Independence , and during the British-American War in 1812 it was the berth of the USS Constitution .
After the end of the Civil War , trade in Boston fell sharply, which also had an impact on Long Wharf: The focus shifted from international sea trade to coastal trade and fishing. Most fishmongers, however, moved there with the completion of the Fish Pier in South Boston in 1914 , and the number of mooring ships continued to decline.
The quay is also linked to American literary and art history. So worked Nathaniel Hawthorne there from 1839 to 1840 for the Boston Customs and created during this time a lot of pictures of everyday life on the quay. Some of his ghost stories also take place there. John Singleton Copley spent part of his youth on Long Wharf, where his mother ran a tobacco shop and the family lived above it. The "T-Wharf", which formerly stretched from the north side of the quay, was a popular artists' quarter at the beginning of the 20th century, but no longer exists today.
See also
literature
- Polly A. Matherly, Marie A. Frank: National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. (PDF) United States Department of the Interior , National Park Service , June 29, 1989, accessed November 21, 2016 .
- Frank H. Forbes: The Old Boston Waterfront, 1840-50 . In: William Sidney Rossiter (ed.): Days and ways in old Boston . RH Stearns & Co., Boston 1915, OCLC 475018 (English).
- Gilbert R. Payson: Long Wharf and the Old Waterfront . In: The Bostonian Society (Ed.): Proceedings of the Bostonian Society . The Bostonian Society, 1926, ISSN 0190-3586 , pp. 23-40 (English).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: Massachusetts. National Park Service , accessed August 11, 2019.
- ↑ cf. Matherly / Frank, p. 2.
- ↑ cf. Matherly / Frank, p. 5.
- ↑ cf. Matherly / Frank, p. 3.
- ↑ a b cf. Matherly / Frank, p. 8.
- ↑ a b cf. Matherly / Frank, p. 9.