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Introduction and Topography

Much of the Bow Street / Arrow Street neighborhood's history is characterized by the insertion, alteration, and removal of human-designed elements over the past four centuries. On a layer separate from these changes is the interaction with elements of nature, both those that predated European settlement in the Harvard Square area, and the current urban "settlers" of trees, plants, and animals that attempt to eke out an existence within a dense setting. The current status of nature and natural processes on the site and its environs is but one snapshot in a long relationship, but as spring buds are beginning to form, they offer insight into the site's visual and experiential qualities. Examples of this relationship with elements of nature can be shown with respect to the land, the interaction of plants with environmental factors, the wind and air quality, and the opportunities for life on the site.

Returning with this in mind to the original historical maps of Cambridge, the role of topography and water flow becomes clearer.

Source: Emmet, 1978 (illustration of 1600 Map)

This view of Cambridge circa 1600 reveals that Harvard Square was far enough upstream to be left unaffected by the more dramatic land-filling operations of successive centuries, but it has changed its interaction with the river. The many small tributaries and streams that fed the Charles river included one along present-day Elliot street at the western end of the Harvard Square region. The smaller creeks may have been more ephemeral or simply varied course through the decades, because by 1670 there is now a clear course of a stream running from a spring under the present-day Holyoke center, down across Bow Street (then labeled "Back Lane"), and then through marshes into the Charles. As described in the historical journey through the site, the point where the stream (now buried) crossed Bow Street is now the nebulous paved area where Bow and Mount Auburn Streets intersect at a steep angle. From the perspective of the stream, what becomes evident is that human settlement began existing symbiotically with the stream, allowing it to run along and through lots and streets. The lots clearly stop where the marshiness begins, and the road paths seem to be motivated by topography rather than external geometry. The relationship continues into the animal realm; the path now known as Arrow Street is not named for its geopolitical destination but rather that it leads "to the Oyster Bank" on the neck of land in Cambridgeport.

Source: Emmet, 1978 (illustration of 1600 Map)                                      Source: Chalat, 1990 (Illustration of Harvard Square vicinity c. 1670)

As the marshes toward the river were filled and Mount Auburn Street and Massachusetts Avenue invaded, these types of relationships to nature lost relevance and were thus no longer maintained. The topographical contour of land remained, however, giving Bow Street its characteristic steep slope. This portion of sloping land mitigates the change between the flat riverbed area and the plateau-like region of Harvard Square proper. Even with attempts to create two level parking surfaces in the vacant lot between Arrow and Mount Auburn, the land has resisted flatness. Water erosion and movement of people and their vehicles have factored into the irregularities of this lot; it is a laboratory of what several decades of vacancy and lack of upkeep can do to land.

Mosses have returned to the bricks and small plants in the midst of the gravel. It seems likely that this would be a haven for small urban animals like rats and mice, particularly at night, but I saw no conclusive evidence. The surrounding nooks and crannies with trash dumpsters squeezed in the shadows between buildings would likewise be amicable for rodent pests. The key is that there are no oyster banks to support sea-related life in the vicinity; all plants and animals appear more generic and urban rather than specifically marine. The street surfaces here are quite clean, however, evidence of the human animal at work within the neighborhood. The sheer absence of abundant grasses and weeds overtaking the vacant places may be an artifact of early spring, but is inextricably linked to the presence of cars on the site using it for parking. As they deprive the land of sun and introduce chemical pollutants, the health of the site declines further. The physical topography may not offer a preponderance of clues, but the interaction of plants fills in many gaps with information about ongoing processes of earth, water, and air.

Plants and Light

In a fascinating exaggeration of phototropism, many trees in the neighborhood make a valiant effort to stretch toward the places where slivers of light manage to slip between buildings across the street or where southern light is able to come through an intersection. The trees' orientation demonstrate the ways in which elements of nature adapt to their surroundings and are able to survive healthily in an urban situation due to slight location changes. Each of these trees were already budding and showed signs of twig growth.

In comparison, trees that are close to buildings, receiving only indirect light via a northern exposure, become quite scrawny. Near the Putnam Square apartments, this is particularly evident because trees were placed in a row just north of the building. The one tree that can get enough sunshine has a thick trunk at least eight inches in diameter, while those nearby that have identical soil and water but less favorable light are spindly and barely five inches in diameter.

Where there's light, the trees lean; where there isn't, the trees are lean.

Plants and Water

The supreme irony is that in a European settlement whose birth and initial growth were so intrinsically linked with the river nearby, the river is no longer visible nor has major visible effects on the site. It is merely a direction towards which water flows. In specific localized situations, however, the buildings have a direct symbiotic relationship with the plants they adjoin. Alongside the creperie is a downspout that directs rainwater directly into the planter with these bushes along the tiny triangular park. Similar effects would be possible throughout the site but are rarely planned. Instead, the runoff from buildings supports renegade plant development along the brick walls, foundations, and sidewalks.

The clusters of visible spring sprouts hint at the larger trend: new tiny riverbeds and rivulets on the site are no longer above ground to be seen on maps, but are instead within and underneath the pavement.

Plants and Pavement

As Anne Whiston Spirn discusses in The Granite Garden, street trees have a tenuous relationship with their location and particularly their soil. The quality of soil and the type of foundation into which the pavement is set either promotes or restricts root and tree development. The large, robust tree trunk at left grows out of one of the rare places left in the Boston area where bricks are set in sand (enlarged below) in the nineteenth-century tradition (Spirn, p. 177). The sand allows for favorable root growth with excellent air and water flow underneath the surface.

In contrast, a few meters west on Mount Auburn Street are newer, concrete sidewalks. As in places nearby where bricks are set in concrete, the trees are of far smaller trunk diameter and have poor branch growth. In this example, the roots and other natural processes have caused the grate to break but the tree trunk has not even grown to fill its full space.

Revisiting for a moment the aforementioned trees near the apartments, their roots have not remained confined to the loose mulch squares. The inset stone pavers have become so manipulated that the walking surface is quite uneven; each footstep feels the results of roots pushing and pulling the stones out of place. Nature does not willingly remain confined, even with pavement and buildings all around.

Plants and Confinement

Besides the confinement of concrete pavement, plant life is often confined between buildings, porches, trellises, driveways, etc.. The trellis plants continue to struggle, attempting to crawl over to share the light of the vacant lot. Whether through water difficulties or pollutants, they do not seem to be exhibiting strong growth. Meanwhile, trees and other plants that grew up in a confined situation may reach a kind of symbiosis with human design. As shown, the tree has grown quite strongly over time into and around the wooden porch members. The stability of the tree and the porch have become inextricably linked through several years' life together.

A very different kind of confinement with respect to plants is the life that potted plants and trees pursue on the balconies and rooftops along the upper buildings of Bow Street. Since these apartment buildings are so much larger in scale, they are quite removed from the pedestrian-level foliage that benefits two- to three-story buildings. Such trees show the importance natural green foliage has for the apartment owners.

These exterior potted plants are but harbingers of the many plants that survive inside the stores and residences of the neighborhoods. The oblique orientation of many buildings and the sliver-like gaps between them allow light to stream inside through alcoves and bay windows. Although confined to an indoor pot, the plant and the room's inhabitants are quite comfortable.

Slivers of Wind

In the midst of the neighborhood's narrow streets there exists great potential for increased wind effects. Especially when large trucks or buses close the gap of space for pedestrians, one becomes acutely sensitive to highly localized effects of air flow. In experience, however, the east-west orientation of Arrow Street and the curve of Bow Street allow the buildings to actually shield pedestrians from the most severe north winds in winter or southerly ones coming from the vicinity of the river. Most times I have visited the site the wind has not been objectionable in the midst of the neighborhood, but the sudden shift to the wide open space of the vacant lot allows wind to flow all the way from north of Massachusetts Avenue onto the Mount Auburn Street corridor.

Another large reason for the windiness along Mount Auburn Street is actually just beyond the site: The imposing fourteen-story Putnam Square Apartments command a view of the river area, but cause brisk swirling winds to affect pedestrians. Unintended experimental evidence: the bag and napkins in which I carried the take-home portion of my lunch blew away as I walked towards the bus stop. The combination of winds accelerated alongside the apartments and the swift traffic took the unfortunate litter meandering quickly throughout the intersection. In a more anecdotal investigation, an frail elderly woman nearby mentioned that it is always quite windy around the apartments. In combination with the irregular, unsteady pavers, the lack of foresight with respect to interactions with natural processes make the area quite unfriendly toward human habitation.

Since the slivers of space between buildings inside the neighborhood are mostly short and are interrupted by other buildings, they prevent wind tunnel effects that occur with larger, orthogonally aligned buildings. Just as in other cities (e.g., Dayton and Stuttgart; Spirn pp.79-85) coping with sloping and/or vacant land, newer and future developments in this Cambridge neighborhood have a wide scope of effects on air motion.

In terms of air quality, the relative frequency of trees and current absence of gas stations or industrial uses cause the smell of restaurants to linger longer than that of smoke or gasoline within the neighborhood proper. Due to the relatively close proximity to the busier traffic of Massachusetts Avenue, however, traffic smells are able to waft in from the street's wide incision through the buildings of Cambridge. This is but a narrow view of a more macroscopic issue; while trees help to give a local variance in air quality, Boston as a whole is plagued by smog and other aerated byproducts of industry and transportation. From this vantage point it is most visible at night, when air and light pollution obfuscate the view of all but the brightest stars. Small neighborhoods can't make giant variations from these larger urban trends; all they can hope to be is small slivers of life that act as an oasis to its inhabitants.

Slivers of Life

In the midst of such a harsh urban environment, there are places for survival. While the introduction to the site characterized the neighborhood by its irregular slivers of space between buildings, this investigation clarifies that these slivers of space are opportunities for life. The key is light: if the spaces are dark and dingy throughout even the sunniest days, they may become havens for rats and other pests, while accumulating garbage and dead leaves. If, by contrast, the spaces are able to accommodate sunlight, they tend to be amicable toward plant development in particular.

A similar situation occurs with respect to the two "pocket" parks included within my site. The landscaped area in the middle of Putnam Square is in the midst of tall, four- to fourteen-story commercial buildings. Being frequently in shadow and surrounded on all sides by active traffic, it only supports a few bushes. As Spirn describes with respect to another Cambridge traffic island park (Spirn, p.58-59), this is an unhealthy environment for plants in general and does not constitute anything resembling a real park.

In contrast, the even smaller postage stamp of land, which fills the triangle between Arrow Street and Massachusetts Avenue, is supporting many bushes and even three flowering trees. This demonstrates how even being shielded by a smaller street and low-rise buildings can present a more hospitable home for life in an urban context.

This is one of the few spots left in Harvard Square where the sloped earth of the former river embankment is exposed, and even here it is held tightly by carefully groomed shrubs. The reason for the plants' success, however, is not primarily due to topography or water flow that would have supported plant life in the immediate vicinity centuries ago. Rather, the human-induced removal of buildings along Arrow Street has opened up a vast southern exposure for the sliver of park. The park began as a leftover piece of land in the midst of expanding road development, and was codified into a city park to serve as a fragment of nature for a neighborhood that has since been partially erased. While the parking lot's conditions don't support much natural growth, the absence of any physical buildings support the trees and bushes that that grow to the point they require humans to prune them.

There is a temptation when visiting a site, particularly one as urban as this neighborhood, to evaluate the buildings and streets separately from its inhabitants and separately as well from the trees, bushes, insects, and other natural elements. This investigation clarifies, however, that (a) natural processes have a large continuing impact on buildings and the people who use them, and (b) the presence and maintenance of bushes and trees in an urban setting is no less artificial than the buildings around them. The line of demarcation between natural and artificial is quite blurred; token trees in front of an apartment tower seem quite stifled and out of place, while human-made brick pavement is an active participant in the natural filtration of water through the land. Each of these urban situations therefore serve as examples of how natural and human processes continue intertwining.

Sources:

Chalat, Josef Yul: Connections to the City: A Spatial Structure for New Perceptions of Harvard Square. (c) 1990, MIT M.Arch. Thesis.

Emmet, Alan: Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Changing of a Landscape. (c) 1978 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Spirn, Anne Whiston: The Granite Garden / Urban Nature and Human Design. (c) 1984, Basic Books.

All images (c) 2001-2002 David M. Foxe, unless otherwise notated. All Rights Reserved.