Spectacle Island is a 114-acre

island An island or isle is a piece of subcontinental land completely surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island in a river or a lake island may be ...

Boston Harbor Boston Harbor is a natural harbor and estuary of Massachusetts Bay, and is located adjacent to the city of Boston, Massachusetts. It is home to the Port of Boston, a major shipping facility in the northeastern United States. History Sinc ...

, offshore of downtown

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the capital city, state capital and List of municipalities in Massachusetts, most populous city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financ ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

. It is part of the city of Boston. The island has a varied history, and today is a public park with a marina, visitor center, cafe, lifeguarded swimming beach, and five miles of walking trails, forming part of the

Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area The Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area is a national recreation area situated among the islands of Boston Harbor of Boston, Massachusetts. The area is made up of a collection of islands, together with a former island and a peninsula ...

. It is served all year by ferries from Boston, and on weekends and summer weekdays by a shuttle boat to and from nearby islands.

Topography

The island was initially composed of two small

drumlin A drumlin, from the Irish word ''droimnín'' ("littlest ridge"), first recorded in 1833, in the classical sense is an elongated hill in the shape of an inverted spoon or half-buried egg formed by glacial ice acting on underlying unconsolidate ...

s connected by a spit, with an approximate size of . The name is believed to derive from its then-resemblance to a pair of

spectacles Glasses, also known as eyeglasses or spectacles, are vision eyewear, with lenses (clear or tinted) mounted in a frame that holds them in front of a person's eyes, typically utilizing a bridge over the nose and hinged arms (known as temples or ...

. However, dumping of trash and dirt, together with subsequent landscaping, have resulted in a significantly larger island with a permanent size of , plus an

intertidal zone The intertidal zone, also known as the foreshore, is the area above water level at low tide and underwater at high tide (in other words, the area within the tidal range). This area can include several types of habitats with various species ...

of a further . The island is now composed of two artificial earth mounds, terraced with retaining walls, roads and newly planted vegetation. With a height above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardise ...

of , Spectacle Island is now one of the highest points on Boston Harbor. The island's inner harbor acreage is 114, with 85.5 upland acres and 28.4 intertidal acres.

History

Starting in the early 19th century, the island was used exclusively for its relative remoteness from Boston. A horse rendering plant was built on Spectacle Island in 1857, followed by a city trash

incinerator Incineration is a waste treatment process that involves the combustion of substances contained in waste materials. Industrial plants for waste incineration are commonly referred to as waste-to-energy facilities. Incineration and other high ...

that remained active until 1935. When the incinerator closed, trash was simply dumped on the island for the next thirty years. A bulldozer was supposedly swallowed up by the trash sometime during the 1950s. The island remained a smelly, leaking dump until the 1990s. Two sets of

range light Leading lights (also known as range lights in the United States) are a pair of light beacons used in navigation to indicate a safe passage for vessels entering a shallow or dangerous channel; they may also be used for position fixing. At night ...

s were erected on the island by the

United States Lighthouse Service The United States Lighthouse Service, also known as the Bureau of Lighthouses, was the agency of the United States Government and the general lighthouse authority for the United States from the time of its creation in 1910 as the successor of th ...

. The

Spectacle Island Range Lights The Spectacle Island Range Lights were a pair of range lights Leading lights (also known as range lights in the United States) are a pair of light beacons used in navigation to indicate a safe passage for vessels entering a shallow or dangero ...

were established in 1897 to mark the last leg of the channel into Boston itself, past Governor's Island; they were not long-lived and were discontinued in 1913. The

Broad Sound Channel Inner Range Lights The Broad Sound Channel Inner Range Lights were a pair of lighthouses in Boston Harbor. They were removed around 1950 when the channel they helped to mark was superseded by a parallel channel to the north. History The range marked by these lights ...

were first lit in 1903 and discontinued around 1950; these indicated the middle leg of the trip. No trace of any of these lights remains. When the Central Artery/Third Harbor Tunnel Project, or the Big Dig, began work in Boston in 1992, some of the project's excavated dirt and clay was used to resurface the island. The island was covered and built up by dirt, capped with two feet of clay, and covered with two to five feet of topsoil. Thousands of trees were planted, and paths, buildings, and a dock were built. Spectacle Island opened to the public in June 2006 for use as a recreational area with hiking trails, a beach, a visitors' center with cafe, and a marina with 38 boat slips for visitors.Sherman, Annie
"The Other Islands: The Harbor Islands make for an easy day trip for sunbathers, history buffs—and especially the traffic-weary"
, Boston magazine, May 2007 issue.

Transportation

Spectacle Island is accessible to the public either through a ferry from Long Wharf or to private watercraft at the island's marina. Ferries run from and to Boston as well as from and to Georges Island. The marina was closed for almost two years in the late 2010s due to repairs required as the result of a storm in the winter of 2015. As of July 2017, the marina is open and public moorings are available.

Popular culture

* Spectacle Island is featured in the video game '' Fallout 4''. * The island plays an important role in the novel '' Zodiac: An Eco-Thriller'', by author Neal Stephenson. *Spectacle Island is mentioned in the book ''

The Speckled Monster ''The Speckled Monster: A Historical Tale of Battling Smallpox'' is a book written by Jennifer Lee Carrell. In 2015 Senator Rand Paul praised the book during the Republican presidential debate. Reception Publishers Weekly called the book "enga ...

'' by

Jennifer Lee Carrell Jennifer Lee Carrell is an American author of three novels and numerous articles for ''Smithsonian Magazine'' and '' Arizona Daily Star''. Background Born in Washington, D.C., Carrell spent a brief stint of her childhood in Long Beach, CA before ...

. It is described as a quarantine island used especially during the smallpox epidemic as a place for ships carrying disease to unload ill passengers.

Images

File:Spectacle Island 20190831 175958.jpg, Shoreline trail with Boston skyline File:Spectacle Island 20190831 193006.jpg, Boston skyline from Spectacle Island File:Spectacle Island P1110229.jpg, Visitors on the beach File:Spectacle Island ferry P1110240.jpg, Ferry arriving File:Spectacle Island 20190831 191438.jpg, Visitors on the ferry pier at sunset File:Spectacle Island cormorants P1110227.jpg, Cormorants on abandoned pier pilings

Notes

My grandfather was superintendent on Spectacle from approx 1923 until the landfill closed the 1950'. The landfill was always composting and there were occasional fires when things got too hot. A tractor did indeed fall through the surface. Operations were stopped immediately and the landfill eventually closed. It was a wonderful place for a child to visit his grandfather and wonder around the island.

External links

National Park ServiceBoston Harbor Islands page on Spectacle IslandBoston Harbor Islands video: A History of Spectacle Island
{{authority control Boston Harbor islands Islands of Massachusetts Islands of Suffolk County, Massachusetts