Tuesday, October 06, 2015

Charles River: CURRENT Memorial Drive Construction Zone

Charles River: CURRENT Memorial Drive Construction Zone


Report 3 in a series.

1. Introduction.
2. First stages?
3. Preliminary photos.
4. Previously condemned trees protected?
5. Summary.
6. Past Reports in THIS series, and a communication showing everything to a bad city council.


1. Introduction.

The topic of this series has been repeatedly presented by this blog.  It has consistently been censored by Cambridge cheerleading groups, by entities in the City of Cambridge, and by their accomplices in their very terrible cause.

This is the third report in THIS series.  Prior reports in this series, with URLs are provided in the last section.

2. First stages?

The Department of Conservation and Recreation has set up a construction zone which, SO FAR, runs from Endocott Street to Fowler Street.  These are the first two streets east of the point where Memorial Drive splits.

Here again are the DCR destruction plans for this and adjacent areas.  This is a tiny fraction of the plans provided in the link in the last section.

DOUBLE CLICK on the plans.  The result is striking.  The BLACK CIRCLES are condemned trees.






3. Preliminary photos.

It is very much impossible to give the vileness probably involved the detail it deserves at such an early stage of construction.

All of the median between Fowler and Endicott Street has clearly been established as a construction zone by putting in TWO LARGE construction management trailers just west of Endicott Street and by constructing protection on all trees between the trailers and Fowler Street.

Here are photos of the trailers.




More importantly, here is a pile of wood strips clearly intended to expand the construction zone.



Here are some photos of protected trees from October 5, 2015.  These protected trees amount to all the trees ON THE MEDIAN between the western construction trailer and the western boundary of Fowler Street.






4. Previously condemned trees protected?

For your information, here is the destruction plan again which includes Fowler Street.  The plans call for destruction of four trees in front of Fowler Street and a fifth in the area west of the currently marked construction zone.  Since no trees are protected in the area west of the existing work, plans for the fifth are unsettled.

That fifth tree would appear to be the middle unprotected tree in the first of the three preceding pictures.



Fowler Street is the street on the top of the plan.  The four condemned and now "protected" trees are immediately on the other side of the apparently condemned tree shown above.

Here is another photo of this area, taken from the river side.



And here is a photo from the middle of the protected trees (right in the above photo).  The three trees shown protected are probably three of the four previously condemned.  Unprotected trees beyond the protected trees probably included the fifth shown as condemned in the above plan.  My guess is that it is to the immediate left of the rightmost protected tree.



The protection of these previously condemned trees has two possible explanations:

a. The DCR changed their minds about destroying them.

b. The project is not the project to destroy hundreds of trees between the BU and Longfellow Bridges which has $24 million from the State House in Chapter 286 of the Massachusetts Acts of 2014 under the euphemism “Historic Parkways,” with no meaningful description in the legislation.

It would be ideal if this were a false alarm, BUT

TWO LARGE CONSTRUCTION TRAILERS?

This is not a SMALL PROJECT.

5. Summary. In the next few days will follow up with photo analyses of other trees in the first four plans shown above. 6.Past Reports in THIS series, and a communication showing everything to a bad city council.

a. DCR Destruction Plans as provided to Cambridge City Council by me on April 1, 2014, full publication of plans in post: http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/tree-destruction-plans-charles-river.html
b. Report 1.  Charles River:  Massive Tree Destruction Appears Imminent on Memorial Drive, October 4, 2015.  http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2015/10/charles-river-massive-tree-destruction.html.
c. Report 2.  Memorial Drive Plans and Photos, October 5, 2015 http://charlesriverwhitegeeseblog.blogspot.com/2015/10/charles-river-memorial-drive-logging.html