"Raising the Village" Waymark

Long Description:
This marker is on a building on Church Street in Bay Village. On it is a picture captioned "a photograph of houses raised onto pilings at Church Street, 1868."

The marker reads:

"Bay Village houses stood as if on stilts high above the street in 1868. When the nearby Back Bay marsh was filled with earth in the 1850s and '60s, displaced water seeped into this lower, older area. What to do? Simple. Lift the streets, 457 houses and 24 stores onto wooden pilings (later filled in) 18 ft. above the mean low water level. Back yards were raised only 12 ft. higher than that level, so many gardens came to be 6 ft. below the streets.
"If you peer in the alleys below these houses, you may spot a secret 'sunken' garden."

Agency Responsible for Placement: Boston 200 Year Placed: 1976 County: Suffolk City/Town Name: Boston Relevant Web Site: [Web Link] Agency Responsible for Placement (if not in list above): Not listed

Visit Instructions:
When logging a Massachusetts Historic Marker, we ask that you not only describe your visit, but to upload a picture from it. The picture does not have to be of the marker - one picture of the marker is enough. But a photo of you standing next to the marker or a photograph the subject of the marker - those are examples of possible photographs to upload.

Recent Visits/Logs:

Date Logged Log User Rating   2/9/2007 Shorelander visited it

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