The Charles River, to the Right

Hailing Distance: One of a series of great half-hour hikes from campus

By Robin Berghaus

The Charles River Reservation offers a wonderful scenic walk, easily reached from the University’s center. Runners, bikers, walkers, and picnickers coexist within this linear park, a retreat from the hustle of urban living.

Starting at the corner of Comm Ave and Silber Way, walk past the Bay State Road brownstones to Back Street. A footbridge zigzags over Storrow Drive, leading onto a path along the Charles River Basin, which stretches nine miles from Watertown to Boston Harbor.

A right on the path brings you to the Hatch Shell on the Esplanade, a hollow, spherical performance center, with 90,000 square feet of lawn, that hosts free events from May through October, among them EarthFest and Free Friday Flicks. The most famous of these is the annual Boston Pops July 4 Concert, inaugurated in 1929 by Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor Arthur Fiedler (Hon.’51), who believed great symphonic music should be available to everyone. It soon became a beloved tradition. The 400,000 people at the 1976 concert comprised the largest single audience for a classical music concert, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

When events are not scheduled, the Hatch Shell lawn attracts Frisbee and soccer enthusiasts. The nearby Café Esplanade supplies quick snacks and refreshments.

A grove of birch trees and a boulder inscribed Otis Grove can be found near the Hatch Shell lawn by Exeter Street. “While I was a freshman at Berklee College of Music, I lived near the Esplanade and passed by the boulder on my way to the river,” says Otis Grove band member Sam Gilman. “My band mates and I assumed it was a tribute to Harrison Gray Otis, mayor of Boston from 1829 to 1831. When we became serious about our band, we researched and found that it’s a memorial for State Representative William F. Otis and his wife, who were murdered in their Back Bay apartment in 1968.” Gilman and his two band mates kept the name anyway, believing that a giant rock on the Esplanade was “as good free publicity as we could get.”

As you walk along the river, small watercraft from Community Boating and Gondola di Venezia sail and glide against a backdrop of city skyline, framed by landmarks such as the cable-stayed Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge, completed in 2003. Benches and grassy nooks attract picnickers, while sunbathers lay on docks, and geese and ducks meander among the trees, bamboo, and flowers.

For children, there are two playgrounds made from recycled materials; one caters to the under-5 crowd, the other to children 5 to 12. Play structures are constructed of the equivalent of 26,376 plastic containers, 52,084 aluminum cans, and 31,608 soup cans. The playgrounds contain traditional features such as slides, swings, and ladders, all known to attract college-age attention as well.

Walking along the Charles is relaxing, but beware of a few things: goose droppings aplenty, construction, and traffic. Fortunately, there’s enough terrain to avoid them all.

When you’re ready to return to campus, take any of the footbridges that reconnect to Beacon Street, such as the Arthur Fiedler Footbridge, located at the base of the Hatch Shell lawn.

Take more walks from campus here. 

Robin Berghaus can be reached at berghaus@bu.edu.

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