From Dave Brigham:
Whenever I discover something quirky in service of this blog, I act as if people have been purposely keeping it a secret from me.
The old buildings that make up Brighton's Charles River Speedway, a favorite drinking and hangout destination of mine, were once part of a horse racing facility? Why didn't anyone ever tell me?!
There's a Colonial-era highway behind a hotel just a few miles from where I grew up in Connecticut? That's something I should have been told about as a kid!
Today, I focus my apoplexy on the folks who hid from me the existence of the Gridley Locks near Boston's TD Garden.
I stumbled across the locks, which are part of the Charles River Dam that was built in 1978, when looking on Google Maps for a good place to make photos of the Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge. "What the hell are the Gridley Locks?" I asked myself. "Who's responsible for keeping this Backside knowledge from me?"
Accessible via Lovejoy Wharf to the south and Paul Revere Park to the north, the locks are not at all hidden, but since they sit parallel to the North Washington Street bridge connecting the North End to Charlestown, they are certainly a less popular way of connecting those urban dots.
I love lesser-used pathways and alleys and tunnels and the like, so within a few days of learning about the locks, I had to check them out. There is nothing particularly photogenic about the locks, although there is the added attraction of the Charlestown Bells, an interactive music sculpture created by artist Paul Matisse. The bells are located, as you may have guessed by the name, near the Charlestown side of the dam.
I passed several people in my walk across the locks. I'm sure a few were wondering why the hell I was making photos of something as pedestrian as the walkway across a narrow part of the Charles River. The emotion I felt as I walked along was, I will admit, glee mixed with boredom. I'm always happy to find an out-of-the-way method of getting from one place to another.
So, what's the story with the locks, and who are they named after?
"Built and operational in 1978, the three locks can be crossed by pedestrians," per Wikipedia. "It is part of the popular Boston Harborwalk. The dam contains three individual locks, with one wider than the other two to accommodate the occasional passing of a larger vessel."
They were named for Col. Richard Gridley, who was George Washington’s chief engineer in the Continental Army. "Col. Gridley engineered the fortifications at the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775, and at Dorchester Heights, where General Howe and his army were forced to evacuate Boston in March of 1776," according to the always thorough and enjoyable The Next Phase Blog.
Several years ago I explored near the locks, as my son and I checked out the North Bank Pedestrian Bridge that connects the southeastern tip of Cambridge to Charlestown.
