Second annual Marine & Maritime Festival celebrates East Boston's waterfront and maritime history
The second annual Marine & Maritime Festival took place over the weekend at Constitution Beach with many local and community organizations in attendance, including representatives from the Trustees’ One Waterfront Initiative.
Organized by the Harborkeepers, the event brought together members of the community with harbor-minded organizations for a day of music, food, activities and fun. Despite the day falling on one of the hottest of the summer so far, the crowds were undeterred and took part in various activities including enjoying live music and dance, exploring a U.S. Coast Guard boat, and taking parts in an arts and crafts station with One Waterfront team.
The Harborkeepers seeks to build equitable and sustainable coastal community resiliency and foster environmental stewardship through their community-engaging work in East Boston. In just a few years since their founding in 2016, they have developed a strong following among local residents with growing interest in and concern about the effects of climate change on the East Boston neighborhood. The Harborkeepers and The Trustees One Waterfront Initiative are both members of the Boston Waterfront Partners, a partnership of residents, advocates, and organizations working together to make the city’s waterfront open, inviting, and vibrant for all.
“This event really aims to bring environmental stewardship to the community,” Harborkeepers Founder and Director Magdalena Ayed told the East Boston Times-Free Press. “We want to get the community excited about all the efforts to improve the waterfront. As a coastal community the festival will also provide opportunities to learn about the neighborhood’s maritime history and our waterfront.”
Boston’s harbor is rich with maritime history. A center of shipbuilding industry in the 19th Century, East Boston in particular is noteworthy for several reasons, including being a building site for famed clipper ship designer Donald McKay, whose sailing ships set world-records for speed in the 1850s, some of which have yet to be broken.
Today the waterfront in East Boston continues to bustle with activity, offering some of the most dramatic views of the Boston skyline, and is the site of increased development in recent years.
The Trustees One Waterfront Initiative is seeking to create green, publicly accessible open-space for all to enjoy along this important stretch of shoreline and other locations around Boston’s beautiful harbor, using natural infrastructure that also helps to bolster the resilience of our coastal city from rising sea levels and more frequent and intense storms.
To learn more about the One Waterfront Initiative, visit: onewaterfront.thetrustees.org/vision