GEORGESS MC HARGUE

Great Expectations: The Public Interpretation Program for the Central ArteryfTunnel Project ABSTRACT The scope-of-work for this contract called for preparation of a Public Education Plan including 1,200 hours of interpreter's time, school visits, site visits and lab tours, site handout sheets, traveling slide lectures, popular reports, volunteer programs, teacher training, and outreach to the public schools. A fullscale Interpretive Plan was also to be prepared for the purpose of guiding a second, even more ambitious phase of interpretation: museum exhibits, videos, traveling exhibits, wide distribut ion of popul ar reports, and more. The Publ ic Education Plan was implemented in full; the Interpretive Plan was abandoned. The limiting factors turned out to be both organizational and financial. Nevertheless, the public outreach aspect of this proj ect was certainly one of the most ambitious and successful of recent decades.

When Timelines, Inc and John Milner Associat es, Inc. we re no tified that they had been awarded the Central Arteryffunnel Project's (CAl T) archaeology contract, the award letter specified that a contributing factor in the decision had been the organization's capabilities in public education. As Timelines staff writer (and President), I was delighted to find that parts of the scope-of-work dealt with presenting the results of the project to the public. The first task was to prepare a Public Education Plan that dealt with activities during the course of the three ye ar contract (Timelines, Inc. 1992). Later, there would be an Interpretive Plan which, in the terms used by the CA/T Project, meant a plan for ongoing activities beyond the life of the archaeological excavation contract. At earl y meetings on the subject of public education, it appeared that the Management Consultant, Bechte l/Parson s Brinckerhoff, pursuant to its Programmatic Memorandum of Agreem ent, meant to ensure that there was no conscious citizen of Massachusetts who had not been exposed to some basic facts about archaeology by the end of the next three years. Historical Archaeology. 1998. 32(3 ):19-23. Permission to reprint required.

Since the historic sites excavated by Timeline s, Inc and John Milner Associates, Inc. were located in the heart of downtown Boston, about a 90 sec. pigeon fligh t from the famed tourist attractions at Quincy Market and the Old Stat e Hou se, and onl y a few yards from the historic Freedom Trail , the first order of business was to interpret the field archaeology to the public while the dig was in progress. The charg e was assuring that a site interpreter was on the spot at all times when the excavations were active, in order both to answer questions and to keep the excavators from being distracted by passersby. Quite a bit of this work was done by the author, with the assistance of archaeolog y graduate student Ellen Berkland (now the Boston City Archaeologist) and former museum docent Judith Bessette, who were hired for the purpose. Before the Padd y ' s Alle y/Cro ss Street Back Lot site was opened , however , we encountered the first shoal in the rapidly running river of information. Two local architects, from the firm of Kennedy Violich, had won a prestigious contest to create temporary public structures in connection with the Central Artery excavation . They had designed three ingenious timber bridges that were intended to give pedestrian passage over the "Big Dig" trench (for placing the road underground) when it came to separate a largish section of Boston from its own waterfront museums, businesse s, and apartments . Timelines, Inc. was instructed to issue a subcontract to Kennedy Violich so that they could erect a scaled-down version of one of these bridge s at the edge of the Paddy' s Alley/Cross Street Back Lot site, to be used as a viewing platform for the curious public. The first problem with the viewing platform was that the sight lines from its modest elevation were such that anyone standing on it, in addition to looking through the required security fence, would see only about half of the excavation surface, severa l feet below the black topped parking lot. There ensued a minor tug of war with the architects, who conceived them-

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HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 32(3)

selves as representing Art with a capital A, in Despite these problems, the visitors did come. which they attempted to insist that the platform Boston's famous Freedom Trail ran right past be moved up to the very edge of the excavation. both sites and over a thousand tourists and local This was unacceptable from the point of view of residents stopped to ask questions or simply gaze both safety (i.e., soil collapse) and maneuvering contemplatively into this exposure of a commuroom for the backhoe operator. We also did not nity past . Bostonians are remarkably history want our excavators to feel as if they were in a minded, as well they should be. The varied inzoo, which would have hindered Science with a terests of the people who stopped by to comment capital S. A compromise was eventually on the excavation were impressive. Particularly reached, but it required an elaborate and expen- vivid is the memory of the young man who was sive fencing arrangement whereby heavy wings writing a history of Colonial Boston's wig makor sections of fence had to be swung back by ers and wanted to be notified if we found any the interpreters every morning and then locked wig maker's tools. We didn't. Then there was back into place every night. the custodian of the nearby 19th-century commerThe second problem with the platform was that cial building who stopped by almost every mornthe architects were not to be allowed to build it ing to report on his own historic architectural inas they intended, using the labor of their own vestigations of bricked-in arches and false cellar graduate students. The Project had a labor walls; the family of four from Iowa who rushed agreement with the local carpenter's union, but down to the site after reading an article about it no one had told us about it. The carpenters in the Boston Globe because they believed they identified the grad students as nonunion labor were related to one of the site occupants; and the and informed us that not one hammer could be two Belgian college students who said frankly lifted by anyone but carpenters. This entailed a they hadn't realized the United States had a past. round of hasty, not to say frantic, phone calls In addition, many school groups came to the site, and negotiations. By now the archaeological one from as far away as Rhode Island. This excavation had actually begun. The result was phase of the public education program was certhat instead of facilitating public access to the tainly an unqualified success, measured not only site, the construction of the platform hindered it by the number of visitors but by the repeat visisubstantially for the first week or so, while in- tors, who ranged from a homeless man and an terpreters had to lead their parties around the elderly Italian woman to the executive who edges of the construction. dropped by promptly at ten minutes to nine evThe platform, when finished, was indeed a ery Wednesday for an update. The site interpretation was not limited to talks palace from the point of view of interpretation, although there were those who remarked that it and question answering. We also built a pair of was both too elaborate and too large for the artifact boxes, with Plexiglas lids, that could be cramped urban setting. This proved even more attached to platform railings. Since the integrity true for the Mill Pond excavation, when it turned of the collection could not be compromised by out the architects had not allowed for the fact displaying actual artifacts from the Central Artery that the only place the platform could be set up Project, we used objects from our personal and at that site was under the Artery, for which it corporate collections to create a selection of lookwas too tall. The Project's highly competent alike objects ranging from a 17th-century bottle carpenters then constructed a useful and work- and a portion of a transfer-printed bowl to a pig manlike platform that served very well for the jaw and a shoe sole. The pig mandible was farsecond excavation and took one-tenth as much and-away the favorite object of kids, sixth grade time to put up. and under, showing how far we have come from

GREAT EXPECTATIONS: THE PUBLIC INTERPRETATION PROGRAM

our agrarian past. We were also charged with producing printed handouts explaining the sites and their history. Originally, a large number of these were planned, perhaps even including a series on "the artifact of the week." This proved administratively impossible, since the approval process for each handout took over two weeks. In the end, there were only four, each of which contained a portion of an historic map, an artifact illustration, and a basic description of the work in progress. Thanks to Ellen Berkland, an Italian student was located to translate one of the handouts for the benefit of the North End's large population of Italian speakers. The public in general was much less interested in the written material than in the live archaeologists and the artifacts displays, but a substantial minority, composed largely of teachers and history buffs, collected the handouts eagerly and came back asking for more. Finally, there was an eight-foot, three-sided kiosk, in the Project colors, which we were instructed to place beside the Freedom Trail to attract visitors to the sites. The kiosk sported Project information on one forward side and archaeological information on the other, all of it necessarily made from virtually indestructible materials. There are doubts about the cost effectiveness of this kiosk, since it was expensive, time-consuming to construct, and rather less visible than the activity at the sites themselves. At the same time as the excavations were going on, tours were conducted in the Charlestown laboratory, where the CNT artifacts were being processed and catalogued. Tours were by appointment only for obvious reasons . This was accomplished by installation of a special phone line with an answering machine used solely for this purpose; the phone number being publicized on all the site handouts and in Project press releases. In addition to several dozen school groups from second graders to graduate students, the lab tours also hosted various network and local TV stations, members of the American and British societies of pewter collectors, a class of

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disabled children, and members of several local historical or archaeological societies. Finally, during Massachusetts Archaeology Week in 1993 and again in 1994, open houses were held for the public, which were well, but not overwhelmingly, attended. Not enough can be said about the good nature and patience of our lab director Leith Smith, data manager Marty Dudek, and all the lab crew, who grew quite used to fielding questions about the patterns on combed slipware or whether any gold coins had been found lately. One of our more successful adjuncts to the site maps and other items on display for the school groups was what became known as the "backyard archaeology collection." This was simply a plastic box filled with fragments of clay pipes, furnace clinker, a gun flint, part of a doll face, 19th-century household ceramics, and other items that had eroded out of a bank behind the author's house in Groton, Massachusetts. These were available for the kids to hand around and cross-mend. The backyard archaeology collection was very popular. The final feature of the Public Education Plan was a constantly changing slide show prepared for audiences at local Rotary clubs, historical societies, adult-education programs, and the like. Its reception, by and large, was highly enthusiastic. One gentleman, a member of a local historical society, even identified a previously undifferentiated iron wedge as a specialized shipbuilder's tool, which he recognized from the toolchest his grandfather used when building some of New England 's famed bluenose schooners. Through all this , not a single CAIT Project artifact was lost and only one complaint was received. A teacher from a religious school thought some of our bulletin board humor was unsuitable for children. It dealt with the sex life of the frog. The major disappointment over this aspect of the public education program was that not one single Boston public school class ever visited either the lab or the sites. This fact reflects an urban reality that should be noted by anyone

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undertaking a similar program in the future . Very early in the project, while researching the Public Education Plan and speaking to the director of science curriculum for the Boston Public School Department, it was indicated in no uncertain terms that public school students were unlikely to show up at the site unless they were provided with either bus transportation or subway fare. The city's schools simply had no budget for class trips and parents would have trouble coming up with the extra $1.70 for two subway tokens. This matter was brought up at an early Project meeting where it was said: "Welcome to the six billion dollar project. If the kids need transportation, we will send buses." This sounded wonderful, but, sadly , no buses ever materialized. As the archaeology project progressed, a gradual change in the CNT Project's attitude to public education was noticed. By the end of the Mill Pond excavation, the CNT archaeology had appeared on both the front page of the Boston Globe and in its science section, in the Boston Herald, on several network and local TV spots, and on National Public Radio. Shortly after the shutdown of the Mill Pond site, we were told that archaeology was being de-emphasized by the Project's Public Information section because it was distracting attention from the engineering and design aspects of Central Artery and Third Harbor Tunnel construction. We had been, in effect, too successf ul. By the time of the Feature 4 excavation, the reopening of the privy at the Cross Street Back Lot site, archaeology was not at the forefront of the Project's concerns. Here there was no viewing platform and no media publicity at all. The excavation was small in area and comparatively far from the Freedom Trail. The result was that very few people bothered to stop to watch as some of the Project's most interesting artifacts and organic materials were removed from the muck . Stationing interpreters at this site was largely a waste of time except for the visits of a few school groups. It was not even feasible to do other work while waiting for the three cus-

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tomers a day because the only way to keep warm at that season was to walk around and around the site fence. Perhaps infected by the general atmosphere, the only unpleasant incident involving the public occurred at this site when a child threw a stone at project archaeologist Jo Balicki. Jo was not amused. In parallel with the field work at the downtown historic sites, Timelines, Inc. had been preparing its Interpretive Plan. This was a forty page document that summarized the history of Boston and the North End in the 17th and 18th centuries, gave possible interpretive themes for the sites, and evaluated a variety of interpretive techniques in terms of cost-effectiveness (Timelines, Inc. 1996). Under consideration in the plan were publications (adult and juvenile, popular and technical) in addition to those called for in our contract, general and educational videos, artifact exhibits, both traveling and semi-permanent, slide tape programs for distribution to schools and institutions, living history presentations, permanent historic markers along the Artery right-of-way, and Internet dissemination via the University of Connecticut's ArchNet or a similar web site. The plan included input from a large variety of historical organizations such as the Bostonian Society, the Boston Athenaeum, the Boston Public Library, various state agencies, local business organizations, environmental groups, and the Massachusetts Council on Indian Affairs (remembering that a prehistoric site on an island in Boston Harbor was also excavated). Finally, there was a list of 89 Massachusetts Historical Societie s and smaller museums that had expressed interest in hosting traveling exhibits of artifacts from the CNT archaeology. The overriding conclusion of the Interpretive Plan was that museum exhibits offered the best and most appealing method of presenting the sites, both historic and prehistoric, to the public, with Internet access coming up fast on the outside but still a length behind. Shortly after the submission of the Interpretive Plan, we were asked to initiate talks with the Boston Museum of Science in order to prepare

GREAT EXPECTATIONS : THE PUBLIC INTERPRETATION PROGRAM

for a major archaeology exhibit. Lab Director Leith Smith and the author had a series of contacts with some of the museum's exhibit designers, who were very enthusiastic about the objects they were shown. A preliminary list of a dozen possible exhibit themes was developed-a Colonial kitchen of the late 18th century, the household of prosperous Boston merchant John Carnes, and so forth. The suggested plan was to mount a new exhibit every six months over a period of several years. This was very exciting. Environmental controls, security, and various sorts of practical considerations were discussed; all lights appeared green. Later, however, it developed that there was no funding for an exhibit, and no likelihood of acquiring any. This was a major disappointment, and it seems to us to be typical of the systemic problems that afflict archaeological interpretation. Regulators such as State Archaeologists may require that the artifacts be recovered, catalogued, and even conserved, but there is rarely any funding for display. Similarly, if you are lucky, there may be funds to write popular reports, but rarely any money to publish them in editions of more than 100 or 200 copies (the latter being the number of copies called for in our CA/T contract). To develop a long term interpretive plan with no funding for display or publication is akin to developing a fire-safety plan with no extinguishers or smoke alarms. As of thi s writing, the only exhibition of Project artifacts has been a small display of prehistoric objects from the Spectacle Island excavation, which can be seen on the Internet (http:// www.state.ma.uslbigdig/). Throughout the entire course of the archaeology project, we were waiting for the answer to one of the questions most often asked by the public : "What happens to the artifacts after the excava-

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tions are over?" For a while all of us were uneasily remembering the final scene of the original Indiana Jones movie: the vast, echoing government warehouse and the anonymous crate on the fork lift. Fortunately, the Massachusetts State Archives has now taken custody of the artifacts; and the University of Massachusetts, Boston, has responsibility for their conservation. The office of the State Archaeologist has also obtained an ISTEA grant aimed at arranging museum displays and traveling exhibits, using the Interpretive Plan as a paradigm. This is wonderful news, but is not, strictly speaking, a part of the CA/T Project. As far as the CA/T itself is concerned, the Interpretive Plan is not only dead, but buried as deep as the Central Artery. Still, from the public education point of view, projects like this one do not come along every day. Despite the fact that not every opportunity could be followed up, nor was every expectation met, the CA/T Project certainly mounted one of the most ambitious and far-reaching public education of recent decades. It was great while it lasted.

REFERENCES T IMELINES, I NC.

1992 Central ArteryITunnel Project Archaeology Public Education Plan. Prepared by Timelines, Inc., Groton, MA. Submitted to Central Artery/Tunnel Project, BechtellParsons Brinckerhoff, Boston. 1996 An Interpretive Plan for the Archaeology ofthe Central ArteryITunnei Project, Boston, MA. Prepared by Timelines, Inc., Groton, MA. Submitted to Central ArterylTunnel Project, Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, Boston. G EORGESS M cHARGUE TIM ELINES, I NC., 410 GR EAT R OAD, LITTL ETON, MA 01460