Of time and tides in Southie

NO PLACE in Boston better symbolizes the contrast between the racial edginess of the 1970s and the live-and-let live attitudes of today than Carson Beach in South Boston. If there is any tension in the air these days, it's likely a function of a tight beach volleyball match or a fishing rod bent double by the weight of a battling bluefish.

Carson is the most improved and smoothest running of the 14 beach reservations managed by the state Department of Conservation and Recreation. In 1994, then Governor William Weld used a creepy Carson bathhouse as a backdrop to announce a $30 million capital campaign for the beaches. Today, Carson offers a restored bathhouse, shaded pavilion, snack bar, well-groomed sand, and inviting shoreline.

Word gets around. On Wednesday morning, six young women from County Laois in the midlands of Ireland were enjoying their day off from downtown pushcart jobs. A few yards away, workers were taking down a tent from the previous evening's $100 per ticket "Best of Boston" Party hosted by Boston magazine. Jack, a 52-year-old homeless man, took it all in. The South Boston native spends his summers on the beach he calls "Cape Carson."

Decades ago, it was a combat zone. In 1975, racial tensions over efforts to desegregate the city's schools often disgorged onto Carson Beach. The worst fighting took place on Aug. 10, 1975, when an estimated 1,500 of the city's black residents, outraged by reports of racially motivated violence on the beach, conducted a motorcade to South Boston for a "wade-in." Whites saw it as a pure provocation. Rocks, cans, and bottles filled the air as hundreds of police officers tried to separate the warring sides. Today, blacks and whites share the beach without anxiety or incident, each enjoying the late afternoon shows put on by Vietnamese volleyball players.

Carson Beach has known the same problems -- dirty water, haphazard maintenance, insufficient programming -- as other beaches in the DCR portfolio. But partly due to the clout of South Boston politicians, improvements take hold more quickly at Carson than elsewhere. Beach advocates in East Boston, Quincy, and other communities in the DCR domain fret about the high bacteria counts that discourage swimming after heavy rainfalls. But that problem will be virtually eliminated on the South Boston beaches after the construction of a 2.1-mile tunnel under Day Boulevard designed to collect combined sewage and storm water overflow. Boring is expected to begin in the fall. When the $145 million project is complete in 2011, officials of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority say South Boston should boast the cleanest urban beaches in the nation.

The biggest outstanding problem is parking. The roughly 100 available spots are snapped up quickly by beachgoers and athletes who use the playing fields across Day Boulevard. Joseph Orfant, DCR's chief for project designs, thinks he could pick up 30 percent more spaces by changing the parking lot configuration from angle to head-on parking. But that would require permission by state environmental officials to widen the lot by a few feet. Losing a little beachfront so that more people can enjoy the spot seems an acceptable tradeoff for an urban beach. Other possible transportation solutions include allowing curbside parking along the boulevard or running seasonal shuttle buses from the JFK-UMass MBTA stop.

Carson Beach is what people had in mind back in the 1980s when the clean-up of Boston Harbor began in earnest. It is proof that state officials can design and maintain beaches at a high level. And it shows that Bostonians are only too happy to bury their old baggage in the sand.