A half-ton bronze bust of shipbuilder Donald McKay is the centerpiece of the recently completed Bremen Street Park.
(Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff)
EAST BOSTON
East Boston's recently completed Bremen Street Park has a new resident - a nearly 10-foot-tall bronze bust of shipbuilder Donald McKay.
"This statue is a great way to recognize McKay," said Henry Lachance, a maritime artist who lives in the house McKay built in Eastie's Eagle Hill area. "History has not done full justice to McKay, given what he contributed to the wealth of Boston and the United States. People walk past his house every day and past the location of his shipyards on Border Street, and have no idea that this was one of the world's greatest shipbuilders."
America's clipper-ship era started in the early 1840s in response to a growing need for efficient trading with the Far East and other ports, and was strengthened over the next decade by gold rushes in California and Australia. By the 1850s, the supply of ships had outpaced demand, and with the 1869 opening of the Suez Canal, the clipper ships' golden days came to an end. But, during the period's heyday, Donald McKay was considered perhaps the preeminent builder.
Born in 1810 in Nova Scotia, McKay moved to Newburyport in 1841 to open a shipyard, which he relocated to East Boston's inner harbor four years later. He designed some of the largest and, by all accounts, most beautiful ships of the time, including several that set speed records that still stand. Of only 12 sailing vessels that were said to have traveled 400 miles or more in a single day, seven were McKay's creations. In 1853, according to the MIT Museum website, more than "30,000 people gathered in East Boston to witness the launching of [McKay's] clipper ship, Great Republic." The names of several of McKay's ships are remembered to this day, including the Flying Cloud and Sovereign of the Seas.
"Our history is very tied to shipbuilding, and a lot of the thanks for that goes to Donald McKay," said Debra Cave, president of the Eagle Hill Civic Association.
The installation of the statue, which residents hope will be formally dedicated next summer, represents the culmination of a long battle by neighborhood activists. "They said it would never happen. Well, it happened," said lifelong East Boston resident Lucy Ferullo, recalling the decadeslong fight to increase green space in Eastie and beautify public areas. "It's been a long time coming."
In the mid-1990s, the Boston Natural Areas Network began working with residents and the Central Artery Tunnel Project to create a mitigation greenway on an old railroad track that runs from Marginal Street in Jeffries Point to the Belle Isle Marsh near Revere. The statue, near the park's Marion Street entrance, is just icing on the cake to neighborhood activists who worked to help create the space.
"The funding for public art is always hard to come by," said Natural Areas Network president Valerie Burns. "It was remarkable that the Central Artery was willing to include art in a public park and really recognize that art belongs in public places. The idea that McKay would be memorialized in East Boston in a significant way has always been a dream of the neighborhood."
There are other memorials to McKay around town, including a school named after him in Jeffries Point, a plaque at the site of his shipyard, and an obelisk on Castle Island, but the half-ton bust is the most detailed and imposing tribute. According to Fred Yalouris, director of architecture and urban planning for the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which oversaw the park's construction, the artist, Robert Shore of Woburn, consulted with McKay scholars and many of his descendants. "Based on that," Yalouris said, "he made several refinements to the features. He nailed the windswept hair, sharp nose, intense eyes. It looks exactly like McKay."
"The sculptor really captured the spirit of Donald McKay," said Lachance. "Just the iron will and sheer determination to go on despite many setbacks" - including bankruptcy and a devastating fire.
McKay's perseverance, residents say, mirrors that of many who have settled in East Boston over the generations. The statue "brings a sense of pride to people in the neighborhood because of McKay's accomplishments," said Mary Ellen Welch, president of the East Boston Greenway Council. "It was always the desire of the community to have a statue of McKay in East Boston, and the development of the Greenway was the opportunity to have it. It's a wonderful thing, a wonderful piece of art, and terrific that we have it in East Boston."
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