Boston's "Big Dig" Project

Nicholas Nixon (b. 1947)
View of the Expressway at North End, Boston
Gelatin silver print, 2001
Prints & Photographs Division (142.9a)
Digital ID# ppmsca-09894

Nicholas Nixon (b. 1947)
View of the Massachusetts State House, Boston
Gelatin silver print, 2003
Prints & Photographs Division (142.9b)
Digital ID # ppmsca-09893

Nicholas Nixon used a 8" x 10" view camera to capture the layers of Boston's unique architectural heritage. The photographs were made during Boston's "Big Dig" project, a large-scale public works initiative to replace an elevated highway with an underground expressway and a fourteen-lane bridge. Nixon's photographs meld the old and the new, showing aerial views of the city, a mixture of architectural styles, a traffic clogged highway, and the recently completed asymmetrical cable-stayed bridge.