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All cities expand by annexing land adjacent to them. But precious few cities expand by annexing....water adjacent to them.
Land Fill!
And of these few cities, even fewer are famous for it. For example:
NEW YORK: Manhattan and adjacent waters have numerous land fills. Immigrants and inmates should know this because Ellis Island and Rikers Island respectively are on man made land. Lower Manhattan's real estate expands in both the Hudson and East rivers, perhaps most notably in Battery Park City. More fill. And even in the heart of Manhattan, creeks and streams have disappeared (along with hills) to create the famous broad gridded plain.
CHICAGO: The ashes of the Chicago Fire were dumped into Lake Michigan, meeting up with the tressel of the Illinois Center tracks and moving eastward from there. Years later, the old kook Captain Streeter made home on a sand bar in the lake off Pine Street (today's Michigan Ave Mag Mile). The land between the dune and the city filled in, Streeter called it his; the city begged to differ. And today Streerville (from which Navy Pier emerges) is some of the most expensive real estate in the world Nearby Northerly Island was filled for the Century of Progress world's fair. After that, it was home to Meiggs Field, Chicago's lakefront corporate airport, later turned into park land connected to next door Soldier Field and Museum Campus, both made of fill And on and on. Much of Lincoln Park's enormous length is land fill. And a bit north of city limits, Northwestern University expanded its campus in Evanston with fill (and NU's Chicago campus, home to law, medicine, etc. is on that Streetville fill I just mentioned.)
MIAMI: Bicayne Bay and a helluva lot rich people who want to live on water created fill in the form of islands, or if you want to go more upscale: keys/cays. And, of course, much of Miami Beach is on fill.
SAN FRANCISCO: Like New York, a map of the original shoreline and today's version looks a lot different. If Chicago grew by ash, SF grew by gold.....or to be more precise, the ships that brought the 49ers west, abandoned where they were moored in the bay. Years later, the 49ers abandoned SF for Santa Clara (but that's another story). North Beach, a waterless site, once was a real beach. Filled in. And so, of course, is much of the north waterfront (the land whose waters turned North Beach beachless), the tourist mecca around Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39 After the earthquake/fire in 1906, the rebuilt San Francisco wanted to show its new face to the world...and followed Chicago's precedent of ash into land fill, dumped the remains of the quake into the bay for the fair site; today this is the Marina (including the Palace of Fine Arts).
BOSTON: The tadpole like almost island that was Shawmut, connected to the mainland by the narrowest of strips is now the heart of Boston, the city arguably that has changed its shoreline the most. Back Bay's precious real estate is fill as is Logan Airport....and Boston is tadpole no more.
WASHINGTON: The planned city needed a magnificent waterfront so the Potomac was narrowed as DC moved eastward to incorporate what became the tidal basin around where the Jefferson Memorial and the site of the cherry blossoms today. Actually, DC didn't move to the east....it moved to the center for that was where the fill took place, in the diamond shaped original city made up of portions of MD and VA.
What other US cities have expanded by land fill. And what is their story?
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Originally Posted by edsg25
What other US cities have expanded by land fill. And what is their story?
Seattle: The hills were even steeper than they are now. Belltown and the Denny Triangle had a very steep hill that was shaved off and regraded. Most of the downtown waterfront along Alaskan Way is all landfill.
It's not the US but I'll add it anyway, Montreal has islands in the middle of the St. Lawrence River that were made into parkland and also contain a casino, an amusement park, and some of the Olympic facilities from 1976. These islands were created from excavated dirt from the construction of their metro subway system.
Baltimore: Most of the tourist areas of Baltimore's Inner Harbor are built on landfill, and originally expanded about a block and a half in all directions from the present shoreline in those neighborhoods, mostly to accommodate larger clippers and later steamers that needed the bottom to be a sufficient depth. There's even a street downtown (Water St.) that was once the shoreline of the harbor. Also, pretty much all of Harbor East (from Fleet St. south and Bond St. west) were under water and later created with landfill. In addition, much of the Jones Falls has been covered over and directed underground between Penn Station and a few blocks before it enters the harbor, paved over with streets, parking, and an expressway.
Does Marina del Rey in LA count? It was a swamp/marsh before it turned into the largest man-made harbor in the world with residential and commercial zoning surrounding it, including some mid/high rise hotels, residential, and office towers.
Same would go for Venice? It was designed as a canal city to replicate Venice, Italy.
Naples is collection of three residential islands in the city of Long Beach located in Alamitos Bay. It was built to match Venice to the north in LA with canals and all.
Huntington Harbour is a neighborhood in Huntington Beach is a collection of 5 man-made islands.
A lot of the downtown/highrise areas of Jersey City are landfill. Harsimus Cove was actually a cove before, but it's just a neighborhood name now similar to North Beach SF. I believe Paulus Hook has some areas that are built on landfill as well. Exchange Place is the financial area on the waterfront surrounding the Exchange Place PATH station, and it is built on landfill. You can see the street grid overlay on Jersey City, showing which streets/blocks are now on landfill based on the fact that they show as being part of the Hudson on this map of NYC and and JC/Hoboken.
Does Marina del Rey in LA count? It was a swamp/marsh before it turned into the largest man-made harbor in the world with residential and commercial zoning surrounding it, including some mid/high rise hotels, residential, and office towers.
Same would go for Venice? It was designed as a canal city to replicate Venice, Italy.
Naples is collection of three residential islands in the city of Long Beach located in Alamitos Bay. It was built to match Venice to the north in LA with canals and all.
Huntington Harbour is a neighborhood in Huntington Beach is a collection of 5 man-made islands.
A lot of the downtown/highrise areas of Jersey City are landfill. Harsimus Cove was actually a cove before, but it's just a neighborhood name now similar to North Beach SF. I believe Paulus Hook has some areas that are built on landfill as well. Exchange Place is the financial area on the waterfront surrounding the Exchange Place PATH station, and it is built on landfill. You can see the street grid overlay on Jersey City, showing which streets/blocks are now on landfill based on the fact that they show as being part of the Hudson on this map of NYC and and JC/Hoboken.
As OP, I retain the right of determining counting: so, yes, Marina del Rey and Venice do count.
You mentioned Long Beach. Don't both the LA (San Pedro) and LB harbors have alterations in their shorelines?
In my original post, I forgot to mention for San Francisco, SFO is built in part on fill (the airport is on The Peninsula, not the city, but I include here.) While SFO is directly on the bayshore and has fill, I wasn't sure if anything comparable exists at LAX. I'm guessing not since, unlike SFO, LAX doesn't reach the shore line (less than a half mile away, I believe) and filling in land on the Pacific doesn't seem very likely.
As OP, I retain the right of determining counting: so, yes, Marina del Rey and Venice do count.
You mentioned Long Beach. Don't both the LA (San Pedro) and LB harbors have alterations in their shorelines?
In my original post, I forgot to mention for San Francisco, SFO is built in part on fill (the airport is on The Peninsula, not the city, but I include here.) While SFO is directly on the bayshore and has fill, I wasn't sure if anything comparable exists at LAX. I'm guessing not since, unlike SFO, LAX doesn't reach the shore line (less than a half mile away, I believe) and filling in land on the Pacific doesn't seem very likely.
As for the Ports of LA and LBC, I'm not entirely sure of the history, but yes some fill and/or alteration was done around the harbor area.
LAX was built on an area full of sand dunes. Pershing Dr on the west side of LAX is a long stretch of empty road (by LA standards) because it used to have residential development on its west side. Pershing Dr separate LAX from an entire neighborhood that was eventually demolished due to LAX's expansion and operations. You can still see the street layouts and some foundations, but also the generally topography of the area on the sand dunes. Go further south and El Segundo and Manhattan Beach are hilly due to the sand dunes as well, and there is even a sand dune parkin Manhattan Beach.
The one that comes to mind is Singapore, which I believe has a large portion of the city built on reclaimed land. But of course it isn't in the US...
Jacksonville has a tiny portion of downtown that may count. It isn't filled in the way the other examples were, but a small section of downtown is built over the river. I don't really know exactly how extensive it is, but at one time it was an entire block, as well as the entire several mile stretch of riverwalk "park space."The riverwalk is still there and well maintained, but the block built over piers that included several streets and a parking garage has been demolished. I believe there are still a dozen townhomes built over the water.
Seattle: The hills were even steeper than they are now. Belltown and the Denny Triangle had a very steep hill that was shaved off and regraded. Most of the downtown waterfront along Alaskan Way is all landfill.
It's not the US but I'll add it anyway, Montreal has islands in the middle of the St. Lawrence River that were made into parkland and also contain a casino, an amusement park, and some of the Olympic facilities from 1976. These islands were created from excavated dirt from the construction of their metro subway system.
Seattle has multiple square miles of former tideflat and other shorelines that were filled in. The majority is around Elliott Bay including the Duwamish River, but other places like Shilshole have some too.
Tacoma is similar including most of its main seaport area.
In Cleveland: The Port of Cleveland, Cleveland Browns (First Energy) Stadium, Rock N Roll HOF, Great Lakes Science Center and Burke Airport are all built on landfills, all in the same general area. I believe Lake Erie's natural shoreline was south of the shoreway/RR tracks.
I'm probably missing others too.
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