Mayor Thomas Menino Park

Boston’s first Universally Accessible Playground. Boston’s newest waterfront open space, Mayor Thomas M. Menino Park, opened its first phase to the public on November 4, 2013. Situated outside of Spaulding Hospital’s new state-of-the-art rehabilitation facility in the Charlestown Navy Yard, it is a dramatic public resource designed as a place of recovery from health challenges, and respite from the daily rigor of urban life. While Mayor Menino was visiting the facility in early 2013, he saw potential in the vacant waterfront land that lay next door. The Boston Redevelopment Authority enlisted the support of Weston & Sampson and Spurr, its design studio, for master planning, bid documentation and construction oversight of the parcel, all of which culminated in Boston’s first Universally Accessible Playground. Together, Drydock 5 and Parcel 5 (the site of the park), form Charlestown’s furthest eastern reaches, also known as Yard’s End. Built on post-industrial land, much of the design inspiration drew from the parcel’s history. The Charlestown Navy Yard was home to America’s first drydock, built in 1678, and the park was once the site of Drydock 5, built during World War II to service Navy escort ships. As an historic waterfront there are several drydock structures that remain intact and form a dynamic edge between Charlestown and Boston’s Inner Harbor.