6:28 Nostalgia just kicked in. As a 27-year-old man, I remember the Shell gas station being at the front of South Bay Center. Also, where Target is now used to be Kmart and where Best Buy is now used to be Toys R Us! Memories came crawling back when I stumbled across this video! Thanks for the upload, sir! 🫡✊🏽

The NPR conversation was the icing on the cake. Thank you for uploading.

Thank you for recording the old highway. Was born after its destruction and wanted to know what it looked like

Memories came back as you drove north on the old Expressway. And seeing the new Zakim Bridge up while you were travelling up the incline to the decrepit old High Level Bridge was something else. I was also listening to the WBUR/NPR talking heads confidently predicting that Baghdad will be a piece of cake, that the Iraqis will embrace the US troops with open arms. Little did they know that our troops were in for a nightmare of an occupation. Those who opposed the invasion and we who realized that the whole thing was a mistake, tragedy, and an atrocity only later on took to calling it the War on Iraq by the end of 2004, about the time the new highway will be opened.

This footage was taken just two days before the northbound tunnel's opening. It's kind of a historic record really. Thank you for uploading. Exit 24 to Callahan tunnel was closed because the alternate exit 20 off the new alignment was opened earlier in January that year. Exit 26 to Storrow drive was closed as they had to finish some earthwork for the new underground exit 26.

@stephanchaggaris9437

2 жыл бұрын

Frankly, I'm shocked I had the wherewithal to document this trip at that time! Glad you enjoyed it.

I grew up in Braintree and would travel this route every day to my exit on the Central Artery while going to college in Boston in the late 60's. Granted this was shot in 2003, but the Southeast Expressway at that time looked much like I remember it did when I drove it regularly, especially through Quincy, Milton, and Dorchester. Since moving out of state in 1978, I've only been back to the area a few times, so I probably wouldn't recognize it anymore. Thanks for the memories!

@stephanchaggaris9437

3 жыл бұрын

You came up during a beautiful time... you were in college in the late 60's - - and the Thomas Crowne Affair was filmed in Boston (and the north shore) then. At the time I shot this in 2003, I was living in North Quincy right across from Wollaston Beach. Yes it's true, that Southeast Expressway has changed very little over the years. If you drove it today from Braintree, it would feel just as familiar, right up until you got to Southie [and then 93 has changes put in place as part of the Big Dig].

@bobe.3719

3 жыл бұрын

@@stephanchaggaris9437 Having lived at Wollaston Beach, you must know the "Clam Box" on Quincy Shore Drive. I dined there in 2008 while visiting a good friend from my old neighborhood in Braintree. It's worth a trip back just for those clams! I was more or less a child of the Southeast Expressway, moving from Boston to Braintree in 1954, the year construction began. I've always carried a memory of seeing land that had recently been cleared for the beginning of construction of the Expressway in Braintree.

@stephanchaggaris9437

3 жыл бұрын

@@bobe.3719 yes indeed! And there's another famous Clam Box up here on the North Shore! 1954.... man.... you likely recall around that time, the leveling of so many homes in Boston's West End...urban renewal....Government Center....

@bobe.3719

3 жыл бұрын

@@stephanchaggaris9437 Well, most of my memories of 1954 are visual as I was only 4 years old then, haha. But in the ensuing years, I became familiar with Boston's history of "urban renewal". I think that would be a tough sell today.

I drove this route from 2003 to 2020 and it was interesting to see the old route and to recall the issues with the Big Dig as it affected and changed the traveling I was doing. Definitely nostalgic.

@stephanchaggaris9437

9 ай бұрын

I'm surprised that I had the wherewithal to record this back then, wearing a Sharp video recorder (on those little tapes)... I remember that device proudly advertised "HiFi Monaural" for audio quailty ;)

@markpmar0356

9 ай бұрын

@@stephanchaggaris9437I was thinking sort of the same thing, that this video resembles a modern camera phone video. One thing is for sure, I will never forget the commuting I did from RI to MA and back again and it only got worse as time went by, Big Dig notwithstanding. That's the sad part to me.

Amazing footage. I can't remember how it was...

Thanks for sharing this video. Fun fact: the official name of the “Big Dig” was Central Artery Tunnel Project.

I was 4 days old during the recording of this video

We've been on this road when we took the Causeway Street exit to the Celtics game. Nine years later, we took the new Ted Williams Tunnel in April to take a flight from here to Central Florida for at least a week with my two kids who were born in the same decade as this video.

Thanks for sharing - having WBUR on is a nice touch for us Bostonians it's amazing how much else has changed along the route over these 20 years.

@donaldkennedy4235

2 ай бұрын

I’m guessing he or she was the only one listening to that station. BUR is a joke. 😂

The dark winter lingered long that year, set to the miserable news backdrop that ultimately culminated in the events of March/April 2003. Comfort was hard to come by in the dorms. The cold wind would whale in through the windows whenever you had them open to smoke.

Great vid, thanks for sharing. What did you film it with?

@stephanchaggaris9437

8 ай бұрын

this was done on a small Sharp Camcorder "Viewcam" model VL-E760U - the kind that took those cassette-type videotape things.... "HiFi Monaural" was written on the unit, which always made me chuckle.

How life has changed

It was probably not long after this video the northbound side switched over to the new side?

@gqptyu

3 жыл бұрын

Yes. Just two days. The northbound tunnel opened on 29th. They started demolishing the northbound lanes of the elevated viaduct a month later.

south bay shopping center at 6:30

Ah, the old Southeast Depressway, how many hours stuck in traffic.

This is when central artery was still up and elevated I don't think it had underground highway traffic yet and went over the zakim bridge til probably late 2003 or sometime in 2004 but it was less congested but the mbta was still running very good at this time probably until early or mid 2010s when infrastructure started falling apart but big dig billions of dollars project prevented the mbta subway infrastructure from being fixed cause it woulda of cost more billions to fix and state leaders didn't wanna ask for that money again to fix to the t this time.

what happened to exit 17?

@stephanchaggaris9437

2 жыл бұрын

At this point I don't even remember what exit 17 was...

@griffin324

2 жыл бұрын

@@stephanchaggaris9437 i think at one point it was Frontage Road but I don't know when it was removed.

I imagine anyone commenting on this video with nostalgia has a horrible accent

@stephanchaggaris9437

2 жыл бұрын

Ah classic way tah tawk, khed

@copyright-ur1sf

2 жыл бұрын

You cin see the ahch'a Rowes Wawwf from tha uppah deck