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Just some couches floating in Boston Harbor
By adamg on Sun, 08/30/2015 - 11:00pm
Saul Blumenthal reports spotting these couches floating off Peddocks Island today, wonders if anybody knows why, given that there probably aren't too many college students moving in there.
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Comments
Buoyancy - You Don't Need To Be A College Student To Know That!
Adorable!
Adorable!
Bedbug Navy
Bedbugs are taking to the seas to ensure that Allston Xmas goes over without a hitch.
NAUT ART
NAUT ART
Clever Swirly!
Well played.
The sofas look like a pretty chill spot to do a lil fishing and beer drinking.
quincy college?
I know he lived on a boat.
years old and still going strong
The remaining Portuguese community living on Middle Head is located directly above. Methinks it's probably a good fishing and chillaxing spot since they are prohibited from building or altering any structures on Peddocks (once the home owners die, their property on Peddocks goes to the NPS via eminent domain when the Harbor Islands became a national park.
their property on Peddocks
You probably know this, but I want to clarify before somebody freaks out about the big gumint nanny state. The folks on Peddocks Island never owned the real estate, they just own the cottages.
Where did they get a lot of
Where did they get a lot of the materials that they used to build the cottages?
Well, it's an island, so
Well, it's an island, so everything comes by boat. Originally, some of the cottages were floated over from Long Island. I'd like to have seen that.
What can you tell us about
What can you tell us about the cottages before they existed on Peddocks and the property ownership situation when the community was located on Long Island?
I can't tell if you're
I can't tell if you're serious or trolling, so will reply as if you're serious.
Until Fort Andrews was built on the East Head, Peddocks Island was held by a single large landowner. When the city bought out property owners on Long Island in the 1880s, a community of Portuguese fishermen and their families were displaced. Many of them chose to relocate to Peddocks, floating their entire homes across the cove. Depending on who you ask, they were either tenants of or squatters on the private estate there.
Eventually, the feds decommissioned and sold Fort Andrews, which went briefly into private hands and then to the MDC, and the MDC eventually bought up the rest of the island in the 70s. A legal and PR battle then ensued between the MDC (now DCR) who wanted to incorporate all of Peddocks into Boston Harbor Islands State (now National) Park and the residents who wanted to continue to live on beachfront property that they didn't own or pay rent for. In the 90s, a compromise was reached where the residents all transferred their leases to their youngest living relative, and the state would demolish any cottage where the lessee had died.