New trees are lined up by South Station awaiting planting along the restored Surface Artery. (Globe Staff Photo by David L. Ryan)

Surface Artery makeover to take root with tree planting

By Raphael Lewis, Globe Staff, 6/15/2002

Call it living proof that the Big Dig will actually end -- someday.

Twelve years after construction workers first began tearing up downtown Boston, a shipment of linden and honey locust trees arrived on Kneeland Street this week, the first trees to be planted on the restored Surface Artery.

These particular trees will take root on the newly reconfigured portion of Atlantic Avenue near South Station, but eventually, thousands of magnolias, cherry trees, pines, and crabapple trees will dot the 30 acres of parkland and open space that will replace the elevated Central Artery.

Negotiations are ongoing about who exactly will design, own, and control the restored Surface Artery, but someday, when these leafy specimens have plenty more rings in their trunks, the controversy will seem like ancient, irrelevant history.

City and state officials will mark the first planting of the trees at a ceremony to be scheduled for next week.