The Little Dig
Cambridge gets to decide what comes next.
Gold Star Green, a coalition proposal for Gold Star Mothers Park, East Cambridge.
Here’s our recommendation, and six other ideas the community has surfaced. Tell us which you’d back. Suggest your own. Weigh in at thelittledig.org so the City can see what kind of support actually exists for each path.
See the seven futures Cambridge could choose →
A few of the framings we’ve been using. None of these is the only answer — they’re the lenses we find useful while we listen to what Cambridge wants.
Cambridge already published the soil data. We're the ones turning it into a design brief.
The contamination report is public. The missing piece is a design that treats remediation as the foundation of the park.
Featured callout
typology
Highway caps. Rail-yard parks. Remediation roofs. The playbook exists. It just hasn't been named.
Park-roof is a typology. Gold Star Green is a proposal to apply it to civic remediation.
Precedents
The High Line
New York, NY · 2009
New York converted a 1.45-mile decommissioned elevated freight rail viaduct into a linear park.
Klyde Warren Park
Dallas, TX · 2012
Dallas built a 5.2-acre public park on a structural deck spanning the Woodall Rodgers Freeway.
Millennium Park
Chicago, IL · 2004
Chicago built a 24.5-acre public park on a structural deck over an active commuter rail yard.
Our recommendation: the Lid Park
The Little Dig is a community coalition proposing Gold Star Green as the path forward for Gold Star Mothers Park. Santa Prosper’s favored path within that proposal is a deck park over the remediated site — the option we’d back, and the one we think fits the site best. It is not the only option on this site. Six other community-surfaced futures live alongside it at /options, and you can suggest your own. Back the one you support.
Join the coalition
Whichever path Cambridge chooses, the coalition exists so every seat at the table is filled by someone whose mandate fits the work. Tell us which option you’d back and how you’d show up for it.