This elevated highway that cut through downtown Boston for several years no longer exists.  Replacing it with underground tunnels was a huge project:

I have documented this 'Big Dig' for years.  Here's an excerpt from a story I wrote in 2001 about one of the bridges under construction:

"Imagine the tangle of utility, sewer, and subway lines that lurk underneath one of the nation's oldest cities. Now visualize constructing eight to 10 lanes of underground highway through that mess. The subterranean roadway will dip beneath one subway line, go over another, and veer back down to connect with existing harbor tunnels before emerging onto two bridges that span the Charles River.

Seventeen million cubic yards of dirt will be dug to make room for the highway - hence the moniker 'Big Dig'.

Such a massive undertaking - touted by the project managers as 'the largest, most complex and technologically challenging highway project in American history' - with its huge cost overruns and ongoing delays, is an easy target for criticism."

Say what you want about burdening taxpayers, the The Big Dig is a photographer's visual feast.  And I love physical shoots: climbing up on concrete silos, taking in views from rooftops and clambering around on rebar.  I hiked up 22 stories of scaffolding to take this shot of the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge.

Here's the reflection of the bridge in The Charles River.

I was so grateful for the lone worker (below).  He gave scale, energy, and focus to a complex and confusing scene.

One day on a site, I dropped my notebook in about three inches of mud.  As a laborer hosed it off, a foreman gave me - the hapless desk jockey -  endless grief.  His pièce de résistance:  "You go to school to learn how to do that?"  For weeks I fruitlessly thought of some snappy comeback.  Got any ideas? E-mail 'em to me!