Broad Street

Broad Street curves along a path that once traced the very edge of the Atlantic Ocean. Before the nineteenth century, the high-tide line lapped against the land just feet from where the buildings now sit. Merchants like Thomas Handasyd Perkins commissioned the street in eighteen oh four to connect the busy waterfront to the town center. He filled in the harbor mud, creating solid ground to support massive granite warehouses for the booming global trade that defined the city’s early economy.