I have a lucky perspective on changes in Boston. I went to college here in the late 1980s and then came back 15 years later. So much has changed--even more dramatically in the past couple of years.

The Boston of my youth was what you saw on Cheers or Spenser for Hire. As a college student, everything was defined in terms of proximity to a T stop. I didn't realize how close some things were to one another--for example, I knew that Faneuil Hall was a short walk from Government Center, but Aquarium was another T stop. South Station was irrelevant unless you needed to catch a train out of the city.

The Big Dig changed all that with the creation of the Rose Kennedy Greenway. When I emerge from South Station today, instead of seeing an ugly expanse of green steel and raised highway, I see this:

I explored Boston on foot 20 years ago and vividly recall the imposing barrier that was the raised highway. From the Faneuil Hall marketplace, it was possible to duck under the highway and make your way through a dark area that was perpetually dripping something from the roadway above, eventually emerging in the vicinity of the New England Aquarium. But most people just took the T to the Aquarium stop and walked from there. Similarly, an exploration of Haymarket Square involved taking the red line to Downtown Crossing where a long underground tunnel connected to the Orange line and you would emerge in a vacant gray plaza a couple of blocks away from Haymarket. From there, one could crawl under the multiple layers of highway, again, dodging the ever-present dripping, to get to the North End.

Each destination was isolated. It never occurred to me that they could be connected. There was history and charm in these places, but they were very discrete points of interest, not really part of a connected whole. I never did manage to walk the Freedom Trail and I never got a sense of how the harbor area connected with the rest of the city.

I recently took a walk down the the new greenway and was amazed at what has been transformed.

Only a few years ago, I recall dropping my wife off for her job at 1 International Place...things were still a concrete and steel mess. Today, all that has become a park. Gazing along what used to be an impassable mass of green steel and concrete once can see an arc of green and from one vantage point, glimpse South Station and the spire of the Old North Church at the same time. It is possible to walk between all these parts of the city--and also to see the harbor. I remember how as a college student I was hardly even aware there was a Boston Harbor--it was hidden behind the highway. Today the city is connected and once can see the bay, the airport, and beyond.

On the other side of the greenway, development proceeds at a furious pace.

Russia Wharf is preserving three old buildings while excavation continues prior to building out a 32-story skyscraper that will rise above the facades of the historic buildings and create a new Boston skyline.

The effort being expended to preserve these buildings is truly phenomenal. For the past year, I've watched as work crews meticulously hollowed out the buildings, while leaving the brick facades up on all sides.

Behind the facades, workers have excavated several levels down and installed massive steel columns to support the structure that will grow out of all of this.

Next Saturday, October 4, the Greenway will formally open with a big party. I don't know if we'll manage to get down there with the kids, but I highly recommend anyone who has not been there in the past few years to check it out. It's a cliche, but you have to see it to believe it.