05/14/2026
My Vermont Photo Project 26.025
The Burlington Community Boathouse was constructed 100 years after the first boathouse was built by the Lake Champlain Yacht Club on the same site. The first two boathouses burned in rapid succession and a third was dismantled 1936 as it was deemed unsafe and too expensive to fix, leaving the rotting wooden piles in its wake.
From the beginning of Burlington’s history, the waterfront has played an important role as a port between Canada and New York City. First as a lumber port, and then later as a location to store oil, storing up to 84 million gallons in tanks that lined the lake’s edge in 1958. The Moran Plant, a coal fired power plant located at the waterfront also fueled the industrialization in the area, spewing soot over the Old North End for many years.
By the 1950’s, City officials and concerned citizens started speaking up, wanting more public access to the waterfront. After decades of making slow progress, the Burlington Community Boathouse was constructed in 1988 as part of the Waterfront Revitalization Project spearheaded by Citizens Waterfront Group and Bernie Sanders, who was Burlington’s mayor at the time.
Beyond the waterfront, many other Burlington public spaces were imagined. The Burlington bike path, which provides pedestrian access to beaches and public parks along its 9 mile path. The area surrounding Perkins Pier was reconfigured to provide public spaces and access to ferries, bringing in added tourist traffic. Church Street Marketplace was envisioned and became the walkable tourist destination it is today.
Check out Burlington’s Waterfront, and soon too, if you want to see the rhododendrons and flowering trees in peak bloom. It was a perfectly beautiful rainy day downtown. 🌺
