3. Swimming in the Charles

Illustration by Kagan McLeod

Talk about audacity: Simply cleaning up the Charles River—once our famously dirty water, now a rehabilitated ribbon of aquatic grandeur—wasn't good enough for the folks at the Charles River Conservancy. They're out to make the Chuck the country's only swimmable urban waterway. When the river played host last summer to a 68-person race, it was a mere harbinger of things to come, says Ben Martens, hired by the conservancy to be the Charles's full-time swim coordinator. He says the water's ready for swimmers, but with the beaches of old now long gone, Bostonians lack an appealing way into the drink. One solution being tossed around: floating bathhouses akin to ones popular in Switzerland. Would Bostonians go for such a thing? They did when pontoon platforms bobbed in the Charles a century ago. —G.G.