A bigger hill of beans in Boston

AFTER years of dealing with the havoc of the Big Dig, Boston is starting to realize some of the fruits of the $14.6-billion highway construction project. The project has brought miles of walks throughout the city.

Before the Big Dig, “we had a city cut in half,” said Larry Meehan, vice president of media relations and tourism for the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau. “What’s happening is that you are able to walk from downtown through Chinatown to the harbor.”

About 300 acres of green space are coming in the next two years, including the 1 1/4 -mile-long Rose Kennedy Greenway, a series of parks primarily along the old elevated Central Artery. It is expected to be completed next year.

The greenway is the thread that links many of the city’s new cultural developments opening this year and next, particularly along South Boston’s waterfront.

The Westin Boston Waterfront, which was to open Saturday, is connected by a glass-enclosed walkway to the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center.

The hotel has 793 smoke-free rooms, wireless Internet access, an indoor heated pool and health club. Doubles begin at $199. Information: (617) 532-4600, www.westin.com.

In the fall, the area is expected to get its second upscale hotel when the InterContinental Boston opens across the Fort Point Channel in the Financial District. The $330-million hotel will have 424 rooms and 130 condos.

On Sept. 17, the Institute of Contemporary Art, www.icaboston.org, will re-open in a new 65,000-square-foot glass building cantilevered over HarborWalk, which, when completed next year, will be a 45-mile public walkway along the waterfront from north of downtown Boston to the border of Quincy.

Besides galleries, the new building will house a Wolfgang Puck restaurant and a theater that overlooks the harbor.

Nearby are the Children’s Museum, which is undergoing a $43-million renovation, and the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum, which is getting a $13-million redo. Both are expected to be completed in June 2007.

The Big Dig also connected the three-quarter-mile Walk to the Sea, which I.M. Pei designed 40 years ago. It begins at the Suffolk Courthouse Plaza on Beacon Hill and travels east through Faneuil Hall to Long Wharf, where a new visitors center for the Boston Harbor Islands National Park is expected to be completed in 2008.

Another new spot for walking is the 105-acre Spectacle Island, which was to open Saturday in Boston Harbor. The park, the newest of Boston Harbor Islands National Park, is on the site of a former city landfill. More than 3 million cubic yards of fill excavated from the Big Dig, a.k.a. the Central Artery/Tunnel Project, and the Boston Harbor Project were used to rehab the island. The island will have two sandy swimming beaches and five miles of graded trails.

A ferry will take visitors from Long Wharf in downtown Boston to Spectacle Island and Georges Island. The 20-minute ride is $12 for adults Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays; $10 on other days. Information: (617) 223-8666, www.bostonislands.com.

Finally, if you want to get out of the city, a new ferry service from Boston to Salem, Mass., will make the journey in 45 minutes. The 150-passenger catamaran was to start sailing Saturday.

Departures are from Boston’s Central Wharf from 7 a.m. to 11:45 p.m. until Oct. 31. One-way fares are $12 for adults, $8 children. Information: (978) 741-0220, www.salemferry.com.

For information on other attractions, see www.bostonusa.com.