Spectacle Island is very different from George’s Island, which we’d visited the previous week. There is no old fort or any historic ruins. All of the history has been covered up. That’s because for much of the 20th century the island served as a dump for the City of Boston. The dump closed in the late 1950s but the island remained a smelly mess for forty years. In the 1990s, the state began a massive tunneling project in downtown Boston. They decided to use the dirt and other fill from the project to cap the dump on the island. Today, the island is a beautiful park. There are large hills on either end and a visitors center with a small snack bar in the center. The hills offer amazing views of the harbor. There is a beach in which you can swim or look for pieces of sea glass. It was a wonderful place to pass a late summer day.