You said you knew the past of film

[sovay]

I knew the North Washington Street Bridge was going to be demolished, but I didn't realize it had been until we were driving over the temporary substitute. It was galvanically disorienting. As traffic was going nowhere, it seemed safe to attempt to document the experience, which naturally caused traffic to begin moving again.



I am trying to figure out how to come back here on foot. It seems inconceivable that the last time really was 2018.



I had also not seen the Government Center Garage in its current state of skeletonization. Please excuse the quality of the composition; I was leaning out the window while also giving directions. I took a much worse picture as the car made a turn.



I didn't recognize this titanic twist of glass, either, but it appears to be One Congress.

I appear to possess a genuine affection for Brutalism as an architectural style, probably influenced by early exposure to City Hall Plaza and Government Center. My father just makes Soviet jokes.

Comments

[yhlee]

:D Neat photos!

I confess to not being enamored of Brutalism because Seoul is All Brutalist All the Time. (After the city got bombed/destroyed in the active phase of the Korean War, and then rebuilt, as far as I can tell, people slapped up functional buildings because "pretty" wasn't really a priority.)

[sovay]

Neat photos!

Thank you!

I confess to not being enamored of Brutalism because Seoul is All Brutalist All the Time.

That's fair. Boston is not wall-to-wall with it.

[asakiyume]

It's very disorienting when the landscape alters by, for example, a bridge disappearing.

You took those last two photos at a great time of day. One thing about winter: most of the daylight hours are also mystical liminal times because there's so precious little mainstream daylight.

[sovay]

It's very disorienting when the landscape alters by, for example, a bridge disappearing.

I was very fond of the bridge! It was from 1900 and the swing span had been frozen for decades, but it rusted beautifully against the sky.

You took those last two photos at a great time of day. One thing about winter: most of the daylight hours are also mystical liminal times because there's so precious little mainstream daylight.

Thank you! I like winter light a lot. I need to get out in it more.

[gwynnega]

This is the first time I've heard about the Government Center outside of Jonathan Richman's song of the same name.

[sovay]

This is the first time I've heard about the Government Center outside of Jonathan Richman's song of the same name.

It's real! It has been controversial since its construction and I know many people also born within the ambit of Boston who do not feel affectionate toward it at all, but I have childhood memories of its brick and concrete cliffs and wastelands and a whole lot of glass and green space is not the same.

[moon_custafer]

If you ever make it to Toronto, we have the very Brutalist Robarts Research Library, which I’ve alway rather liked. None of the photos online really do it justice— in person, it looks like Darth Vader’s town house.

[sovay]

None of the photos online really do it justice— in person, it looks like Darth Vader’s town house.

I would love to see something like that.

[sorcyress]

Ah! The Bellringers have to walk right past One Congress on Sundays when we go from one church to the other for service ringing, so we have been watching it go up with great interest. There is one broken window that shattered very early on and has been taped up with a big x --they'd yet to have fixed it even just a few weeks ago.

~Sor

[sovay]

The Bellringers have to walk right past One Congress on Sundays when we go from one church to the other for service ringing, so we have been watching it go up with great interest.

Neat! I had not been on New Chardon Street in some time and therefore it might as well have been dropped into place ten seconds before I saw it.