We stood as silhouettes to the city below
On this our first half-decent day of don't-jinx-it spring, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch and I left the house in search of pizza. What with having a family crisis in the middle of Pesach and not going shopping for the first time in weeks until last night, I was rather desperately in need of bread with things on it. We found it at Regina Pizzeria in the North End; to get there, we took the Orange Line to Community College and walked the footpath underneath the Northern Expressway that I now know is called the Millers River Littoral Way, after the lost river whose quondam soundings are etched into the concrete of the path, then under the Zakim Bridge and across the Charles River Dam and out onto the harborwalk on the other side of the rust-angles of the North Washington Street Bridge. Afterward we got one chocolate-dipped cannoli and one piece of marzipan cunningly decorated to look like a kiwi slice from Modern Pastry and enjoyed them on a bench in Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park, where there were couples sunbathing and kids playing in the fountain and we were hassled by an opinionated anti-Trump voter, which was a fascinating experience since we disagreed with nothing he said and we still wanted him to stop yelling at us. Rob had a rehearsal at MIT, so we caught the Red Line from Park Street and I worked my way home on the buses.
And I remembered for the first time in months to bring a camera, so please enjoy a lot of pictures under the cut.
Evidence of spring! A tree flowers on Marshall Street.
Graffiti on old train cars seen from the Orange Line between Sullivan Square Station and Community College.
It was lying on the sidewalk on Rutherford Avenue. I have no idea what it was.
Honest to God, a potato memorial.
With documentation and everything.
The sole remaining stretch of Millers River, the lost river of Boston.
Buried by the landfill and development of Cambridge and Charlestown, preserved during the Big Dig. Known also as the Lost Half-Mile.
Life underneath I-93.
Steel, concrete, sky.
With a cameo by the Boston Sand and Gravel Company.
Under the Zakim, or, the Imperial Star Destroyer.
Different concrete, same sky.
The sun seen through the Zakim.
The Zakim seen through itself.
We got to watch the drawbridge out of North Station being raised on one side; commuter trains still rolled across the other.
Forsythia, thin and bright and flourishing.
Bridges beyond bridges.
The Zakim is just a very photogenic bridge.
Currents at the locks of the Charles River Dam. Taken by Rob Noyes.
All that glassy water, braiding and breaking. Taken by Rob Noyes.
The North Washington Street Bridge from the Charles River Dam.
Some accidental but attractive concrete, like a sea-spell in sand.
One lock, with cormorants.
The mechanism of the locks.
Not in action today, but waiting.
I did not photograph any of the signs which explain that you have been well and duly warned if you stray off the walkways and turn yourself into hamburger.
The North Washington Street Bridge. It was completed in 1900; the swing span was closed in 1961; the elevated line was stripped out in 1975. I love it.
Come for the traffic cone, stay for the shoal of fish.
Portrait of the artist as a young tangle of kelp. Taken by Rob Noyes.
Portrait of the artist as a young tangle of kelp, now with eye contact. Taken by Rob Noyes.
Portrait of the artist who took the last two pictures, with bridges.
Under the North Washington Street Bridge.
On the other side of the North Washington Street Bridge.
After dinner. Sunlight, red brick. A photobombing parking sign.
After dessert. We were starting to lose the light. The Custom House Tower of 1915 still clears, barely, some glassy block of new construction.
The old Haymarket of my childhood was here: sides of beef hanging, fresh-cut oranges, the smell of cilantro. Carts and crates. The old six-lane elevated Central Artery, racketing and banging and green as Fenway. No more.
City Hall Plaza, Brutalist as ever.
About here is where Rob starts doing his Peter Boyle in The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) impression. Farewell, Scollay Square.
The Art Deco portal of the once-New England Telegraph and Telephone Company. Now Verizon.
I had a much less pleasant evening than I had hoped once I got home, but I am pleased with these pictures; my husband is home from his rehearsal; there are cats. I like this city. It was a good walking day.
spatch and I left the house in search of pizza. What with having a family crisis in the middle of Pesach and not going shopping for the first time in weeks until last night, I was rather desperately in need of bread with things on it. We found it at Regina Pizzeria in the North End; to get there, we took the Orange Line to Community College and walked the footpath underneath the Northern Expressway that I now know is called the Millers River Littoral Way, after the lost river whose quondam soundings are etched into the concrete of the path, then under the Zakim Bridge and across the Charles River Dam and out onto the harborwalk on the other side of the rust-angles of the North Washington Street Bridge. Afterward we got one chocolate-dipped cannoli and one piece of marzipan cunningly decorated to look like a kiwi slice from Modern Pastry and enjoyed them on a bench in Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park, where there were couples sunbathing and kids playing in the fountain and we were hassled by an opinionated anti-Trump voter, which was a fascinating experience since we disagreed with nothing he said and we still wanted him to stop yelling at us. Rob had a rehearsal at MIT, so we caught the Red Line from Park Street and I worked my way home on the buses.And I remembered for the first time in months to bring a camera, so please enjoy a lot of pictures under the cut.
Evidence of spring! A tree flowers on Marshall Street.
Graffiti on old train cars seen from the Orange Line between Sullivan Square Station and Community College.
It was lying on the sidewalk on Rutherford Avenue. I have no idea what it was.
Honest to God, a potato memorial.
With documentation and everything.
The sole remaining stretch of Millers River, the lost river of Boston.
Buried by the landfill and development of Cambridge and Charlestown, preserved during the Big Dig. Known also as the Lost Half-Mile.
Life underneath I-93.
Steel, concrete, sky.
With a cameo by the Boston Sand and Gravel Company.
Under the Zakim, or, the Imperial Star Destroyer.
Different concrete, same sky.
The sun seen through the Zakim.
The Zakim seen through itself.
We got to watch the drawbridge out of North Station being raised on one side; commuter trains still rolled across the other.
Forsythia, thin and bright and flourishing.
Bridges beyond bridges.
The Zakim is just a very photogenic bridge.
Currents at the locks of the Charles River Dam. Taken by Rob Noyes.
All that glassy water, braiding and breaking. Taken by Rob Noyes.
The North Washington Street Bridge from the Charles River Dam.
Some accidental but attractive concrete, like a sea-spell in sand.
One lock, with cormorants.
The mechanism of the locks.
Not in action today, but waiting.
I did not photograph any of the signs which explain that you have been well and duly warned if you stray off the walkways and turn yourself into hamburger.
The North Washington Street Bridge. It was completed in 1900; the swing span was closed in 1961; the elevated line was stripped out in 1975. I love it.
Come for the traffic cone, stay for the shoal of fish.
Portrait of the artist as a young tangle of kelp. Taken by Rob Noyes.
Portrait of the artist as a young tangle of kelp, now with eye contact. Taken by Rob Noyes.
Portrait of the artist who took the last two pictures, with bridges.
Under the North Washington Street Bridge.
On the other side of the North Washington Street Bridge.
After dinner. Sunlight, red brick. A photobombing parking sign.
After dessert. We were starting to lose the light. The Custom House Tower of 1915 still clears, barely, some glassy block of new construction.
The old Haymarket of my childhood was here: sides of beef hanging, fresh-cut oranges, the smell of cilantro. Carts and crates. The old six-lane elevated Central Artery, racketing and banging and green as Fenway. No more.
City Hall Plaza, Brutalist as ever.
About here is where Rob starts doing his Peter Boyle in The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) impression. Farewell, Scollay Square.
The Art Deco portal of the once-New England Telegraph and Telephone Company. Now Verizon.
I had a much less pleasant evening than I had hoped once I got home, but I am pleased with these pictures; my husband is home from his rehearsal; there are cats. I like this city. It was a good walking day.
no subject
Is it wrong of me to imagine the smell of the potato storage sheds burning down in the mid-1930s as a delicious waft of baked potato, though?
no subject
Thank you! I'm very glad you enjoyed it.
Is it wrong of me to imagine the smell of the potato storage sheds burning down in the mid-1930s as a delicious waft of baked potato, though?
Not at all: I had the same problem with the fire that destroyed the original location of James Hook & Co. in 2008. They were lobster wholesalers. Pounds and pounds of lobsters in tanks on the premises. It was a waterfront tragedy (they have since rebuilt) and all I could imagine was that the fire hoses should have been spraying melted butter.