Nigel, A few notes on The Horror.

[Iason Ouabache]

Hell, you don't have to dig too far to find the dark side of Indy's history. Guess who ran this town in the 1920's. That's right, the old white guys in hoods. They controlled the entire Republican Party here until the Grand Dragon got locked up for beating the shit out of a school teacher. The official story is that the Klan disbanded in 1944 but I'm willing to bet that if you searched deep in the woods around Martinsville you'll still find them around their bonfires.

[Juana]

I can take you on a half hour drive to find the Klan. I can even give you names, if you give me another half hour and a phone.

[Doktor Howl]

Got me interested as well.

Every city, every small town, hamlet, and thorpe has it's dirty little secrets, it's horrors painted over and largely forgotten.  No matter how small the town you live in is, there's something awful in its past, and more than likely in its present.

You just have to find it.

Since you are not from Boston Doc I figured I'd make sure you knew about the Molasses Flood.

Oh, yeah, I've heard of that.

But it's not as bad as what went on in Scolley Square, apparently.

[Doktor Howl]

Holy shit! I love this.

The restaurant without a dumpster kind of gave me chills... 

Was totally not kidding about that building, by the way.

[East Coast Hustle]

I know what comes out of that building (ostensibly, anyway) and I'm not sure if that deflates the horror or multiplies it tenfold.

after all, you can hide all kinds of things by turning them into soup stock.

[Payne]

I'd write about Edinburgh, but almost everything in its past is fucked up horrible shit.

Something-cides of every type, including Genocide, Regicide, Fratricide (and Matricide and Patricide) and of course good old mass murder. Witch burning, Body Snatching, Extreme Body Snatching (not even waiting for the corpse to be a corpse before you decided it'd be better on an anatomists table).

Religion, from the earthy beliefs of the "indigenous" people who practiced forms of Celtic paganism to Norse beliefs to the birth of the Christian movement through to Catholicisation to Protestantism to all kinds of "Reformations" and "Enlightenments".

Politics that claimed to be helping The People or The Nation that decidedly did not. Politics that were blatantly and harshly to oppress The People and The Nation. The English, The French, The Highlanders, The Lowlanders and The Irish

The Catacombs, The New Town, The Wynds and Closes of Old Edinburgh. The Castle, The Palace and The Parliament.

Edinburgh is built on an extinct volcano, the darkness and death has never ever stopped.

[Triple Zero]

I'm fairly sure I can find dirt on my city as well. All sorts of things, but recently a small square right in the center, just next to the Grote Markt (main square) got the attention of me and the gf.

It's this place, it's really pretty, has a 300-year old building in the middle of it, called the "Gold Office", some kind of money exchange thing I guess, but it's a restaurant now. The square is called "waagplein", a rather common name for squares in Dutch cities, it has something to do with weighing stuff.

But anyway, the weird thing is, nobody notices this square. The old building is extraordinarily pretty, and occasionally you see a tourist guide stopping there with a group (next time I will listen what they tell about it), but most people just use the square to get from the big shopping street to Main Square. My gf said, what is this weird place anyway, it has an eery atmosphere, feels like something really bad has happened here once.

Personally, I think it's more like that part in Feng-Shui with the energy flows. Just as an analogy, mind you. But there's this thing, you want this energy, which moves  a little like wind, to curl and swirl gracefully through a space, and not just so that it enters on one side and immediately leaves on the other. That'll give the space a feeling of "just passing through" and it'll never be homely. Makes sense no?

The other thing is that the City Hall has its back to this square [the entrance is at Main Square, obviously], giving a large side of the square nothing but a dead wall with some uninviting dark barred windows.

I dunno, there is something about that square. Has to be. It's old enough. I don't have time to research it right now, but I'll find out, shouldn't be too hard.

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

Southampton is a very old city.

There is Iron age and Roman evidence of occupation. In the time of Anglo Saxons, it was known as Hamwic (well, the small portion now known as St Mary's.) where people who were going to be sold into slavery in Rouen were shipped from. The Vikings and the marauding soon put a stop to that.

Time rolled on, the Norman's arrived, and Southampton grew fat and wealthy as its ships went to and from Normandy, on wine and the wool trade, and the city's defenses were brought up to

The Black Death reached England in 1348 via the merchant vessels that regularly visited Southampton at that time. Yep. That was us.

Theres an 11th Century pub in the high street, where the Southampton Plot was planned to occur, to kill off Henry V, on the way to the Battle of Agincourt. Shakespeare refernced it heavily in the play of the same name. The plotters were either beheaded or hung drawn and quartered.  Some bloody shit went down in southampton, and I havent even began to get started on the Modern Age.

In the Tudor period it was a cvonvenient port for the Bucaneers that raided Spanish ships in the Channel and the Atlantic, the bloody liscenced pirates all unloaded their plunder here. The Mayflower sailed from here, and we all know how that turned out for the Native Americans.

In the Victorian era, there were Cholera outbreaks in the Old Town Slums, then they built sewers, and cleared the slums.

of course, the Titanic sailed from here, and, frankly that went badly. Most of the crew were from here, and 549 locals died in the sinking. Family lore has it that my great-grandmother was booked to sail on the fated ship.

The old vaults in the city used for storing wine and goods were utilised as air raid shelters, and I know of 2 little horror stories from the Blitz. Near the oldest surviving Norman Church in Southampton, St. Michaels, is a vault which steps down from street level on Below Bar street. During the blitz, the shelter flooded, drowning sleeping old men, women and children in the shelter when the water pipes were hit by German bombs, in about 1940. There was an art installation a couple of years ago, eerily repeating the government propaganda of "Keep Calm, and Carry On."

Family lore tells of a more horrific story. Debenhams, a department store on the Kingsway, had an air raid shelter underneath there. It was badly hit by the blitz, and there are bodies still there, underneath the store, encased in concrete. Even the Art gallery had been hit, formerly the Art College, and even in one of my favourite places in the city, students died taking shelter there.

My Grandfather was in the Home gard and a civil servant with the MoD in the Naval Stores on Weston Grove Road. They kept chemical weapons such as mustard gas there. There is now a housing estate built on that site and as it is covered under the Official Secrets act no one knows how toxic the land the houses are on actually is.

This is only the stuff i can find on the surface histories and local lore. I wonder what would happen if I dug deeper.

[Adios]

http://search.mywebsearch.com/mywebsearch/redirect.jhtml?qid=a9e9f514fc5761a819cc56a76b6270c7&searchfor=secrets+of+Manhattan%2C+Ks&action=pick&pn=47&si=&n=77ceaaab&ptb=JPvzTPlCTdR0F3GB4kYJ_Q&ptnrS=zkxdm0111ous&ss=sub&st=hp&cb=ZK&pg=GGweb&ord=0&tpr=&redirect=mPWsrdz9heamc8iHEhldEQYcyb%2Frr1jNiKRvfeELxn3JQnNArgrsxNGeR8ILm7PhLMbt6yRlQi48JknB394uJ%2FYqKop14BwQNhAu93Lpi0nF%2BUyXC95RuzziFATjtUVC&ct=

Coming soon to Manhattan, Ks.

[Richter]

Look around any area with major industry infrastructure.  Likely, it had a few nukes trained on it during the Cold War.  Likely there's a "Water Tower" or somesuch surrounded by way more fence, barbed wire, and people than are really needed.  Retaliatory surprises were hidden all over the country...

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Got me interested as well.

Every city, every small town, hamlet, and thorpe has it's dirty little secrets, it's horrors painted over and largely forgotten.  No matter how small the town you live in is, there's something awful in its past, and more than likely in its present.

You just have to find it.

Since you are not from Boston Doc I figured I'd make sure you knew about the Molasses Flood.

Oh, yeah, I've heard of that.

But it's not as bad as what went on in Scolley Square, apparently.

Molasses Flood was one event, vs. Scollay Square continuing to be an interesting place over a period of several years.  I'll actually have to ask my step-father about some stuff. He's got a wicked sense of humor and likes this sort of thing. Plus he has the benefit of being about 20 years older than me and might remember Boston at an interesting time in its history. He might have some interesting dirt about Charlestown specifically, since that's where he grew up (fairly close to where the Battle of Bunker (Breed's) Hill took place).

[Eater of Clowns]

Having walked a good piece of the North End, I almost would expect it was still there.  Most places around it still retain a hint of the old feel, the buildings darken and age a bit as you walk off that side of the Commons.  There's the old stone church, which would be perfectly at home in Providence.  It seems to loom a bit, an sunlight never seems to reach the few ancient graves out front.  All the markers are new England slate,slowly beign worn this and illegible by the dour rain that washes over them season by season.  Government center sits upon it all like a cap.  A steel plate set grandly upon the scarred scalp, a proud scab shot into the earth with support and mass transit tunnels.  It's all set on the original island, if I'm not mistaken.  No fill underneath it except what sins they buried to set up the place.  There's bedrock there, and anything there above that wasn't fit to wipe away.  (Certainly, it was no clean wipe.  Some things are never done to completion, especially where big fat contracts are involved.)

Boston is an old city, a prejudiced city, but for all that also a good city.  The parks, the arcades, the streets and the venues, it feels overwhelmingly well executed and safe.  There's an expectation hanging over it, like the expectation to concept drawings of a new public park.  It all looks like the rare shot of Earth in "Star Trek", clean, safe, and utopian.  I sit and relax on its surface sometiems and reflect, this may be one of civilzation's high water marks.  Will it last?  Will it decrease and fade out?  No trace left on the surface of the people pushed out, of the burning and rebuilding.  Like many others, this is a city on a hill, but it is no kingdom of conscience.  It will crop up eventually, only after it's old enough to call "archeology", and then they'll see what my father's father's father did to theirs.

Then we'll have casinos.

If we're thinking of the same place, The Athanaeum overlooks it and also houses a book bound in human skin.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Having walked a good piece of the North End, I almost would expect it was still there.  Most places around it still retain a hint of the old feel, the buildings darken and age a bit as you walk off that side of the Commons.  There's the old stone church, which would be perfectly at home in Providence.  It seems to loom a bit, an sunlight never seems to reach the few ancient graves out front.  All the markers are new England slate,slowly beign worn this and illegible by the dour rain that washes over them season by season.  Government center sits upon it all like a cap.  A steel plate set grandly upon the scarred scalp, a proud scab shot into the earth with support and mass transit tunnels.  It's all set on the original island, if I'm not mistaken.  No fill underneath it except what sins they buried to set up the place.  There's bedrock there, and anything there above that wasn't fit to wipe away.  (Certainly, it was no clean wipe.  Some things are never done to completion, especially where big fat contracts are involved.)

Boston is an old city, a prejudiced city, but for all that also a good city.  The parks, the arcades, the streets and the venues, it feels overwhelmingly well executed and safe.  There's an expectation hanging over it, like the expectation to concept drawings of a new public park.  It all looks like the rare shot of Earth in "Star Trek", clean, safe, and utopian.  I sit and relax on its surface sometiems and reflect, this may be one of civilzation's high water marks.  Will it last?  Will it decrease and fade out?  No trace left on the surface of the people pushed out, of the burning and rebuilding.  Like many others, this is a city on a hill, but it is no kingdom of conscience.  It will crop up eventually, only after it's old enough to call "archeology", and then they'll see what my father's father's father did to theirs.

Then we'll have casinos.

If we're thinking of the same place, The Athanaeum overlooks it and also houses a book bound in human skin.

Oh, please don't be pulling my chain...

What stop on the T?

[Eater of Clowns]

Having walked a good piece of the North End, I almost would expect it was still there.  Most places around it still retain a hint of the old feel, the buildings darken and age a bit as you walk off that side of the Commons.  There's the old stone church, which would be perfectly at home in Providence.  It seems to loom a bit, an sunlight never seems to reach the few ancient graves out front.  All the markers are new England slate,slowly beign worn this and illegible by the dour rain that washes over them season by season.  Government center sits upon it all like a cap.  A steel plate set grandly upon the scarred scalp, a proud scab shot into the earth with support and mass transit tunnels.  It's all set on the original island, if I'm not mistaken.  No fill underneath it except what sins they buried to set up the place.  There's bedrock there, and anything there above that wasn't fit to wipe away.  (Certainly, it was no clean wipe.  Some things are never done to completion, especially where big fat contracts are involved.)

Boston is an old city, a prejudiced city, but for all that also a good city.  The parks, the arcades, the streets and the venues, it feels overwhelmingly well executed and safe.  There's an expectation hanging over it, like the expectation to concept drawings of a new public park.  It all looks like the rare shot of Earth in "Star Trek", clean, safe, and utopian.  I sit and relax on its surface sometiems and reflect, this may be one of civilzation's high water marks.  Will it last?  Will it decrease and fade out?  No trace left on the surface of the people pushed out, of the burning and rebuilding.  Like many others, this is a city on a hill, but it is no kingdom of conscience.  It will crop up eventually, only after it's old enough to call "archeology", and then they'll see what my father's father's father did to theirs.

Then we'll have casinos.

If we're thinking of the same place, The Athanaeum overlooks it and also houses a book bound in human skin.

Oh, please don't be pulling my chain...

What stop on the T?

Unfortunately it isn't always on display, it's a rotating exibit.  I guess it's the journal of some infamous highwayman who bound it in his own skin.  When we went they weren't showing it, but it's free admission and has some nice exibits inside.  My girlfriend still likes to make fun of me for a bad joke I made in front of the guy at the security desk.

"How was your visit?"

"It was nice; we were really looking for the journal of the infamous highwayman, though."

"Ah, the skin book.  We've all had it up to here with the skin book."

"So I guess you could say it's really getting under your skin?"

"That was terrible, you should be ashamed of yourself."

He actually told me I should be ashamed of myself.  So yeah, I recommend the place.