So, Nigel, that building at 10th Avenue and SE Washington that has the loading docks facing the street, you know the one I'm talking about, has a plastic shed on the outside between two of the docks? Ever notice how that building never actually has trucks in front of it in the daytime? Sometimes at night, but the drivers never get out. Someone unloads them from inside the building, no people are ever outside, during the whole process.
One day soon, Nigel, the police are going to go to that building, looking for drugs. They won't find any, but what they DO find will be the scandal of the decade, and loads of people will think the people running that building are the BIG conspiracy (In fact, the people running the building DO think they're part of the BIG conspiracy)...But they're not. It's awful and it's gruesome, but it's just another little consiracy, just another smile pile of bones.
Because Portland, like Tucson and New York and San Francisco and every other major city, is built on crime, on a foundation of bones of those who were murdered to make The City happen. The principle difference is that New York and Tucson are comfortable with this, and San Francisco and Portland do everything they can to pretend it never happens/happened. Just like they pretend that the tunnels under Portland are a myth, and that nobody ever disappears into them.
But of course they do, and some people in Portland think THAT is part of the BIG conspiracy. But it isn't. It's horrifying, and when the truth comes out the police and the National Guard will spend some time down there, and they won't be bringing prisoners up...No, they'll come up alone, and they'll all have FOIA documents they'll be forced to sign...Not really required, because they'll never talk about it and if they did, nobody would believe them...Just another broken cop drunkenly raving about some fantastical shit from a bad B movie.
There'll be rumors, of course, but they'll all be about aliens and monsters and shit, and the truth will be rather more prosaic (though just as grim), more like the results of a couple of bad decisions on the part of a certain pastor some 3 generations ago. But that's not the point. This event won't even be the result of a conspiracy, but of course some people will believe that it is.
Because the future isn't about conspiracies, Nigel, so much as it's about weird beliefs resulting in bad planning and small time criminal operations gone horribly, horribly wrong. It's also about the same short-sighted thinking resulting in horrible, Godawful fuckups like the Deepwater Horizon and what's happening 40 feet below your streets. The future isn't an explosion, but rather a slow burn, where fresh events are scrawled on horror's scrolls slowly enough that most people survive, but fast enough that the weirdness and horror are buried under the latest speculation on Lady Gaga's actual gender.
The people in charge, obviously, WANT you to believe in conspiracies, so that you don't pay attention to what's actually happening...Which, of course, is a conspiracy in itself. Rabbit holes can be like that.
They have lied to us all, Nigel.
But I tell you The Truth.
That's what I do.
I am Doktor Howl.
Hey, LMNO...There used to be a place called Scollay Square in Boston. It existed from 1838-1962, and while originally it was a center of abolitionist activity, it changed and was later full of colorful people who did some very naughty things, for a very, very long time. One day in the 1960s it mysteriously burned down - the whole neighborhood - and 20,000 people were relocated. They ploughed the whole thing under and built your government center over it.
I wonder if any traces of it remain?
On the lighter side, Tucson has a Chinese restaurant/noodle factory that has no dumpster.
Never eat at a restaurant that doesn't have a dumpster. Something's not right.
Just thought I'd mention that.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 12, 2010, 07:10:34 PM
On the lighter side, Tucson has a Chinese restaurant/noodle factory that has no dumpster.
Never eat at a restaurant that doesn't have a dumpster. Something's not right.
Just thought I'd mention that.
:spittake:
Well Dok, the train that runs under government center has never quite worked right, and the walls of the underground station are always leaking something foul. I'll see if I can do some spelunking, and let you know what I find.
Quote from: LMNO on July 12, 2010, 07:17:14 PM
Well Dok, the train that runs under government center has never quite worked right, and the walls of the underground station are always leaking something foul. I'll see if I can do some spelunking, and let you know what I find.
Don't go alone. In fact, bring a Black dude, just in case.
Dok,
Knows that there are rules to this sort of thing.
I'll make him wear a red shirt (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RedShirt), too.
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.
Interestingly enough, it only took me 10 minutes to find some horrible shit about Boston...Portland took a little longer.
Now I'm interested, though, and I think I'm going to do a little digging on other cities, just to see what horrible shit lies underneath.
I'm not going to bother with London (except for that "lost" river), or New York, at least not yet, because the sheer volume of awful shit would take years to wade through.
Got me interested as well.
Quote from: Charley Brown on July 12, 2010, 07:35:13 PM
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.
Check out Worcester too. There's a whole industrial revolution canal that's covered over now, poorly disguised missile silos, and a whole bunch of urban legends about the area around the airport.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 12, 2010, 07:38:15 PM
Quote from: Charley Brown on July 12, 2010, 07:35:13 PM
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.
What type of search string are you using?
Quote from: Richter on July 12, 2010, 07:41:07 PM
Check out Worcester too. There's a whole industrial revolution canal that's covered over now, poorly disguised missile silos, and a whole bunch of urban legends about the area around the airport.
Will do.
I think I need to dig some of this shit up, because you really can't make educated guesses about the future, without knowing how weird the past was.
Quote from: Charley Brown on July 12, 2010, 07:42:40 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 12, 2010, 07:38:15 PM
Quote from: Charley Brown on July 12, 2010, 07:35:13 PM
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.
What type of search string are you using?
I'm using a variety of sources, some IRL and some internet. The fastest way to find weird shit is to search your city on wikipedia, look for odd things, or things that don't exist anymore, and then start google searching that item.
But if you really want to have fun with it, you're going to have to do a little legwork of one kind or another. For example, I know that bad things happened in Scollay Square in Boston - or at least it had a reputation for that - but I'm not precisely sure WHAT was going on. I'm going to find out, of course, because now I'm curious.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 12, 2010, 07:49:28 PM
Quote from: Charley Brown on July 12, 2010, 07:42:40 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 12, 2010, 07:38:15 PM
Quote from: Charley Brown on July 12, 2010, 07:35:13 PM
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.
What type of search string are you using?
I'm using a variety of sources, some IRL and some internet. The fastest way to find weird shit is to search your city on wikipedia, look for odd things, or things that don't exist anymore, and then start google searching that item.
But if you really want to have fun with it, you're going to have to do a little legwork of one kind or another. For example, I know that bad things happened in Scollay Square in Boston - or at least it had a reputation for that - but I'm not precisely sure WHAT was going on. I'm going to find out, of course, because now I'm curious.
Thanks, now I am going to have to dig up Manhattan, Ks.
Manhattan is near the Nemaha Ridge, a long structure that is bounded by several faults. The nearby Humboldt Fault Zone in particular poses a threat to the city even today. Kansas is not known for earthquake activity, but an earthquake could occur at any time.
Despite the fact that Kansas is not seismically active, a strong earthquake could pose significant threats to the state. If an earthquake were to occur, it would likely be along the Nemaha Ridge, which is still active.[17] The Humboldt Fault Zone lies just 12 miles (19 km) eastward of the Tuttle Creek Reservoir. If an earthquake were to occur there, it would likely destroy the dam, releasing 300,000 feet (91,440 m) of water per second and flooding the nearby area, also threatening roughly 13,000 people and 5,900 homes. A moderate earthquake "between 5.7 to 6.6 would cause sand underneath the dam to liquefy into quicksand, causing the dam to spread out and the top to drop up to three feet."[18] A large earthquake would spawn gaps, forcing water to leak and eventually cause the dam to collapse.
I live right below the dam.
See? I told you. 5 minutes is all it takes to get your daily quota of awful shit.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 12, 2010, 08:03:32 PM
See? I told you. 5 minutes is all it takes to get your daily quota of awful shit.
The state of Kansas falls within an area sometimes called Tornado Alley. The most recent tornado in Manhattan touched down at approximately 10:30 PM on June 11, 2008. Thirty-one homes and several businesses were destroyed by the EF4 tornado. Additionally, Kansas State University's campus incurred about $20 million in damage – a number of university buildings sustained significant damage and the Wind Erosion Laboratory's garage was destroyed by the tornado's winds.[11] No one was killed.[12]
OFUK
Now try to find some awful old dirt. :lulz:
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 12, 2010, 08:05:29 PM
Now try to find some awful old dirt. :lulz:
Isaac Tichenor Goodnow (January 17, 1814–March 20, 1894) was an abolitionist and co-founder of Kansas State University and Manhattan, Kansas. Goodnow was also elected to the Kansas House of Representatives and as Superintendent of Public Instruction for the state, and is known as "the father of formal education in Kansas."[1]
Dirt is hard to find dammit.
After the Territorial Legislature in Shawnee Mission began passing proslavery laws in July 1855, Free-Staters met to decide how to respond. In August 1855, Goodnow attended the first territory-wide meeting of Free-State leaders. Ultimately, the group decided to form a shadow government and drafted the Topeka Constitution
I could well imagine that Santa Barbara has some of horror, given the whole sordid history of Spanish colonialism. I wonder how many Indians really are buried under that mission...
And there is that bridge. Yes, I'll have to tell you about that bridge when I write back to your letter.
Wow, good thread.
Quote from: Telarus on July 12, 2010, 10:20:36 PM
Wow, good thread.
There's going to be more. I'm trying to find a way to format this sort of thing.
Holy shit! I love this. :mittens:
The restaurant without a dumpster kind of gave me chills... :scared:
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 12, 2010, 07:25:25 PM
Interestingly enough, it only took me 10 minutes to find some horrible shit about Boston...Portland took a little longer.
Now I'm interested, though, and I think I'm going to do a little digging on other cities, just to see what horrible shit lies underneath.
I'm not going to bother with London (except for that "lost" river), or New York, at least not yet, because the sheer volume of awful shit would take years to wade through.
This is actually the main subject of my letter to you. It deals with where I was born; a small rural town in southern Saskatchewan. Boston and New York are built on crime in the metaphorical sense, but my hometown was built on
literal crime.
You'll find out in about a week.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 12, 2010, 07:38:15 PM
Quote from: Charley Brown on July 12, 2010, 07:35:13 PM
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 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Molasses_Disaster).
This fread delivers :thumb: Goin' diggin', be back later...
There was an interesting man who taught at the local state university many years ago, where his subject was German contributions to America. He had been involved with the beginning stages of the Holocaust (specifically moving urban Jews into ghettos and then removing them all together), was hired by Hilter himself to write Nazi propoganda in English, and was Hilter's pet American prior to returning to the US.
He was later put in charge of city planning here in my hometown; what he did to this city is very much like what the Third Reich wanted to do to Berlin, and he managed to destroy the downtown area while he was at it (I always wondered who was responsible for the monstrous, towering jail near city hall and now I know). He dabbled in other aspects of city politics, giving the cops more power to enforce city hall's wishes, and we've always had a strong mayor position.
He became president of the university during the Vietnam war and brooked no opposition to his rule, firing staff and expelling students who disagreed with him and shutting down the school paper. Things got nasty after that and he had the campus police crack down on students and declared martial law.
edited for spelling
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.
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.
Quote from: PopeTom on July 13, 2010, 02:29:53 AM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 12, 2010, 07:38:15 PM
Quote from: Charley Brown on July 12, 2010, 07:35:13 PM
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 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Molasses_Disaster).
Oh, yeah, I've heard of that.
But it's not as bad as what went on in Scolley Square, apparently.
Quote from: Nigel on July 13, 2010, 01:18:19 AM
Holy shit! I love this. :mittens:
The restaurant without a dumpster kind of gave me chills... :scared:
Was totally not kidding about that building, by the way.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 13, 2010, 03:47:41 AM
Quote from: PopeTom on July 13, 2010, 02:29:53 AM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on July 12, 2010, 07:38:15 PM
Quote from: Charley Brown on July 12, 2010, 07:35:13 PM
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 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Molasses_Disaster).
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).
Quote from: Richter on July 12, 2010, 07:20:18 PM
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.
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on July 13, 2010, 10:01:38 PM
Quote from: Richter on July 12, 2010, 07:20:18 PM
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?
Quote from: Nephew Twiddleton on July 13, 2010, 10:07:12 PM
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on July 13, 2010, 10:01:38 PM
Quote from: Richter on July 12, 2010, 07:20:18 PM
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.